How to Optimize Your WooCommerce Store for the Holidays

No matter how specialized or all-encompassing your e-commerce store is, chances are that the upcoming holiday season will bring new revenue sources to your doorstep. According to data, projected spending for this year’s holiday season is above $120 billion in online sales in the US only. This is a staggering number and it indicates that people do order international goods from abroad and ship them to friends, relatives, and others in their network.

This type of traffic needs to be sustained both on the server and client side of the equation. According to research predictions, this year’s holiday season will see a 32% increase in mobile e-commerce purchases. With that in mind, let’s take a look at several ways in which you can optimize your WooCommerce store for the coming holidays.

Specialized Landing Page

It’s important to note that your landing pages and related content should be ready several weeks before the holiday season begins. This is done to ensure that search engines such as Google, Yahoo and Bing have ample time to ping your pages as relevant to the upcoming holiday rush. Metadata that corresponds to the holiday in question is also a good addition in order to boost your pages’ SERP ranking as much as possible.

A specialized landing page is a perfect addition to a WooCommerce store in terms of boosting conversion rates. You can use holiday-specific visuals and written messages (in this case, Christmas) in order to invite people into your store. Keep in mind that holiday sales are easier to pull in given the time of the year. People will undoubtedly buy gifts for their loved ones – the question is where they will do so.

Repurpose Existing Content

During the 2017 holiday season, Amazon managed to pull in 37% of total e-commerce sales. While Amazon and its affiliate sellers do offer holiday merchandise, many individuals want to buy everyday items for their loved ones.

This means that you can easily repurpose existing visual content and give it a spark of holiday spirit in order to make it more inviting. In doing so, you will allow social engineering to do the rest and people will be much more prone to buy something from your WooCommerce store. Make sure to hire a designer or find thematic WordPress templates that correspond with the visual identity you are going for.

Holiday SEO & CTAs

Search Engine Optimization (SEO) is a pivotal part of WooCommerce store optimization, especially during the holiday season. Relevant keywords should be placed into existing content and new calls to action (CTA) that correspond with the message you send to your customers. This is especially true given the international nature of e-commerce and the need to cater to different language territories.

Tools such as Google AdWords, Ahrefs and SEM Rush are a great source of content optimization data based on SEO standards. In case you lack an in-house copywriter to create CTAs for your e-commerce storefront, make sure to check out PickWriters, where you can get content localization services done quickly and easily. More than ever during the year, people will use Google and its alternatives to search for gifts online. Don’t waste the opportunity to monetize on that fact and keep a close eye on SEO in preparation for the holiday season.

Offer Bundled Incentives

During the 2018 holiday season, e-commerce purchases and spending is projected to rise 16% compared to last year. This applies to revenue and the number of items shipped to individual customers. As an e-commerce storefront, your job is to ship as many products as possible at competitive prices. One of the best ways to do so is to bundle related items and products in your catalog into holiday deals and packages.

For example, gaming consoles can be sold with a game attached to them. Kitchen cutlery can come bundled with an apron and cleaning supplies, and so on. This type of packaging of individual related products incentivizes the act of purchase. It can not only help you raise your overall revenue but clear up any backlogs of items you have on hand.

Employ Social Media

Given how much emphasis we put on social media platforms such as Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter, it’s no wonder that 5% of total e-commerce sales will originate from there in 2018. Using social media pages to promote your WooCommerce store products to followers during the holiday season is a no-brainer.

It’s worth noting, however, that scheduled content publishing, discounted offers and freebies go a long way in converting viewers into customers. It can also be beneficial to directly interact with your pages’ followers to ensure that they are informed of your upcoming deals and discounts. Make sure to use social media platforms to promote the fact that your store is a part of the holiday sales rush so that as many people as possible to get notified of the matter.

Track & Analyze Performance

Lastly, ongoing WooCommerce monitoring is a must during the holiday season. You can never predict how many people and subsequent customers will hit your website once the sales begin. You need to ensure that your e-commerce site is up and operational throughout the sales period.

In that vein, it’s a good idea to use tools such as Google Analytics to perform ongoing site maintenance and performance tracking. This will also give you a good indication of which categories and products are the most popular with your followers. Implement what you have learned throughout the sale in order to make the most out of the seasonal event.

In Summation

It’s no wonder that the holiday season remains one of the most lucrative times for online retailers and e-commerce. In order to prepare on time, make sure to start the optimization period early on.

Don’t wait for only a few days before the sale starts to do anything about optimizing your SEO, product descriptions and promotional content. If done correctly, your WooCommerce store will see an increase in both traffic and conversion rates in the upcoming 2018 holiday season.