How to prepare your website for unexpected visits

The holiday shopping or rebates are generally dates usually exceed the average number of visits to online stores and even these visits are predictable in some seasons of the year, there are some other visits that are completely unexpected, especially with this new reality by Covid 19, which consequently online stores have been increased.

For example, last year's holiday shopping season set all-time records. According to 2019 Salesforce US Digital Revenue report:

• ·        Thanksgiving: + 24%
• ·        Black Friday: + 16%
• ·        Cyber ​​Monday: + 13%

The fourth quarter of the year is always a great challenge for online stores, since it is difficult to control if your website will be technically up to meet the needs of your customers without spending a fortune on a server that you may not need, or if ...

With Christmas just around the corner and Black Friday looming, this year's growth potential could exceed the growth average to date. The new reality due to restrictions makes online sales one of the choices for consumers and your website must live up to it.

 

Monitor your website performance

 

You must monitor the performance of your online store and for this, you can make use of the following tools that help you understand and anticipate what is happening on your website:

·        Visits: Surely your website already has Google Analytics , or another analysis tool that you use. With it you can examine the sales events of recent years and the key metrics in Google Analytics for your e-Commerce. This will help you understand the flow of visits on your website.

·        Performance tests: Tools like GTMetrix and Lighthouse will score your website based on real-time performance. As a result, you will get an in-depth analysis of the loading speed and some recommendations that you should consider improving on your website if possible, photos are the great enemy. These tests are very critical, only a few websites reach excellence, it is not about reaching the best scores, but about being prepared and understanding what could affect the performance of your website. Even the websites designed by the best experts have options for improvement.

How to prepare your website for unexpected visits

GTMetrix report from www.dfaho.com 

 

Upgrade the server

The simplest hosting plans can sink your website or even your business if you depend on your online store and do not react in time! As we discussed on Shared Hosting vs Dedicated Hosting What is best for my website? All hosting or web hosting models have the same purpose, to make your website visible to your customers. Although you should choose the hosting that best suits your website needs.

You can find many server options and with many types of budget, many of these budgets may surprise you if you are used to paying less than € 200 per year for your website server. But keep in mind that this investment will be a small fraction of the profits that you will obtain as a result of the increase in speed and availability, which will be converted into more visits and more sales.

Without going any further, one of our clients, a well-known restaurant in Barcelona that currently offers Take Away and after experiencing performance problems with the provider that he had hired, we migrated to one of our servers adapting it to his needs, that the online store keep up with your customers! Just as they are when diners walk through the door. Once migrated to the new server, our client's website increased visits by 80% and also the number of sales in just one day :

Increase in visits by migrating to a new server

It must be made clear that success is not in our servers, but in the communication between the client and the web provider. Communication with your technology provider is key and should be informed of your short- and long - term, the only way your web provider can understand your needs and make the necessary changes to get to achieve your goals.

Apart from the specifications of your server, these are some considerations you should know:

·        Server improvement according to seasons: If you think that the cost of a dedicated server only makes sense in some season of the year, you can plan to migrate the server for a certain time, it is a matter of understanding the performance according to the season of the year and planning the migrations.

·        Automatic scalability: If your website has millions of visits per month, there are server solutions that automatically adapt to the demand of visits in real-time, adding more servers when there are many visits and removing servers when they are not needed.

 

Conclusion

 

Your website must be prepared for the next Christmas campaign and Black Friday, you must understand the current performance of your website and organize web and server improvements if necessary. Whoever your web or server provider is, they will all be able to offer you solutions, but remember that communication and understanding your goals is the goal. Only then will your technology provider be able to work with your website and server to find the optimal solution and migrate before your website visits increase.

At SaeedDeveloper, we focus on empathizing with our clients to offer the best digital solutions to their needs, if you need help with your next campaign, do not hesitate to get in touch.