5 Ways to Immediately Improve Your Website Before the Holiday Season

It’s no secret that the holiday season is the catalyst for online shoppers spending the most during the months of November & December. Buyers are learning that surfing the web is more seamless than standing in a line at a store.

As customers are using the internet to shop, simultaneously businesses are identifying advertising channels and strategic ways to market themselves. Consequently, to better secure leads and sales, there’s a big dependency on the user experience via a company’s website.

From utilizing content management systems such as Wordpress or Wix, an organization can have a live website in a matter of days. It may or may not include all of the needed functionality, but the “something is better than nothing” proposition, is a common go-to especially for those with minimal capital.

Even if there were funds for a web design agency to render a development service, continually understanding needed website visuals and functionality for your target market is crucial.

A website including certain features and/or aesthetics can have a large impact on a site’s ability to convert users. Below are 5 key ways to improve your website experience to generate leads and sales at a greater rate.

1. Utilize Call to Actions

A call to action’s purpose is to encourage purchasers to act immediately. The most common applications are: lightboxes i.e. pop ups, buttons coupled with new information, and forms. If you never change anything else on your website, altering call to actions alone could generate continual interest.

Lightboxes/pop ups — include sales, promotions, coupons, and freebies. Additionally, make sure to include timeframes on when sales start and/or end; having these are crucial during the holiday season.

New information with buttons — Add a banner at the top of the website with a brief description of your news, inclusive of a button that leads to the applicable area with the full content.

Forms — Update forms that are outdated and create new ones to capture contact information. Common forms are sign ups, which build a group of subscribers you can continually send information to.

2. All Inclusive Visuals are Key

It may sound cliché that your website should be aesthetically pleasing, but more importantly it should be marketable. Your logo integrated with your favorite colors may be a design preference, but if you have a theme, custom graphics, sliders, & videos, the customer experience is enhanced.

Theme — A theme is applicable to your subject matter. Business photos, relatable colors (feminine, earth tones, etc.), and graphics in tandem allow users to visually see your objective and/or what you’re selling. Just think of it as, if you had no words, could a user still connect with your purpose.

Custom Graphics — infographics, charts, and icons are opportunities to better showcase content that would normally be shown via generic text or photos. They serve as excellent compliments & unlike stock photos, can be 100% proprietary to your business.

Sliders — Information that transitions from one slide to the next in a contained area is a slider. They serve as great introductions on home pages & within 3 slides comprised of text and photos, a user can learn who you are, what you’re selling, and what makes you unique

Videos — A picture is worth 1,000 words, but a video is worth a million. Explainers, introductions, and testimonials can all be done via videos, and give users an opportunity to learn more as needed.

3. Mobile Websites Can’t be Ignored

It’s easy to plan for a website to be compatible for desktop and laptop users, because a majority of the designs are created using these devices. Although, if over half of website visitors are using a phone, this could be a problem if the design doesn’t show well on smaller screens.

If you don’t have a mobile website, many platforms such as Wordpress have pre-made templates amd framing for sale that have “responsive” functionality integrated, so websites automatically resize according to the user’s screen dimensions.

Therefore, if you need a mobile website, it’s sometimes best to hire a developer to design one or if needed upgrading your website to include responsiveness.

The way to receive optimum value from your mobile website is to conduct user surveys. It can be hard to gauge what the mobile experience is when the design details are minimalized, elements are partitioned, and in some cases individuals are required to zoom in.

Therefore, post user acceptance testing, requesting feedback bay not be a bad subsequent step.

4. Reputability Isn’t Just Vested in your Brand

Just because you have a brand, it doesn’t mean that a person trusts your website. The hesitation to submit information isn’t always on a credit card authorization page, but could also be with filling out a contact form out of fear of getting spammed later.

Content — If you’re siting statistics or external information on your website, site the source by hyperlinking keywords to the original source.

Forms — Including a privacy policy on your website is excellent, but including wording above or below a form that states user’s information will not be shared with 3rd parties provides an additional layer of transparency.

Photos — Adding actual photos of your products from all angles gives confidence to users that they’re going to get what’s advertised.

Payment Gateways — Offering the usage of popular payment gateways such as Paypal or Stripe gives users the option to utilize well renowned check out merchants if they want to.

Contact — Listing contact phone numbers, emails, and hours of operations give users the confidence that if something happens post working with you or purchasing an item, communicating with you is still feasible.

Policies & FAQs — Some individuals can get deterred when they have to take the extra step of contacting a company to learn about a guideline. Thus, having a dedicated page or link to applicable documents could easily resolve that potential issue.

5. Knowing Your Holiday Season Market

There’s no better way to prepare for Q4 of the year, than to know what your customers will demand. If post evaluating previous year’s sales isn’t good enough, there’s one approach that sometimes provides greater understanding, and it’s knowing what other suppliers are offering.

Like many of us, the first step is scouring the web for anyone that provides a similar product or service, and it’s smart to do this. Knowing your market is inclusive of customers and competitors. It’s pertinent that a strategy is implemented specifically for the website to identify what customers need and may be most receptive to.

Products — Showcasing new and on-sale products on the home page, will help to guarantee that it’s seen first. Items that can be given as gifts could be popular approach during the holiday season.

Discounts — Reductions in price incentivize purchasers to buy in a short interval of time or immediately prior to items selling out. Utilizing Black Friday & Cyber Monday are great days to offer mark downs.

Content — Even if you don’t have something to sell on your website, with billions of people shopping online and taking off for the holidays, there’s no better time to enhance your website, drive traffic to it, and get leads and sales.