The holiday season is getting closer, and we all know what it means – Black Friday sales will start soon! For most businesses, this is the main revenue-generating day of the year, so ensuring the website is optimized and works flawlessly during this busy period is important.
So, today, we prepared a few helpful tips and tricks on checking your website, boosting its usability, and providing people with the best customer experience. As a digital marketing company, IntlTech has dozens of successful cases in its portfolio, so we surely know all your business’s needs. Keep reading and incorporate our recommendations in your work – you’ll see the effect in no time. Without further ado, let’s start the discussion!
Prepare Your Online Business for the Holiday Shopping Season!
To create a successful Black Friday marketing strategy, it’s vital to consider all your steps in advance. So, pay attention and incorporate these into your plan to see unbelievable results your Ecommerce business couldn’t even dream of!
#1. Check the Website’s Load Speed
New customers care about the webpage load speed a lot. Most people don’t want to wait if loading takes longer than five seconds and simply leave the website without looking at its content. Plus, Google also considers load speed during ranking, so it’s crucial to boost all the characteristics to be among the first ones on the search page. You may use platforms like Google PageSpeed Insights or GTmetrix to check the load speed.The results here will show you whether it’s necessary to incorporate changes to boost your performance. Consider these steps:
- Reduce the number of images;
- Data caching should be turned on;
- Decrease the number of downloaded pages;
- Make your CSS and JavaScript codes smaller.
#2. Stress Testing – One of the Best Black Friday Marketing Strategies
Even with small hosting, online stores function differently. So even if you use the best web server for the site, conducting a stress test is still crucial. Such apps as LoadRunner can act like a virtual user generator and emulate customers’ behaviors to analyze the website’s performance. This is one of the most effective options for preventing crashes during high-peak seasons like Black Friday.
#3. Make Sure the Site Is Mobile-Friendly
In today’s reality, most people prefer using their smartphones to laptops, as it’s more comfortable, faster and can be done anywhere. Shopping in an online store is not an exception: the order can be placed in a few fast clicks, so why bother diving into busy crowds and fighting for the last item in the store?
First of all, structure all web pages so they are displayed well on smaller screens. In case your e-commerce has an app, it’s crucial to check how it works to provide people with a successful holiday shopping season. Ensure that potential customers have easy access to all your items, can add them to the cart quickly, and proceed with the order without any complications on their way. Try these tools to check whether your site is mobile-friendly: Google Mobile Friendly, Bing, Screenfly, etc.
#4. Work on SEO to Attract More Loyal Customers
Page-ranking criteria change yearly, so SEO is something you’ll work on constantly. If considered carefully during Black Friday marketing campaigns, SEO can attract more people from your target audience, increase your CTR, and increase the average order value. Learn more about the users’ behaviors, create engaging content, and enjoy the results as you close your Black Friday deals. We also recommend performing an SEO audit to see whether all pages work well and don’t show users error messages.
#5. Cyber Protection Is Essential
Unfortunately, cyber-attack risks increase rapidly during busy times like Black Friday or Cyber Monday sales. Site security includes a chain of protocols and measures aimed at securing the website and its visitors from spam, viruses, and other things that can be potentially harmful. Update your security software and certificate, create backups just in case, and keep a close eye to spot unusual activities as soon as they occur.
#6. Check Out All Your Payment Options
To provide a positive customer experience to an individual, online retailers should offer the most comfortable ordering conditions on their website, and having more than one payment option is one of them. Test all of them in advance to avoid inconveniences; mind that more than multiple users can choose one payment method simultaneously, so your duty here is to ensure it won’t crash in the middle of processing. Consider such payment options as:
- E-wallets;
- Debit/credit cards;
- Bank transfers;
- Mobile payments;
- And others.
#7. Ensure Support Works Properly Before Opening Online Sales
This is one of the key points when planning your marketing campaign for Black Friday. Professional, well-trained customer support is one of the most important things if you want to build long-term relationships with your clients. Not to mention that many people need assistance when they visit an unknown e-commerce for the first time.
Before the Black Friday sale, check whether your contact information is correct, tell about the return policy in your store, create a chatbot and add all the basic questions to it, and ensure all your managers are aware of the business’s nuances. Maybe you can even offer free shipping as a special Black Friday bonus! Give people the treatment they deserve.
Don’t Forget to Analyze Your Achievements After
If you planned your ecommerce strategy properly, the results should be phenomenal! Use analytics to compare your usual numbers to the ones you received during the sales season; we highly recommend checking out these metrics:
- Website traffic;
- Time spent on certain web pages;
- The number of incoming calls;
- Traffic source (to see how users found your site);
- Keywords and search phrases;
- Percentage of the new customers;
- General income increase.
By understanding all the numbers, planning your strategy for next year is easier, so don’t ignore this step. Your success is closer than you can even imagine!
To Sum Up the Topic
Black Friday is a special occasion many people wait for yearly, as it’s one of the most beneficial ways to purchase items from the wishlist at advantageous prices. As a bonus, it’s an excellent way to buy all Christmas presents without spending all the money. So, businesses must be ready for this busy season and optimize their website for a positive customer experience. Hopefully, our little tips and tricks will help you to attract more clients and increase your customer engagement. Stay tuned for more exciting articles on our blog, as we know exactly what your website needs for a successful future!
