Your website is critical for the holiday season. Before making a purchase, 80 percent of shoppers search online. Plus, 25 percent of shoppers still purchase online after visiting a physical store — and they expect to be greeted with the same holiday cheer!

Part of preparing your website involves focusing on being mobile ready. In 2018, the total amount of traffic on smartphones alone will be more than the traffic on all device types in 2015. However, this doesn’t mean that desktop design is unimportant. In fact, at 67 percent of all online sales, revenue is still higher on desktop.

1. Seasonal Traffic: Know How Much Site Traffic to Expect

What is the best way to know how much traffic you are likely to receive this year? Look at how much you received last year. Bear in mind that you are likely to gain slightly more traffic this year than you did in 2017. For one thing, holiday spending is on the rise. For another, you probably grew your business (or at least improved your marketing knowledge) over the last 12 months.

Be sure to check more than just the traffic quantity. Looking at the data, you will also find insights into what types of content users are searching for and what pages, in particular, you should optimize. Remember to give all your content a holiday twist and try to infuse seasonal elements into optimized pages.

2. Reindeer Power is Stronger Than Horse Power: Measure Your Site Speed

There are several tools available to check your website speed. The best ones also tell you what is slowing down your site, allowing you to make the necessary improvements. One option that meets these criteria is PageSpeed Insights from Google. All you need to do is enter your URL. The tool will then provide you with separate results for mobile and desktop.

3. ‘Tis The Season: Test the Mobile Friendliness of Your Site

In addition to speed, you also need to know how mobile friendly your site is. Again, you have an option from Google, this time offered through Search Console. If you already have a Search Console account set up, just log in, head to “Crawl,” and find “Fetch as Google.” Enter each URL you want to test, choose the mobile option you want, and click “Fetch and Render.” This will show you if bots are able to access the page, how the page renders, and if any resources are blocked.

4. Conduct Festive Keyword Research

When creating holiday content, find out what keywords you need to use — not just to appear at the top of search results but also to maximize conversions. It is useless to bring more visitors to your website if they have no interest in making a purchase. In fact, you may exacerbate problems by overloading your site with unqualified traffic, leading your target audience to give up and go elsewhere. Even if users do stick around and wait for pages to load, they’ll no longer be in a Christmassy mood.

Figure out the right keywords to use by monitoring results and seeing which terms lead to conversions. Again, return to your data from last year, this time to see what keywords led to conversions. Then, find ways to include these terms in both your organic content and PPC ads. Again, don’t be afraid to get festive with your content.

5. Draw Users’ Attention to Your Top Holiday Products

Users have limited time and limited patience — even at Christmas. The last thing they want is to spend a long time searching your site for the perfect product. This is especially true for mobile users, as a limited number of products can fit on a screen, meaning even more scrolling and clicking is necessary.

Identify which of your products receive the most views (in general and over the holidays) and promote them. This could mean displaying them on your homepage or on other key pages. At the very least, these products should be the first to appear on product pages and in related search results.

6. Provide Top-Quality Customer Support with Friendly Chatbots

Customers expect to receive support while they are exploring your website. More than half of consumers would prefer to send a message than make a call. Implementing live chat on your site is a great way to offer customer service when users need it most, such as if they are struggling to find the right item or if they are having trouble with the checkout process.

For an onsite chat to be effective, you need to be able to respond to messages fast. You have two options: you could increase your support team for the holiday season or you could add a chatbot to your site. Take into account that the second is a long-term solution that will continuously improve, as a chatbot learns for the interactions with customers. This option also has the advantage that the chatbot can run all day and night, not just during business hours. You will probably still need some human support (for complex requests that the chatbot cannot handle), but you can hire far fewer people.

If you do opt for a chatbot, add personality to its responses. Program the chatbot to speak in your brand voice — and don’t forget to wish users season’s greetings.

7. Find Places to Spread Cheer on Your Website

A final thing to do is look over your site and see what you could easily improve. Make sure every page has an attractive image, especially your product pages. Consider switching some images to something more festive just for the holidays. Decide if there is any way you could enhance your product descriptions. Consider if customer testimonials and reviews are predominantly displayed or if they would stand out better elsewhere. Lastly, confirm that the information about products in stock is accurate.

Ensuring that your website is mobile friendly is just the start of preparing your site for the holidays. Yes, it is important to optimize for mobile visitors, but it is also critical to create an excellent experience for desktop users. Your site needs to load fast for everyone, have easily-accessible information to help with purchase decisions, and otherwise, encourage conversions.