The Importance of Web Development During the Holiday Season

Tis the season to be…shopping?

The holiday season is one of the busiest times of the year for businesses. According to Yahoo’s Holiday Shopping Trends, 40% of annual sales are made in the two last months of the year. People are busy making purchases for Christmas, Hannukah, New Year or any other festive celebration. And from a business standpoint, these are dates one simply cannot afford to miss.

With the surge of online sales and e-commerce, web development has gained even more prominence. Marketers and businesses wishing to make their brand more known and maximize sales during the peak shopping season of the year have to realize the return on web development. There’s nothing like a good digital web campaign to drive traffic to your site and cha-ching to your pockets.

So without further ado, let’s look at some of the reasons why web development is so important for your business during the holiday season:

• Helps your holiday SEO strategy: Part of promoting your product is getting it to show up on Google’s search engines. And for the holiday season, you want your website or products to show up first when people search for them. This is why it important to start your holiday SEO strategy with enough time for your products to be able to rank high. Remember, no matter what your SEO people tell you, ranking first in one month is hard, almost impossible if you ask.

SEO takes time. Optimizing your website’s URLs, title tags and meta descriptions to include the keywords you want shoppers to find your for is not an easy feat. Another organic way of improving your SEO is by adding social media buttons on your website. Whether Google wants to admit it or not, the amount of engagement is also a factor that seems to be related to your SEO rank, which seems to be a growing trend for SEO in 2015.

• Online stores ease the buying process: Shopping online has become much more easy with the implementation of ecommerce and online stores. People no longer have to physically visit a store to view a product, but can visualize it from their laptop or mobile phone. Having an online store simplifies the buying process. Not only is it more convenient, but allows you to view a product without having to deal with lines and crowds.

Make sure you have a good web development team that will check your online store for any glitches or issues during the holidays, such as speeding up the checkout process, and ensuring the payment process works correctly. Traffic during the holidays online can be equally as bad as offline, so make sure your website (and servers!) can handle holiday stress.

• Landing pages increase leads and sales: A great way to streamline your holiday shoppers is by creating specific landing pages with clear call-to-action buttons. Landing pages are great resources for holiday or other seasonal campaigns. Most people who are lead to your landing page do not do so by accident, but because they showed initial interest. Because of their simple nature, clear call-to-action and focused concept, they are known to convert more visitors than any other page on your website.See more: The importance of a landing page
• Helps promote your brand on social media: the buying process has significantly changed in the last couple of years. 84% of buyers use some digital tool or another before and during their shopping experience, which shows that they are shopping in a completely different manner.

Not being present during the holiday season could mean the loss of many customers for your business. Social media has become a liaison between customers and your brand, and thus has become an important part of web development. Any new update in your holiday sale can be shared to a number of people within a matter on your seconds, which not only maximizes your exposure online, but can also increase sales during this season.

Marketing yourself during the holiday season can be difficult. Competition is tough, but with the right guidance your website can be at the top of your customer’s choice. With our digital marketing and web design team in Vancouver, we will ensure your website is ready to stand out during the holiday season, and give you the right exposure to bring you recognition and most importantly, sales. Our plans start as low as $19/mo for web design and $95/mo for digital marketing.