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Preparing Your Online Store For Up Coming Christmas 2009. A Month-by-month Cheat-sheet

We are only five months away from most awaiting Christmas. From October to December it is the best shopping time of the year. People are ready to spend money and throw caution to the wind so that they can find the best holiday gifts for family and friends. A lot of us are thinking about how we can take advantages of the holidays and earn a little money for ourselves to assist us for the holidays.

ACTION NOW! It is ultimately not too early to start obtaining your online store ready for Christmas shopping and at the same time you really don’t have much time to waste. I’ve covered a month-by month cheat-sheet to be sure you get the MAXIMUM sales for this Christmas.

August: There are companies merchandising ecommerce software to guide you act fast and spend your time wisely so that you can get a way to take advantage of the holiday spending. Test out suitable ecommerce solutions if looking to possibly change solutions. Now’s the ideal time to make such changes since you won’t have much time to make sure changes going forward. If not happy with existing shopping cart, you can either explore for a suitable one or consider a few major carts such as Yahoo Store, Volusion, InstanteStore, 3D Cart, Netsolutions CommerceSpace and Early Impact Product Cart. Bare in mind, fit yourself with reliable ecommerce software.

September: This month is the perfect time to start relatively competitive on SEO work. Do keyword research using tools like Google Keyword Tool (https://adwords.google.com/select/KeywordToolExternal) or WordTracker.com that offers free trial. Since time is not at your side, you may aim “buying keywords” first and then “research/browsing keywords” later on. You may ask “What’s the difference”? Buying keywords are more specific niche for example “Ipod Nano 8GB best price” or “Apple Ipod Nano 8GB” whereas browsing keywords are more common “apple ipod nano”. Start off writing articles, press releases and syndicating content to create links to your store’s webpages utilizing the keywords you’ve associated.

October: Do build up your in-house e-mail list. Keep in mind you offer something captivating or value to your visitors in exchange for their name and e-mail address. You may want to put yourself in your customer’s shoe while doing this. Then make sure you give your wonderful list and excellent discounts at least once a week. You must have them get used to getting and reading your e-mail offers. This will in directly get the early Christmas shoppers start purchasing now.

November: Basically, Christmas shopping rush starts off! Do A/B and/or multi variate split testing to create your results. Make sure to test out your layouts, offers, headlines and even prices to see which combination works the best. Can use Google’s free Analytics + Multi-Variate testing (http://www.google.com/analytics) to do this for free. You’ll definitely see small changes can sometimes bring you GREAT difference in results. Optimize all these and make sure you don’t leave any money on the table. Bear in mind to put up CLEAR notices telling your customers when’s the LATEST date to order to be certain they get it before Christmas. Ultimately a good time to hit your e-mail list with Christmas specific offers.

December: Do continue hitting list with Christmas offers and continue making tweaks to create visitor-to-customer conversion. It is essential that you Do NOT make any major changes. Split testing is alright. Ride the wave and make sure your supplier and fulfillment house can cope with all your orders.

With all of these things at your fingertips and with such a little time left, you will find that with your time directed in the right way and the assistance you need you can build a victorious Internet business.