Top 10 tips on getting your website ready for Christmas

Mario Thomas, Managing Director of Chapter Eight, one of Leeds' leading digital agencies, gives his advice on getting your website ready for Christmas.

While most of us are jetting off into the sunset for our annual two weeks of cheer, retailers up and down the land are getting ready for Christmas. It's all about preparation when gearing up for the biggest sales opportunity of the year and online is no different. Start thinking now about getting your website ready for the rush.

1. Be prepared

There's no use thinking about Christmas in November. If you want to make a splash this year then it's time to get your website in order and ready for the festive season. Forward planning needs to start no later than the end of August (some of our clients were talking to us about Christmas in March!). Make sure your point of sale, advertising, PR and marketing all link back to your website and work to drive as much traffic as possible to you.

2. Have a Spring Clean

First things first, you need to get the basics right – spelling, grammar and missing images – they all count in the battle for eyeballs. If your website looks amateur, expect amateur performance at this important time of the year.

3. Make sure it works

Hot on the heels of bad spelling and missing images come websites that simply don't work. If a button says 'Buy Me' make sure it actually allows that product to be bought. There's nothing worse for visitors than getting a 'page not found' error – a sure fire way to dampen their Christmas Cheer.

4. Market It

Getting visitors to your website is your key goal, so a well structured search engine friendly website is a must. Make sure that if you decide to use Pay-Per-Click (PPC) advertising, that the keywords you select make sense and are actually related to what you sell. Make sure your 'meta-tags' are up to date and don't use any techniques which will get you banned from the search engines altogether.

5. Entice them

Everybody likes a good deal – make extensive use of discounts, coupons codes, offers and other promotions all around the website. Give your customers a reason to make a purchase. Use email marketing to send out an offer and watch the traffic beat a path to your website.

6. Convert them

With a heavily laden basket, the last thing you want is for a customer to go skipping off to a competitor's website. Make sure it's easy for them to see a way to your checkout – big clear text or obvious 'basket' buttons are the order of the day.

7. Get them on the way out

Remember standing in the checkout queue with your parents? All those nice sweets waiting to be up sold. Well, the same can be achieved in your online checkout – offer products linked to those in the basket and sell even more to your visitors.

8. Make your website sticky

After you've made the sale, customers will only come back if they've had a quick and easy time of buying your wares. Make sure you make it simple for them to review their order and don't forget to send them a receipt. Contact after an order is the primary reason people come back.

9. Keep in touch

When customers leave your online store you need to make sure you do everything to get them back. A regular newsletter and offers and promotions based on previous purchases are great ways of getting that all important repeat visit. And in the run up to your last posting date before Christmas, send another newsletter telling customers to buy that last minute item from you.

10. Results

After the dust has settled and it's all over it's time to see what actually happened, but you can only do this if prior to this Christmas you make sure your website is set up to provide you with reporting information, so that you can see exactly how the site performed. You need to know what each visitor cost you and made you, you need to know how many people visited but didn't buy, and what your most popular products were. Forearmed with information next year can be even more successful.

Happy Etailing!