How To Optimize Your Ecommerce Site For Holiday Traffic 

The holiday season is around the corner and your campaigns are set up to successfully drive traffic to your website. 

So, what’s next on your to-do list?

It’s time to optimize your user experience to turn more of those holiday website visitors into buyers. 

Your potential ROI on Black Friday and Cyber Monday

Your website’s traffic is going to spike around the holidays. 

The best way to capitalize on all of this traffic is to invest in conversion rate optimization. 

But, being so close to the holiday season, this CRO is less about testing and more about maximizing the opportunity with a series of small website optimizations that will lead to big results. 

Take this example. Here you can see what just a 0.25% improvement can mean during a high-traffic period like the holidays. 

If you want to calculate your potential ROI from conversion rate optimization, check out The Good's ROI calculator. 

Win The Holidays With These Key Website Optimizations

For the quickest impact before Black Friday & Cyber Monday, focus on the purchase funnel and your offer. Let’s explore some "obvious wins" or "low-hanging fruit" that anyone can benefit from.

1. Improve The Homepage Experience

Your homepage is probably the most visited page on your site. That means it’s probably the area where you stand to gain the most by making small, but significant improvements.

As a starting point, perform a 5-second test on your site. 

Ask a customer or friend (who doesn’t know too much about your business) to look at your homepage for 5-seconds and then answer the following questions.

• Do I know who owns the site I just landed on and does it match my expectations coming from a search result or advertisement?
• Do I understand what kinds of products/services they sell?
• Do I understand who their products/services are for and is it easy to determine if I’m in that market or not?

If they can’t answer yes to all of the questions in the first 5-seconds of visiting your website, what tweaks can you make so that they can? 

Now take a look at the navigation. Here you should focus only on commercial links. A good rule of thumb is to include only 3-5 website navigation links. Keep these simple and clear, especially through the holidays. 

You can (and probably should) offer additional links as sub-navigation items. For example, in the primary navigation, you may offer women’s apparel while your dropdown divides those into categories like dresses, pants, etc. Move on once the highest level of your navigation has less than 5 main items.

Next, review your homepage to audit calls to action. Your clicks will go up if you specify the call to action based on what your homepage hero section features. 

For example, use “Shop XX Product” instead of “Shop All.” Another option is a low-commitment CTA like “Learn More” to encourage users to continue their journey through the website. 

The final step on the homepage is to remove all unnecessary distractions. 

Is the website element that is most important to your business the first thing that visitors notice? Eliminate other distracting elements like pop-ups, live chat widgets, and scrolling carousels for the best user experience that converts.

2. Optimize Your Product Page

Now that your homepage is ready for Black Friday & Cyber Monday, let’s check your product page. 

On the product page, we’re trying to earn the business of the customer, and every decision we make on this page can make the difference between an add-to-cart or a bounce.

Copy

Ensure language is customer-focused. Does your website speak to the customers or your staff? I hope that you answer this with “the customers of course!”

To craft copy that converts, you must follow a logical flow that makes your visitors believe what they have to believe in order to buy. Here are some of the fundamental elements of high-converting product page copy:

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• A unique selling proposition (USP). Tell your prospects why your product is unique and different from the competition. It will instantly make you stand out above the rest.
• A well-defined target customer. Determine who’s the kind of person that buys from you regularly. What do they do? What do they think? Your copy won’t be as effective if it doesn’t hit their particularities.
• Addresses your customer’s objections. Assemble all the objections that your potential customers might have and answer them in your copy. FAQs are great options as well. 
• Storytelling. If your products have an interesting background, don’t hesitate to include their story in your product pages. Stories add emotional value that no other copywriting formula could achieve otherwise.
• A strong call-to-action (CTA). You can tweak your CTA button with something more impactful than “add to cart”—especially when you sell more sophisticated products.

Visuals 

Words can only say so much. And this is where visuals play a crucial role.

Since shoppers can’t touch the products when browsing your website, your only option is to display high-quality images and videos.

It can be overwhelming to optimize your visuals for conversions. So here are some of the most predominant elements of a good page design:

• A branded design that resembles your brand’s values and core identity.
• High-quality product images showcasing its most essential features and qualities.
• Engaging illustrations and animations that put your product in motion.
• Video demonstrations of how your product works and how to use it.
• A clean UI that doesn’t overwhelm the prospect and makes purchasing as easy as possible.

In short: tell with visuals what you can’t say with words. A high-quality page will mean high-quality products for your prospects.

Social proof

Take a look through the product page to confirm you’re building trust with your customers through social proof. This is crucial. 

Do you know product reviews and customer testimonials impact the purchase decision of nearly 95% of online shoppers?

Social proof on your product page gives customers a sense of security and builds their trust in your brand.

Two of the most effective elements of social proof are customer feedback and verified purchases. Whenever possible, include real names, faces, and brands to make it tangible.

Building a trustworthy relationship with your prospects is a surefire way to improve your overall customer’s lifetime value—and increase your conversions.

3. Craft a Black Friday & Cyber Monday Offer That Adds Value

Now that we’ve covered some key optimizations for your site, let’s touch on one of the more important parts of BFCM.

What is your promotion or offer to customers? 

This brings me to an age-old debate: Discounting vs Promotions. Discounting leads with price. Promotions lead with the value of your product.

The psychological difference means a big difference for your brand and revenue.

So, instead of discounting this holiday season, why not lead with value and try one of these offers? 

• Free gift with purchase
• Buy one, get one free
• Free shipping & returns

For more ideas, check out this comprehensive guide: The Top Ecommerce Sales Strategies (Including How To Increase Sales Without Discounting)

Convert more visitors into buyers this holiday season

This is what you can do NOW to make sure you have the best holiday season ever.

First, audit your key pages and make a prioritized to-do list. 

Next, review your offer. Establish a compelling incentive that will convert more visitors into buyers.

Finally, implement those changes to key web pages in anticipation of the holidays - ideally before Black Friday & Cyber Monday. 

Want an expert set of eyes to review your site? Tydo’s community is eligible for a free landing page teardown, courtesy of The Good. 

If you would like additional guidance from expert conversion optimization specialists, get in touch!