The holiday shopping season is just round the corner, but before you hit that road, you must work on your SEO to boost your natural search traffic and revenue. Lisa Wehr over at practicalecommerce.com has provided a few great tips on how to boost your holiday sales for this shopping season. I am more than happy to share her views with my visitors.
According to Lisa, apart from initiating fresh keyword mining, starting pay-per-click campaigns and going in for link building, you must also try new tactics to convert browsers into buyers.
Unfortunately, a weak economy and plummeting income have brought down the number of impulsive buyers and increased the number of cautious buyers. People visit and re-visit a site before they are ready to make a purchase. They even visit other online stores, compare prices and only then are ready to take the plunge.
According to a study released by the online security provider, McAfee, out of the 163 million shopping transactions they tracked, 65% shoppers completed their purchase after waiting for a day or more.
Shopping cart abandonment is an albatross around the neck of any online retailer, but such instances can be used as opportunities by e-tailers. You can actually get the customer to come back and reclaim the shopping cart. Now the question is, how can you convert browsers into potential customers?
Offer special deals and discounts: A little more for a little less! Shoppers love to shop at a discount. If a shopper shows interest in your product, lure him/her back to your website with a discount or free shipping. You can even offer them free gifts if they purchase from your online store, say a complementary scarf when she buys a dress or a pair of socks when he buys a pair of trousers. Get inventive!!
Send an email: Give shoppers the option to sign up for emails and bring them back with exciting offers. For instance, send a welcome mail with a discount on the first purchase.
Talk about your security: You are convinced that your site is secure but do your customers share that confidence? According to McAfee, conversion rates are higher if shoppers feel that they are in a shopping haven.
So, wrap your products attractively with some interesting deals and discounts to get the most out of this shopping season, but make sure that you keep these offers going through Christmas and afterwards. You never know when the sales will pick up, and a missed opportunity is a missed sale!!