How to Make Sure You’re Ready for Cyber Monday
Ready to mark your calendars, store owners? Monday, November 28th will be this years “Cyber Monday,” and if 2016 is anything like last year, (CNN reported that Cyber Monday last year reached $3.3 billion) you can expect to see more sales.
If you’ve ever worked in retail or have left the house on a Black Friday, you’ve seen those massive crowds of sleep deprived shoppers hunting for a great deal. We saw last year that many folks chose to stay home with their families the day after Thanksgiving, and instead did their shopping on Cyber Monday. So, if you haven’t yet updated your online store, or crafted your marketing strategy for Cyber Monday, now is the time to do so.
Review Your Data
If you currently have an online store, you should have tracking and some reports in place. This could be Google Analytics and Google Webmaster, and/or reports located within the backend of your Shopify, Volusion, or Bigcommerce store. Review this data, take some notes, and see if you can identify the answers to these questions:
Questions
What keywords are users using to find you?
How long are users staying on the site?
What pages are they visiting the most, and what are they interested in on that page?
What does the on-site funnel look like, and how can that funnel be decreased to prevent drop off?
Where are the users that are converting coming from?
Update Your Call to Actions
A great way to encourage users to stay on your site and continue browsing is to help lead them to the pages you want them to go to. If you haven’t updated your slides, banners, and featured images on your homepage in a while, you might want to considering creating new graphics, so users can plan to come back on Cyber Monday.
Check Your Site on Different Browsers and Devices
It’s important to make sure that your site looks great across all browsers and devices. Just because you love your iPhone 6 and Chrome on desktop, doesn’t mean all of your customers use it. Avoid future problems by checking your site to see how it looks for yourself. Some changes you’ve made might look great on Chrome, but it could be broken on Firefox.
Freshen Up Your Content
Now is a good time as any to update the content on your site, especially on the homepage. It will show both search engines and your audience that you are maintaining the site, which will help your rankings and will build trust. If you are unsure what might be good to add, consider adding: an about section, feature customer testimonials, recent video, or social media feed.
Need help with updating your store’s design before Cyber Monday? Send us a message, or give us a call today for a free consultation! (805)416-2457
