Get Prepared Your Online Store For A Great Christmas 2009. A Month-by-month Cheat-sheet
We are only five months away from Christmas. From October to December it is the best shopping time of the year. People are ready to spend money and throw caution to the wind so that they can find the best holiday gifts for family and friends. A huge number of us are questioning how we can take advantage of the holidays and earn a little money for ourselves to assist us for the holidays.
ACTION NOW! It is certainly not too early to start developing your online store ready for Christmas shopping and at the same time you really don’t have much time to waste. I’ve added to a month-by month cheat-sheet to ensure you get the UTMOST sales for this Christmas.
August: There are companies merchandising ecommerce software to guide you act fast and spend your time wisely so that you can look for a way to take advantage of the holiday spending. Test out suitable ecommerce solutions if considering to certainly change solutions. Now’s the excellent time to make such changes since you won’t have much time to make sure changes going forward. If not happy with present shopping cart, you can either survey for an appropriate one or consider a few major carts such as InstanteStore, Yahoo Store, Volusion, NetSolutions, CommerceSpace, 3D Cart and Early Impact Product Cart. Just remember, fit yourself with professional ecommerce software.
September: This month is the suitable time to start aggressive on SEO work. Implement keyword research using tools like Google Keyword Tool (https://adwords.google.com/select/KeywordToolExternal) or WordTracker.com that gives free trial. Since time is not at your side, you may take aim “buying keywords” first and then “research/browsing keywords” later on. You may ask “What’s the difference”? Buying keywords are more specific for example “Ipod Nano 8GB best price” or “Apple Ipod Nano 8GB” whereas browsing keywords are more common “apple ipod nano”. Start off writing articles, press releases and syndicating content to create links to your store’s webpages making use of the keywords you’ve determined.
October: Do build up your in-house e-mail list. Keep in mind you have something alluring or value to your visitors in exchange for their name and e-mail address. You may want to put yourself in your customer’s shoe while doing this. Then make sure you give your wonderful list and good deals at least once a week. You must have them get used to obtaining and reading your e-mail deals. This will in directly get the early Christmas shoppers start purchasing now.
November: Officially, Christmas shopping spree starts off! Do A/B and/or multi variate split testing to create your results. Make sure to test out your offers, headlines, layouts and even prices to see which combination works the best. Can use Google’s free Analytics + Multi-Variate testing (http://www.google.com/analytics) to do this for free. You’ll notice small changes can sometimes bring you TREMENDOUS difference in results. Optimize all these and make sure you don’t leave any money on the table. Remember put up CLEAR notices telling your customers when’s the LATEST date to order to be sure they have it before Christmas. Certainly a good time to hit your e-mail list with Christmas exact offers.
December: Do continue hitting list with Christmas offers and continue making tweaks to create visitor-to-customer conversion. It is important that you Do NOT make any major changes. Split testing is fine. Ride the wave and make sure your supplier and fulfillment house can cope with all your orders.
With all of these information at your fingertips and with such a little time left, you will find that with your time directed in the right way and the help you need you can build a positive Internet business.
