Gear Up Your Online Store For Christmas 2009. A Month-by-month Cheat-sheet
We are only five months away from most awaiting 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 lot of us are thinking about how we can take benefits of the holidays and earn a little money for ourselves to allow us for the holidays.
ACTION NOW! It is ultimately not too early to start building your online store ready for Christmas shopping and at the same time you really don’t have much time to waste. I’ve covered a month-by month cheat-sheet to be sure you get the MOST sales for this Christmas.
August: There are companies marketing ecommerce software to help you act quickly and spend your time wisely so that you can seek a way to take advantage of the holiday spending. Test out suitable ecommerce solutions if searching to probably change solutions. Now’s the perfect time to make such changes since you won’t have much time to make sure changes going forward. If not happy with existing shopping cart, you can either explore for an appropriate one or consider a few major carts such as Yahoo Store, Volusion, InstanteStore, 3D Cart, Netsolutions CommerceSpace and Early Impact Product Cart. Bare in mind, fit yourself with professional ecommerce software.
September: This month is the right time to start relatively competitive on SEO work. Do keyword research engaging tools like Google Keyword Tool (https://adwords.google.com/select/KeywordToolExternal) or WordTracker.com that offers free trial. Since time is limited, you may target “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 fundamental “apple ipod nano”. Start out writing articles, press releases and syndicating content to establish links to your store’s webpages utilizing the keywords you’ve determined.
October: Do develop your in-house e-mail list. Ensure that you provide something captivating 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 captivating list and best value promotions 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 buying now.
November: Basically, Christmas shopping spree gets going! Do A/B and/or multi variate split testing to buildup your results. Make sure to test out your headlines, offers, 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 discover small changes can sometimes bring you FAVOURABLE difference in results. Optimize all these and make sure you don’t leave any money on the table. Keep in mind to put up CLEAR notices telling your customers when’s the LATEST date to order to be sure they receive it before Christmas. Definitely a good time to get your e-mail list with Christmas several offers.
December: Do continue hitting list with Christmas offers and continue making tweaks to improve visitor-to-customer conversion. It is vital that you Do NOT make any major changes. Split testing is fine. Ride the wave and make sure your supplier and fulfillment house can manage 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 successful Internet business.
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