Here’s Why Your Website Might Not Be Ready for Black Friday Cyber Monday Sale

Black Friday and Cyber Monday (BFCM) – the internet shopping frenzy is nothing less than a bonanza for online businesses. A report^[i] by Adobe shows that companies in the US earned around $8.9 billion on Black Friday and $10.7 billion on Cyber Monday in 2021.

This year too, businesses have a golden opportunity to boost revenue in the upcoming BFCM sale. But this opportunity comes with its own challenges. And you need to prepare for them in advance so as to not to miss out on potential sales.

But what are these challenges and how to overcome them? Let’s find out.

What Might Go Wrong During Black Friday Cyber Monday Sale

Thanks to the BFCM fever, websites can experience a visit hike of as high as 162%^[ii]. So, if you think you have a well-optimized website, think twice. Here are a few things that might go wrong –

Website Crashes and Downtime:

With everyone rushing to buy during the peak sale hours, your website’s server can get overloaded leading to a website crash or downtime. And every second your website is down, you will be missing out on potential sales opportunities.

DDoS Attack:

As you will be dealing with copious amounts of customer data, your website might become a target for attackers. A botnet can easily overwhelm your website server by sending a flood of fake traffic. This will not only exploit your network resources but also result in a denial of service to normal traffic.

Slow Loading Speed:

A large number of requests simultaneously can cause the website to load slowly. Customers will not think twice before abandoning a slow website. This can lead to a high bounce rate that can negatively impact your website’s quality score.

Low Website Capacity:

Businesses often misjudge the amount of traffic their websites can handle. An inaccurate understanding of your website’s capacity can leave you blindsided. You may run the risk of downtime and poor website performance at the time of the sale.

Unresponsive Website:

Customers, these days, prefer omnichannel shopping experiences. So, if your website isn’t compatible with their device type and screen size, their user experience will hamper. This can directly impact your user retention and conversion rates.

5 Ways to Get Your Website Ready for Black Friday Cyber Monday Sale

Now that you know what can possibly go wrong with your website, it’s time to know how you can avoid this. Here are 5 ways you can prepare your website in advance for the BFCM sale season.

Prepare for Traffic Management

Traffic spike is the biggest concern for businesses during BFCM 2022. To ensure that your website is ready for it, you can adopt any of the two approaches –

• If you use a CDN (Content Delivery Network) whether built-in or a third-party CDN provider, make sure that you reach out to the IT team to plan for the surge in traffic.
• If you don’t use CDN, inquire about the traffic limitations of your site from your web hosting provider. Consider upgrading your server, if needed, to minimize your bandwidth consumption and increase page speed.

Also, make sure to run a load test to know your website’s capacity beforehand.

Improve Your Website Speed

Consumers are not going to wait around if your website takes more than 3 seconds^[iii] to load. So, speed optimization should be your priority. There are many ways to go about it. For starters, you can compress and resize your images and other visuals to reduce page weight.

Remove unnecessary third-party snippets and cache your web pages to speed up the loading process. Divide long posts into multiple short posts and interlink them to enhance speed without compromising on user experience. Additionally, you can use Google PageSpeed Insights to check your website speed and overall performance.

Boost SEO

Customers are highly motivated to buy during BFCM than any other shopping season. So make sure that they can easily discover your store on search engines. Focus on your website’s search engine optimization to improve search rankings.

Use an SEO plugin for your website and choose a theme that is SEO-friendly. Utilize keywords in your content and incorporate useful internal and external links. Focus on quality content and perform a content audit if necessary.

Level Up Your Data Security Measures

Security is the key concern in online purchases. To promote sales, you need to ensure customers of their data safety. For this, enable SSL (Secure Sockets Layer) to encrypt the connection between your visitor’s browser and your website.

Display safe checkout badges to indicate complete protection of customers’ personal and sensitive details. Provide clear return policies and ensure that they are easy to find on your website. Take necessary actions to secure your website from attacks.

Integrate Multiple Payment Options

Last but not least, multiple payment options are key to successful sales. Different customers have different payment preferences. And if you don’t offer their preferred payment method, all the preparation done earlier can go in vain.

So, integrate all the widely-used payment methods with your website be it PayPal, Stripe, and UPI. You can also add Cryptocurrencies as they are becoming a popular transaction method among customers now.

Start Preparing Black Friday Cyber Monday 2022

The countdown for Black Friday and Cyber Monday is ticking! Now that you have the ways to prepare your website for it, it’s time to implement them. Remember, a little preparation can lead to huge gains when the timing is right.

Next Read: Marketing Strategies to Skyrocket Your Black Friday Sales.

Need Help in Optimizing Your Website for Black Friday Cyber Monday Sale? Contact Us.

References –

[i] Adobe – Consumers spent $10.7 billion on Cyber Monday, $109.8 billion so far this holiday season

[ii] Fresh Relevance – Black Friday 2021 eCommerce traffic and revenue

[iii] Neil Patel – How Loading Time Affects Your Bottom Line