Without realizing, we are only five months away from Christmas. From October to December it is the highest shopping time of the year. People are prepared 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 advantage of the holidays and earn a little money for ourselves to help us for the holidays.
ACTION NOW! It is definitely 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 added to a month-by month cheat-sheet to be certain that you get the UTMOST sales for this Christmas.
August: There are companies merchandising
ecommerce software to guide you act quickly and spend your time wisely so that you can find a way to take advantage of the holiday spending. Test out suitable
ecommerce solutions if considering to certainly 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 current shopping cart, you can either survey for a proper one or consider a few major carts such as Yahoo Store, InstanteStore, Volusion, 3D Cart, CommerceSpace, NetSolutions and Early Impact Product Cart. Bare in mind, fit yourself with professional ecommerce software.
September: This month is the excellent time to start relatively competitive on SEO work. Implement keyword research utilizing tools like Wordtracker.com or Google Keyword Tool that offers free trial. Since time is constrained, 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 actual 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 using the keywords you've selected.
October: Do start off your in-house e-mail list. Ensure that you create 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 alluring list and excellent deals at least once a week. You must have them get used to receiving and reading your e-mail discounts. This will in directly get the early Christmas shoppers start purchasing now.
November: Basically, Christmas shopping wave 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 notice 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. Do bear in mind put up CLEAR notices telling your customers when's the LATEST date to order to be sure they have it before Christmas. Absolutely a good time to hit your e-mail list with Christmas several offers.
December: Do continue hitting list with Christmas offers and continue making tweaks to create visitor-to-customer conversion. It is essential that you Do NOT make any major changes. Split testing is alright. Ride the wave and make sure your supplier and fulfillment house can manage all your orders.
With all of these things at your fingertips and with such a little time left, you will find that with your time directed in the right way and the aid you need you can build a victorious Internet business.
Kent Wood has been in the online business for many years. He is an expert in ecommerce solutions. He likes to educate people and raise awareness on ecommerce software.
