I recently wrote an article on 4 Tips to Increase Holiday Sales that was meant to help prepare eCommerce Stores for the upcoming online holiday shopping season.  The time for preparation of the holiday season is quickly coming to a close.  Implement these 4 tips now to increase your visibility and conversion rates this holiday season.

1.   Take Advantage of Cyber Monday - Cyber Monday immediately follows Black Friday (the day after Thanksgiving) and is the biggest online shopping day of the year.  Take advantage of the increase in online shopping by having visibility in organic search on major search engines.  The best way for an eCommerce store to have increased visibility in organic search on Google or Bing is to write a blog.  Most major search engines have Shopping sections where they list merchants products and tend to not list these products in the organic search section as often.  An eCommerce store should write interesting, remarkable and unique keyword rich blog articles in order to have increased visibility in organic search.

For an eCommerce Store to have visibility in organic search on Cyber Monday, consider a blog article about your main product line with the words “Cyber Monday 2010” in the title.  For example:

• The Ultimate Cyber Monday 2010 (Your Most Popular Product or Category) Sale
• (Your Most Popular Product or Category) Cyber Monday 2010 Deals

2.  Promote Holiday Centric Virtual Gift Cards - Gift cards make the perfect present for those who want to give a gift, but not entirely sure what to give.  According to Giftango , a digital eGifting Solution, more than 70% of consumers choose to purchase a virtual gift card from merchants offering that option.  You should be taking advantage of this trend by offering digital and personalized gift cards to decrease shipping and logistics costs while delivering a cool and creative gift for those interested in your products and offerings.

With virtual gift card systems, such as http://www.virtualgiftcardsystem.com you can create season specific designs, and highlight special holiday/events/sales.  Make sure that you are prominently promoting these gift cards on your blog and product pages.

3.  Take advantage of Comparison Shopping Engines -  E-tailing Group , 36% of consumers spend 30+ minutes comparison shopping before making a decision on purchasing a commodity product while 65% spend 16+ minutes doing so.  In addition, 51% visit 4+ sites before finalizing a purchase.  Online shoppers are a smart bunch and are doing their due-diligence when shopping.  Make sure that your products are available in the major comparison shopping engines as well as some of the smaller ones that make the most sense for your products.  Some of the larger and essential comparison shopping engines to be in are:

• TheFind
• Google Products
• Price Grabber & Yahoo! Shopping

It is important to note that you should research each comparison shopping engine before listing your products.  Make sure that you can afford the listing and acquisition costs as well as determine that your products are a good fit before listing away.  However, you should not let the research and fees be a discouraging factor.  Remember, the more comparison shopping engines you’re on, the more your products will get noticed. 

4.  Offer Multiple Shipping Options and Set Deadlines - Multiple shipping options with advertised shipping deadlines will be very important this holiday season.  Holiday shoppers will want to know when they can expect to have their gifts delivered.  Make sure that you are prominently displaying buying deadlines to meet specific shipping dates.  Keep in mind that most shipping carriers have different deadlines and shipping options based on size, weight and travel distance.  Make sure that you know what the deadlines are for your products and advertise them to your consumers.  This will give them the extra confidence they may need to buy from you instead of from a brick and mortar store.  

Make sure that your online store is prepared this holiday season by implementing these eCommerce Holiday Shopping tips.  The goal this holiday season should be to drive increased traffic to your online store and, most importantly, converting that traffic into sales.

Photo Credit: bensonkua