- By next year,
e-commerce sales will approach nearly $5 trillion.
And the majority of these sales happen
during the holiday season.
And with those major shopping days quickly approaching,
we wanted to make sure you have everything you need
to attract, engage, and convert online shoppers.
- We've already covered your basic website checklist
in a previous video
if you wanna go back and watch that after this one.
But, here are a few more tips specifically
for your holiday e-commerce site,
starting with getting rid of any broken links.
If your customers land on a 404 error page,
then that means that they've hit a dead end on your website,
which is really never a good thing
if your goal is to really impress those buyers
and increase sales.
So, to get rid of dead ends,
check out Google's Search Console tool,
and they'll give you a full report.
- Also, be sure to optimize your images.
Your e-commerce website will have images throughout
and it's your job to optimize those images
to help reduce site load time,
and this goes for videos or animations as well.
And if your site loads slowly, you risk losing customers.
So, consider using an online image optimization tool
to reduce the file size of your images
while maintaining the quality.
- And then, check your website SEO.
So, people are searching for many different keyword terms
and phrases while shopping for the holidays.
Analyze your keywords from last year
and optimize for the ones that worked.
This includes the tags and descriptions of your images too.
So, each product page also provides you
with the opportunity to write product descriptions.
So utilize this space to write in longer tailed questions,
like, "What is the best gift for dad?"
or, "What is the best gift for Nealey?"
So, you can capitalize on voice search,
as well as standard search.
- So, what is the best gift for Nealey? I'm wondering.
(laughs)
Also, be sure your search box is working.
Depending on how your website is structured,
customers may browse by category
or click on your featured products on the homepage,
but a good chunk of your potential buyers
will wanna search for specific products.
So, having a search bar on your website
will help visitors to find what they're looking for faster.
I know. I personally love this.
I was looking for yoga equipment recently,
and this was a game changer as for the efficiency and speed
that I got to what I wanted to purchase.
This will also encourage them to return to your website
again and again, which is a good thing.
A positive user experience means more visits to your site.
Also, consider misspellings.
If someone misspells a product name,
which I do whenever I'm in a hurry,
does it still bring them where they need to go?
And the last thing you want
is to lose a sale because someone forgot a letter!
- I know I mistype things all the time.
But then, you're gonna wanna look
at increasing the average order value.
And if people are already spending money with you,
then you should do everything that you can
to help your customers get the most out
of their holiday budget.
Use promotions like, "Buy two, get one free,"
or, "A free $10 gift card with purchase over..."
I don't know, "$50 or $100."
To incentivize them to add more to their cart.
If they're at $90 and that to spend 10 more bucks
to get a 10 bucks back, they're probably gonna do that.
- That incentive gets me every time,
especially when I'm ordering groceries.
It's like, "Oh, spend 10 more dollars
and you get free delivery?
Yes, please!" Also love a good BOGO. (laughs)
Accept different payment types as well.
Today's consumers like to use everything from:
Apple Pay, Amazon Pay, Google Pay,
Visa checkout to regular credit card,
or PayPal payments.
So, look into what your e-commerce website can accept
and be sure to set it up now.
And if anything, this will help those last minute shoppers
on their phones from having to find their wallets
or get off the couch, in my case. (laughs)
- Exactly, and then my personal favorite
is test, test, and test again.
Be sure to check the website on different browsers,
on different phones, devices,
as over half of your customers
will be purchasing through their smartphones and tablets.
So, have friends, family, team members,
and maybe even trusted customers search for products,
find information like delivery dates
and browse through their site.
Then, ask them for their feedback
to improve your e-commerce website.
The more that you can improve the shopping experience
for your website now,
the higher chance of conversion
when the holiday traffic does hit.
- And I can't wait for that traffic to hit.
And that's a wrap,
but your journey doesn't have to end here.
We have over 250 videos for you to watch.
Be sure to like, comment, and subscribe.
Thanks for watching.
This is The Journey.