When a small business prepares for the holidays, it needs to engage in a wide array of plans to accommodate the pending boom in business. One of the more critical elements of your business that needs attention as the holidays approach is your website. During the holidays, consumers will go to your website to check out why they should buy from you instead of one of your many competitors. That is why your website needs to be better than ever when the holidays roll around.
Have The Cash Ready To Improve Your Site
Everything in the business world costs money, and that includes maintaining and growing your website. You will have extra personnel costs for your holiday upgrades, extra services costs and you will also want to be able to invest in higher bandwidth and other upgrades to enhance your customers’ experience.
Business Credit and Capital can help get your funding together and make sure that you have the cash you need for holiday website maintenance. The financial experts at Business Credit and Capital will be able to provide your business with funding you can draw from to get the things you need done.
Speed Up Your Website
The biggest online retailers in the world invest heavily in the speed of their websites because every second that a website makes a customer wait costs those companies money. The same thing applies to your company website. When your site is slow, customers will leave your site and go check out the competition.
Prior to the holidays, it would be a good idea to investigate your website hosting options to see if you can find a host that offers faster access. Programming touches like smaller images and no audio loading in the background of your site will also speed it up.
Make Sure You Have A Good Mobile Site
More and more consumers are using their smartphones and tablets to access retail websites and make purchases. You cannot rely on your standard Internet website to be an effective mobile site that will generate revenue. You must have a mobile website specifically designed to reach that audience.
If you do not have a mobile website, then you need one in place before the holidays. If you do have a mobile website, then have it audited by a professional to make sure that it is compatible with a wide variety of mobile platforms to expand your company’s exposure.
Check Your E-Commerce Functions
During the holidays, your website only gets one chance to grab a sale from a new client. If your inventory feature is not working or if your shopping cart is difficult to use, then you will lose that business to your competition. Everything from your merchant credit card account integration to your shipping functionality needs to be checked and made as smooth as possible in anticipation of the incredible rise of business you will experience during the holidays.
The smart way to prepare your website for the holidays is to have a professional Internet marketing firm evaluate your entire Internet and mobile computing presence and start suggesting fixes. If you want to take advantage of the significant amount of business available on the Internet, then everything from your social media pages to your mobile computing app needs to be working exceptionally well.
The small businesses that invest in their online retail mechanisms before the holidays will be in a position to cash in on the extra profits that are available. But if you do not put the time and resources into updating your website for the holiday season, then you will be leaving a lot of money out there for your competition to grab.