Get your website ready for the holiday season

There are 110 days until Black Friday as of the writing of this blog post.

That seems like a long way off for a lot of people. After all, kids are just starting school, football season is barely starting and we still have to get through Labor Day, Halloween and Thanksgiving.

But if you run a business and sell products online, that busy time is not that far off. And if you run a business and don’t currently sell online but want to, that date really is even closer.

Things take time to build and set up, especially on the web. You need to take time to look over your options, whether you’re looking for fast and reliable hosting or need a completely new website. And of course, if you need a website built, that can take up to three months to complete the process. Doing it now is much better than scrambling at the last minute and cobbling something together.

So now is the perfect to think about your website as we gear up for the busiest time of the selling year, and I’m here to talk about it.

Making sure your website is on reliable hosting and well managed

People can’t buy products from your website if it’s not up or running reliably. That’s website economics 101 right there. You wouldn’t accept your brick-and-mortar store being open and closed unreliably. So why would you accept the same from your website?

There’s a lot you can do to make sure your website is running reliably. Obviously, there’s selecting the correct web host, but there’s also making sure you have a plan to update components of your website (like plugins, themes and core if you’re using WordPress). Also, there’s making sure you have your website optimized and loading quickly. It can get pretty overwhelming quickly.

So one of the focuses as we prepare for the holiday season will be discussing web hosting for your online store. Now, full disclosure, I do offer web hosting and I’ve offered a discount for . But blog posts in this area won’t focus on that. Instead, topics will be more general, such as what to look for in web hosting (you should always shop around to get the best deals), what things you can do to make your site run smoother, etc.

The idea is to give you a strong knowledge base in this area so you can make the right decisions for your business.

Building an ecommerce website to sell products over the holidays

There’s also a scenario where either you don’t have a website to sell products or you want a new website for online selling. You could always build it yourself, and it is pretty tempting to do that.

But I typically advise against that. After all, how much do you really know about building a website in general? A static site wouldn’t be too difficult, but an ecommerce website with a bunch of moving parts that have to work correctly in order for it to function? That’s an entirely different ballgame. That’s when you should be working with either myself or another developer you trust to build a working website that will help you business and not hinder it.

So another area I’ll focus on is how to make sure your ecommerce website is being built correctly. You’ll know what tools will likely work the best for the job, what should be on your website. That way whether you work with me, another developer or just do it yourself, you’ll know what to look for so you know you’re getting the best website for your business.

No matter what direction you go in, you’ll be confident that you’ll end up with a website that works for you.

What to expect from this blog in the run up

So what can you expect to see in this space about getting your website ready for the holidays? Well hopefully a lot.

I have a number of blog posts planned out that will go over what to look for in your web hosting with an ecommerce website, how to optimize your ecommerce site . On the building an ecommerce website, while I’ve already talked a lot about the website building process, I’ll focus more on the ecommerce side on those topics.

In addition, I’ll be creating more resources, guides and checklists that can help you look at your site, determine what, if anything, needs to be changed or fixed, and how to best solve those problems.

Finally, I hope to start up a video series about these topics as well, potentially with visual demos so you can see what I’m talking about.

In the end, I hope to give you a strong foundation of knowledge when it comes to your ecommerce website, even if you don’t use any of my services.

Remember, we’re 110 days away from Black Friday. Good luck and your business is counting on you!