Tips to Get Your Website Ready For Holiday Shopping!

The holidays are quickly approaching, and before you know it, you’ll be unwrapping gifts under the tree and singing Christmas carols with your loved ones. While you still might have some time to do your own Christmas shopping, now is the time to get your website ready for holiday shoppers.

Here are some suggestions to be prepared for all of those online shoppers this upcoming season.

Boost Your Site’s Mobile Optimization

If you haven’t done so already, now is the time to optimize your site for mobile devices. More and more shoppers are using there smartphones and tablets to do their online shopping, and they want to have a positive and streamlined experience when doing so. Even if your website is mobile-friendly, you might want to have another look at it to see if there is anywhere to make it even better.

How do you do that? Here are some recommendations:

Clean up your site’s screen – Buyers should be able to see the screen clearly and not have to squint to make heads or tails of what’s on up there. De-clutter the homepage – desktop navigation tabs and sidebars may be preserved on smartphone displays, but these components can cram an already tiny screen. Make sure that the text you use is being enough that can be easily read without problems.

Speed up your page loads – Nobody likes to sit around and wait for a page to load. If they have to wait too long, they’ll be hitting the back button and head straight to your competitor’s site. Generally speaking, your web pages should take no more than two seconds to load. Studies have shown that conversions drop by as much as 7% for every extra second that a page takes to load. If appropriate, make sure that your webpages are fast enough for your holiday shoppers.

Tweak Your Abandoned Cart Issues

Even though shoppers may be able to find what they need easily and make it to the shopping cart, that doesn’t mean your job is done. The rate of online shopping cart abandonment is roughly 75%. With this number in mind, you’d be well-advised to make adjustments in order to lower the rate of shopping cart abandonment on your site. Most shoppers back out of the actual shopping cart phase because they run into annoying shipping surprises such as long delivery times or high costs, while others are bothered by having to create a customer account. There are a number of cart abandonment solutions; all you need to do is find the one that works for you. This can include:

• Being clear about shipping costs
• Offering delivery options
• Not requiring shoppers to create an account
• Accepting your visitors’ preferred payment methods
• Showing shoppers their entire cost before checkout

Considering the profit potential that could be coming your way this holiday season, it’s well worth it to take these steps to ensure that your website is ready for the busy holiday season!