Content Crooner

Listen closely to the sounds on the wind; is that the tapping of elves hammers you hear? It just may be, with Christmas on the horizon and preparations for it going on in earnest. For internet marketers, it certainly is the season to begin preparing websites for the Christmas rush.

Preparing a website for Christmas accomplishes two things for your business. First, it conveys to your customers that you’re on top of things, always keeping your website content fresh. Second, it forces you to review how your website is actually working.

Preparing a website for holiday traffic involves looking at the aesthetics, mechanics, and offerings of your site. You want to consider your website from an end-user point of view. Those end-users are your customers. The following are five tips for preparing your website for Christmas:

Consider the Look of Your Website for Christmas

First impressions count; ask any real estate agent about “curb appeal.” Your website must have this appeal at Christmas. You can decorate simply and effectively using seasonal colors, graphics and photos. You can do this without going overboard. You don’t want your site looking like a chaotic multi-colored mish-mash of no logical design. Convey the mood of the season in a classy way.

Consider color, text, graphics and photo combinations that complement the products you offer. More is not always better, though. Sometimes a few strategically placed “ornaments” of a Christmas nature add a holiday flavor to a site. This could be a high-quality winter scene photo with a few words of best wishes for the season.

Consider Search Engine Optimization

The holiday season means using holiday words on your website. As you place text on your site, promoting the season’s products, consider Christmas-type words. These words need to be in your titles, subtitles, opening paragraphs and closing paragraphs. Do this sooner rather than later; now’s the time to start building traffic for Christmas. The middle of December’s too late to begin.

In addition, consider article marketing. Write Christmas-themed articles using season appropriate keywords. Get these articles to your niche via a quality content distribution service. Through constant and ongoing distribution, teamed with article marketing automation, you gain pre-sold traffic to your site. Visitors who arrive can then peruse your festive site, and consider the quality products you have to offer.

Consider Traffic Influx

The prime shopping time of the year means more web surfers looking for products and services. You typically gain more website traffic at Christmas by design, and by chance. Is your portal able to handle this increased traffic influx?

If you’re utilizing a free web hosting service, do they have the infrastructure to handle this traffic for you? Is your provider always crashing and leaving you dangling, waiting for them to get back online? Consider the quality of your hosting provider and make sure you have enough storage space on your site.

Consider the Usability of Your Website

Is your website user-friendly and a seamless experience? You can find this out by checking out the mechanics of your site periodically. It’s especially important at Christmas to have all elements of your site working optimally.

If you sell products directly from your site, review your checkout process. Don’t make this process an onerous and tedious one. This encourages customers to abandon transactions and click somewhere else to shop.

If you promote affiliate products, but don’t handle actual transactions, make site navigation a smooth experience. This is between pages, where you have product reviews, and articles on topics related to your affiliate products. You encourage visitors linking back to the affiliate parent when your site is informative and easy to navigate.

Consider Incentives and Promotions on Your Website

What’s Christmas without Christmas presents? Give out a holiday freebie to your customers. Consider offering a small gift that you add to any purchase they make. If you have a limited budget, offer them a free newsletter or report that’s topical, interesting, and informative. It’s your way of celebrating the season with your customers and thanking them for their business. It’s also an incentive to keep them coming back for more as loyal customers.

Christmas is also the time to offer special coupons, deals, and gift cards on your site. These encourage your website visitors to become website customers. Competition for holiday business is intense online. You must play the incentive and promotion game like every other business.

Consider the above five tips to help you prepare your website for Christmas. Having a user-friendly and attractive website makes conducting Christmas transactions enjoyable for your customers. You make holiday shopping easier and your bottom line healthier when you have a website ready for business.

To your success,

Kenneth Vogt

Kenneth Vogt is CEO of Content Crooner; a quality content distribution service. He is an established internet marketing professional and respected Web expert.

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