Boxing week is just about here. You’ve sprinkled your store with decorations, you’ve decided which products you want to put on sale, and you’ve done the necessary legwork to spread the word about your upcoming promotions via email, paid advertising, and social media. But is your website ready for the influx of traffic it’s likely to receive?
Don’t panic if the answer is no. If you’ve laid the groundwork with promotions and sales, you’ve already done the heavy lifting. All that’s left is the digital equivalent of making sure a brick-and-mortar store is clean and accessible the night before a major event.
At the end of the day, that’s really all search engine optimization (SEO) involves. With that in mind, we’ve put together a checklist of last-minute SEO practices and tactics to prepare your store for its boxing week sale.
Imagery
- File names and alt text both use keywords describing the product as plainly as possible.
- All image files are properly sized (per Shopify).
- A maximum of 1 megabyte (MB) for header and background images.
- A maximum of 300 kilobytes (KB) for product photos.
- 100 KB or less for product thumbnails.
- A maximum of 10 MB for hero images/feature photos.
- All image files are uploaded in the proper aspect ratio.
- 16:9 for hero images.
- 1:1 for product photos and thumbnails.
- Files are uploaded as jpegs.
- All product photos are of reasonable quality and give an idea of how each product looks.
Product Pages
- Product titles include all relevant information, including manufacturer name, model/color, and SKU.
- Product descriptions provide a complete overview of what each product is and how it works.
- Each product page has a unique description.
- Product page URLs are simple and easy to remember.
- All product pages use the Product schema.
- Each product page is tagged with all relevant keywords for internal searches.
- User reviews are enabled.
- You’ve used a keyword research tool to determine the best keywords for each product.
General Performance and Usability
- You’ve tested your website with Google PageSpeed Insights and made any recommended adjustments.
- You have asked your web host if it’s possible to scale up your bandwidth for the week.
- All content is optimized for mobile devices.
- Site navigation is streamlined and intuitive, allowing users to find what they’re looking for in as few clicks as possible.
- There are minimal interruptions to the user experience—no pop-ups or pop-over prompts.
- You offer multiple payment and shipping options at checkout.
- Your website features an SSL certificate during checkout.
Conclusion
Too many e-commerce website owners kill it when it comes to off-site promotion while neglecting the basics of on-site optimization. With the checklist above, you can ensure that you aren’t one of them—for boxing week as well as every event that follows.
