Boost sales on Black Friday! 9 ways to get your website ready for the biggest sale of the year.
Black Friday’s just a few weeks away and it’s vital to get your website ready for visitors who are ready to spend money! Don’t stress about it – Crunchy Carrots are here with our 9 top tips to get your website fighting fit for the frenzy.
1. Get up to speed
Think of your website like a shop – nobody wants to queue for ages just to get through the door! Slow loading times are a sure-fire way to lose customers, so if your site isn’t performing well, optimise your images, ditch clunky plugins, and consider a caching plugin (we like WP Rocket). If this sounds like a lot, our Web Team are on hand to kick things up a great.
2. Mobile-friendly is key
Most Black Friday shoppers will be on their phones, frantically refreshing for deals while they’re supposed to be working (we won’t tell!). Make sure your website is mobile-friendly, and rope in family and friends to test it on different devices. And browsers. Squished text and wonky images are a big no-no!
3. Make the sale
Turn a negative into a positive by creating a sense of urgency around low stock levels. People love to grab a last-minute bargain, and a well-timed ‘only 3 left in stock!’ message might just be the push they need to head to the checkout.
?(Just make sure you actually have the stock… overpromising and under-delivering is a recipe for disaster.)
4. Show off your hottest deals
Customise your home page to make those Black Friday offers crystal clear. Banner images, countdown timers, special product categories… shout about those discounts from the rooftops to really make the most of the biggest sale day of the year.
5. Make the easy sale
Vouchers are a sure-fire way to make money on Black Friday – they’re an excellent Christmas gift, and you can sell as many as you like with no worries about stock levels. If you can offer a good deal on vouchers, you’re quids in – just remember to get that deal all over your social media and your homepage.
6. WooCommerce Warriors, Assemble!
If you’re using WooCommerce, make sure it’s up to date and ready to handle the extra traffic. Consider extensions like “WooCommerce Dynamic Pricing & Discounts” to automate your deals and save you precious time.
7. Say no to cybercrime
Black Friday is prime time for cybercriminals. Make sure your website has an SSL certificate (that little padlock in the address bar), strong passwords, and updated security plugins. Nobody wants a data breach to dampen their Black Friday spirit! All of our hosted websites are protected by free SSL certificates, malware scanning, rolling backups and more.
8. Test, Test and Test again.
Don’t wait until Black Friday to discover your checkout process is broken! Thoroughly test your website, especially forms, payment gateways, and discount codes. Get your mates to try and break it – you’ll thank us later.
9. Don’t forget the After-Party!
Black Friday is just the beginning! Have a plan for Cyber Monday and the rest of the festive season. Keep the momentum going with email marketing, social media campaigns, and maybe even an advent calendar of daily deals.