It’s that time of year again! Yep, it’s time to take a closer look at your website design and ask yourself “Am I ready for the upcoming year?”. If you have been proactive about enhancing web traffic to your site, you would have asked that question a month ago, and are hopefully working with your web designing agency on some updates to your site.
However, if you missed that boat, it’s still not too late yet. Ideally you would consider being in continual website update mode so that you are continually examining and auditing your website content so there is not one yearly overhaul, but smaller, gradual changes happening throughout the year. Here are some ideas to help you catch that new year website traffic.
Why now?
More than any time during the year, paying attention to your web site design before the New Year is important. Why?
Because most online shoppers and website visitors usually spend much more buying goods and services during the run up to Christmas and New Year, than they do during any other time of the year
With their budgetary cycle almost at the end, corporate spenders look towards the end of the year to spend any surplus amounts in their budget
It’s been nearly eleven months into your own year. Now is the time to evaluate any web designing changes you may have implemented earlier on in the year, and make appropriate adjustments to your strategy
Most importantly though, the holiday season is a great time to try something new and refreshing with your website. With website visits up during this time of year, it’s likely that even small updates to your web design will provide you greater return on your investment than at any other time of year.
Eight quick fixes to consider
Here are some quick website improvement strategies you can implement to make sure you are grabbing your fair share of new website visitor traffic.
- • Start by changing your backgrounds and web page templates to reflect the festive holiday season. Your web developers should find this an easy fix
- • Make sure you review your pricing and position your products and services competitively
- • Speak with your marketing team and work out special “Holiday Deals” to attract eyeballs and casual visitors. Feature such deals prominently on your home page and other landing pages
- • Ensure your website design includes a special “Holiday Shopping” section, so that visitors can conveniently find seasonal items and services without having to browse through the entire site
- • Use plenty of holiday-themed images and icons to make visitors feel the “festive mood” as they navigate through your site
- • Create an urgency for a call to action. A great way to do that is to include a Count-down Clock, which could prominently display the number of hours (days, weeks etc.) left before some of your hot deals expire
- • If you haven’t already done so, work with a professional web designing firm to enable your website for mobile users
- • If you have a bricks-and-mortar presence, discuss the use of Proximity Marketing strategies with your designers so you can send out alert messages to shoppers as they pass by your store
With the holiday shopping season well underway, it’s time to start strategising with your web designing agency what you can do to transform your website so that you can grab your fair share of the holiday spending pie. However, you need to resist the temptation of an overkill.
Remember, the “holiday season” means different things to different segments of your target audience. Some consider it a religious occasion, while others take it to be a secular time of year. A savvy web design agency will know exactly how to walk that subtle differentiation line.
Leaning overly to one side or the other (religious versus secular) with your web design changes can not only cost you potential holiday customers; but it could also alienate both first-time and long-term visitors to your site.
Partnerships for success
Some of these strategies are business-specific, like updating your price lists and product descriptions, which you can do yourself – because no one knows your business better that you. However, it will pay you to work with a professional web designing agency to implement others – like going mobile or Proximity Marketing.
Regardless of who you partner with, the time to act is NOW! Waiting just another week or two would mean that you could miss out on diverting a lot of the early shopping traffic towards your website.
