How your website users may change over the Christmas period 

Regardless of what you sell, you’re likely to experience peaks and troughs in web traffic throughout the year. And it’s important to understand these oscillations, and to be prepared, especially at Christmas, potentially one of your busiest times of year. Failure to be ready for this, or to anticipate the slower and brisker periods, can have a significant impact on the effectiveness of your website, and therefore that of your entire business.

Moving into the peak of the festive season can feel like quite a shift. From November onwards, you’ll no doubt have noticed alterations in volumes of web traffic, as bargain-hunters search for promos and sales. And, clearly, that’s likely to present a spike in both new and returning customers, so you need to be ready for greater numbers of visitors.

Equally, you may have users who wouldn’t normally be on your website but are there because someone has asked them to buy a gift from it, or because they’re looking for goods as presents which they wouldn’t normally purchase.

At the same time, people may be busier than usual or visiting a greater variety of websites than they normally would, and so may be quicker to click away from your site, meaning you may have to work harder to get them to stay with you until the checkout page.

January will obviously see a dip in number of gift purchases, but a surge in browsers looking for New Year deals, who may be casting their net more widely than usual as they scour the web for the very best offers.

Equally, if you’re in the health and fitness or self-improvement sectors, you can expect to see positive web traffic changes which could even carry on during February, although this will probably tail off come March.

According to the website Entrepreneur, people also have more time to engage with and interact on social media during the festive season. Harness this momentum with holiday-specific hashtags to boost your growth.

Making sure your website is ready for Christmas

So, right up to the last minute, you need to be sure that your website remains Christmas-ready, and that you have identified any potential performance issues. Even attending to a couple of niggles can make a noticeable difference to page-loading speeds.

Broken links or images which don’t display, or scripts that don’t work, are all common faults which can lurk just below your website’s surface. They can be caused by previous work which hasn’t been fully tested, or checked. And they can seriously impact your overall performance.

A fresh look at your website will highlight any bugs or other problems so that your sales keep coming in at this vital time of year. Equally, a look at your site with fresh eyes will identify those areas which you can improve and so boost revenue and traffic still further.

Website  management – it’s what we do

At SWSweb, we provide website management services for businesses. This frees you up to focus on what you do best – running your business. Our portfolio of offerings includes fast hosting, back-ups and security updates, not to mention high-quality website design and development.

Let us keep your site optimised and performing at its best throughout Christmas and New Year and beyond, and as high up the search engine results pages as we can get you.

We can help you understand how audiences fluctuate at different times of year so that you’re ready for these seasonal variations.

Chat with us online or get in touch today to request a free quote.