WHOA HO HO! IS YOUR ONLINE BUSINESS READY FOR THE HOLIDAYS?

http://www.mywebsource1.com/

No one needs to tell you that the United States economy tanked in September, 2008. As I write this, banks have been bailed out, the government is questioning the future of the “Big Three” car companies, and the internet is a-buzz with tales of woe on the holiday sales season.

But is it as serious as everyone is saying?

According to Forrester Research, we will spend an estimated $200 BILLION dollars online this Holiday Season – which is up from the $175 billion spent last year at this time. So how can you get a piece of this Internet Holiday Pie? Preparation.

If you haven’t started preparing for your online holiday sales, you are already behind the eight ball. Never fear though, because the present is better than any to start selling to your online shoppers. Just know, holiday shopping starts earlier than the “Black Friday” sales after the Thanksgiving rush and you should note this for next year.

Below are some helpful tips for getting the most out of your online store.

OCTOBER

Q: When should you start preparing online for the Holiday Rush?
A: Early Autumn (Anytime in October.)

If you have the type of online store that caters to consumers, start preparing with new “Gift” categories, create a wish list application and start offering gift cards so you can collect pre-sells.

Re-evaluate your inventory and lines of distribution so that customers won’t be let down with “out of stock” notices. Additionally, make sure you post a shipping deadline on your web site so that your customers know when they need to order a gift to have it delivered on time.

Start developing Holiday landing pages that will bring shoppers right to your gift selections. This should tie in with your pay-per-click campaigns.

Review with your staff the holiday protocol. Make sure your web design, purchasing, customer service, and shipping departments are all on the same page to make all sales go smoothly.

NOVEMBER

Prepare your email list for a blast email in the early part of November. This list should be uploaded to your newsletter service provider and ready to go when you are.

Your first newsletter should hit within the week prior to Thanksgiving. The reason I suggest this date is because the week of Thanksgiving, everyone is preparing for their holiday dinner or travel and your blast newsletter may get lost in the holiday rush.

If you are using Comparison Shopping Engines, make sure you prepare all of your Holiday Sales items to be competitive.

Launch your holiday pay-per-click campaign the week of Thanksgiving. This is also the time to launch your holiday category pages that you made in October.

Follow your pay-per-click campaign closely from now until the holiday season is over. People will increase their PPC cost and you don’t want to find yourself ten pages back for the entire season.

DECEMBER

Cyber Monday is December 1. All of your preparation comes down to this day, but don’t forget other sales days. If you celebrate Christmas, don’t forget your customers may also celebrate Hanukah, Kwanza, and other days of celebration.

Send out your second holiday email blast to encourage customers to shop from you. This should be done ten days to two weeks from the first. DO NOT spam your customers.

Keep an eye on your pay-per-click. You should be able to lower your cost-per-click the week of Christmas because your shipments will not reach your customers in time.

Send out another email blast on December 26. This is Boxer Day in many countries (including Canada) and a huge shopping day in the U.S.


While you are putting this all together, prepare for NEXT year by adding these dates into your calendar. This way, when October comes around, you will be ahead of the game and be prepared for the holidays.

As the old song goes, “The Season comes but once a year…” and it is imperative for your business to be prepared if you want to succeed. Follow these tips and prove the naysayers wrong by excelling in these tough economic times.

Confessions of a Search Engine Marketing Professional

by James Fowler
www.mywebsource1.com

A year ago, on July 1st, I started my business, www.myWebSource1.com. I had been doing search engine marketing (SEM) work for some time, but I thought it was finally time to make it official and start doing this for local businesses and non-profit organizations.

My first thought process was to design web sites for people and do them in a way where they had a good start with search engine optimization. Some of the web sites I saw out there were horribly optimized and relying solely on pay-per-click marketing (PPC) –or nothing at all!

After some time of this, however, I realized that many people already had a web site built for them by a nephew or cousin and they weren’t happy with the results. Some asked for a re-design, but others wanted to know how to fix what they already had. People understood a tangible web site, but finding out the non-tangible – what we do – was difficult for them to grasp. The needed a something to show them a way to make their web site matter. And thus, my SEO report was created.

This was something I was able to grasp!
I had a service to sell!

The SEO report is a search engine optimization paper, consisting of about 40 methods and suggestions for local businesses and non-profit organizations to examine their web pages, find the broken links, the misspelled words, the non-indexed pages and other problems that show poor presentation of a web site. It isn’t necessarily the aesthetic feel of your web site that is the problem, it could just be the way it is presented to the world.

Some things I tell every one of my customers is that to succeed on the internet, you need to do certain things for the search engines to find you. These can be done by yourself, if you have the time, or by a search engine professional. Here is a list of ten things you can do:

1 Have a Site Map – not just the Extended Markup Hyperlink (xml) that Google asks for, but an HTML one, too. This is especially helpful with search engines like Yahoo!

2 Use keyword metatags – these are words that describe to search engines what is on your web page.

3 Make sure that every page has a title. Nothing is more disgusting than finding out your web page is called “HOME”.

4 Create a blog. Most people think a blog is a kid’s thing or something done by musicians. There is nothing further from the truth. A blog can build your business on the web very quickly. More on this at another time.

5 Take those keywords I told you to use in Tip #2 and use them as hyperlinks in your blogs. This entire blog post is a good example.

6 Write articles and press releases. Submit them to web sites that will distribute them for you. Make sure to include plenty of links.

7 Submit your site to search engines. Make sure that each of your web pages is indexed by at least the top three search engines. (Google, Yahoo!, and MSN).

8 Join bulletin boards and online groups associated with your business or service. Post to these. Make sure to include a link back to your web site when you write in them.

9 Ask companies that are associated with your business to include your link on their web site. They may ask for you to do the same. If they do, make sure you add their link to your site.

10 Finally, don’t quit adding new content to your web site. The search engines love this and they will scan your site more often.

I hope you find these ten points useful. If you have any questions or would like to use my services, please contact me at www.myWebSource1.com or by email info@mywebsource1.com .