10 ways to prep your product website for Christmas
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The Christmas season is just around the corner - a time of festive cheer, jolly graphics and the opportunity to make a huge chunk of revenue for product-based businesses.
If you haven't thought about preparing your website for Christmas quite yet, now is the time!
Google needs some time to index your offerings (so they show up in search results) and your customers need the reassurance of great customer service to pop your items in their basket.
Here's a checklist of 10 things that you can do to Christmas-ify your website and give your customers the experience they deserve (as well as, hopefully, making your life that little bit easier during this busy season!)
1. Add opening/closing and typical shipping info
Make sure to include your daily opening and closing times (if you're a brick and mortar business) or typical posting days (if you're an e-commerce business) on your 'About' page
2. Include shipping info in product descriptions
Add shipping cut-off times/last orders in EVERY SINGLE product description and just about anywhere else you can think of - repeat, repeat, repeat!
3. Add info to your signature/set up an auto-responder
You can also add points 1 and 2 to your email signature and set up an email auto-responder with this information included (a great way to mitigate half of your 'Where is my order?' emails)
4. Make the most of your announcement bar
Add your last order dates in your announcement bar at the top of your website (this can also be duplicated as a slider at the top of your homepage with all of your important Christmas dates and info)
5. Get tagging your Christmas products
Update your product tags/categories to include Christmas and include any Christmas-themed products, excellent gift ideas or products that feature in your Christmas deals - mark these as featured to make them stand out if you can
6. Highlight your Christmas offers
Do you have any Christmas offers or sales going? Make sure that these are explained and highlighted clearly. And that the sale price is on!
7. Build a dedicated Christmas info page
Create a Christmas shipping page to explain and compile all key shipping, and returns details, including:
Any expected delay in delivery times (you'll be busy!)
Last orders for each region you ship to (UK, EU, International)
Whether you accept returns, any rules, and any timings for returns and refunds.
8. Clearly mark your Christmas FAQs page
Create a dedicated Christmas FAQs page and duplicate that information on your normal FAQs page, contact page and even at the bottom of every page
9. Include detailed info on personalisation options
Are you offering gift wrapping, a writing service or any other personalisation options with your Christmas products? Add this information to every product listing, making sure to set up a text or tick box to capture the necessary information at checkout
10. Get reminder emails scheduled according to region
Schedule various reminder emails to be automatically sent to your list in the run-up to your last order date. If you're able to segment your list according to region, you can do this for each section (if your last order dates vary by region). Don't be shy about reminding, reminding and reminding again!
Bonus
Upgrade all Christmas shipping to tracked
If you're an e-commerce business, it's worth considering upgrading all Christmas order postage to tracked/recorded for your and your customer's peace of mind (the decision on whether to absorb this cost or pass it onto your customers is yours).
Be as clear and concise with your Christmas information as you can. The key, for both your sake and your customers, is repetition. Remember that your customers don't know your website, shipping schedule or policies inside out like you do! They need it spelled out again and again!
Time to get updating! 😊
