During 2022’s Black Friday sales, shoppers spent approximately $281 billion, a 2% increase from 2021. Several big platforms reported record-breaking increases, such as Amazon UK with an astonishing 269% increase in sales on Black Friday. Conversion rates of e-commerce platforms saw an increase of 50% on Black Friday 2022 alone. Maximising your website’s sales potential is vital: besides preparing stock levels and marketing campaigns, making sure your website can handle substantial volumes of traffic is essential.
Let us explore key steps you can take to guarantee that your website is optimised for an exceptional shopping experience.
Key steps for Black Friday increased website traffic readiness
Here are some essential steps and solutions to prepare your online store for Black Friday.
• Verify your hosting can handle increased traffic: If you anticipate a surge in site visitors, your hosting plan is the most essential yet overlooked lines of defence against lost customers from a slower website. Ensure your hosting is up to the task. If you are on a shared hosting plan, consider migrating to a more robust setup, which offers greater resources to accommodate traffic spikes, like Hypernode.
• Enhance website speed: In the digital marketplace, speed is essential. Slow-loading pages can deter customers and cost you Black Friday sales. Apart from upgrading your hosting, optimise images with large file sizes, deactivate unnecessary plugins, employ caching and compression, and utilise a content delivery network.
• Test all functions: Conduct thorough testing before Black Friday to prevent last-minute issues. Simulate expected traffic surges with load tests and ensure seamless, glitch-free checkout processes through trial visits and purchases.
• Backup your website: Backing up your website is crucial for peace of mind during Black Friday. It safeguards your website’s core elements, including code files, databases, and images, ensuring your hard work is protected and recoverable, even during peak traffic or malfunctions.
Topics such as website hosting plans, website speed, backups and testing may not be the most exciting subjects to tackle, but the reality is that they can determine the outcome of one of the year’s most eagerly awaited days.
These steps can mean the difference between success and failure.
Preventing website disasters
Your web hosting plays a critical role on Black Friday. It is the backbone supporting your online store’s operations.
Before launching your marketing strategies and driving traffic to your website, it is essential to guarantee that your hosting plan can effectively accommodate a surge in visitors, sessions, and interactions.
Website outages are a common occurrence during sales seasons.
After investing time and effort into attracting Black Friday’s substantial traffic, the last thing you want is for your website to encounter errors and fail to load.
Upgrading to the correct plan before Black Friday is vital
If your hosting plan includes monthly limits on on-site visits, the busiest shopping weekend of the year might push your site to its traffic limit.
Failure to promptly enhance your site’s capacity to handle an influx of shoppers can lead to significant slowdowns or even a complete crash.
It is strongly advised that eCommerce professionals, developers, web developers, and retailers proactively upgrade to a more robust flexible plan with added resources in advance, such as featured in the Hypernode plans.
One notable advantage of Hypernode plans is their flexibility, allowing you to modify your plan at any time easily. There are no fixed contract terms, and you only pay for the resources you actually use.
How to upgrade your plan with Hypernode
Upgrading your plan with Hypernode is simple and super fast. For Control Panel users looking to upgrade their hosting plan, simply follow these steps when logging in via my.hypernode.com:
Log in to your Control Panel via my.hypernode.com.
To access the Change Plan page, you have two options:
1. Navigate to the settings via menu and change your plan.
2. Alternatively, you can simply click to “Change your plan” in the Hypernodes overview.
On the page, you will find an overview of your current and new plan displayed. Select your desired plan and specify whether it should be for Development or Production.
Choose any additional add-ons you require. You can find more information about the two service level agreements (SLAs) online.
Use our autoscaling features to schedule your upgrade at a time that’s most convenient for you. You can either use the Control Panel or our API to set up your automatic upgrades.
How to schedule a downgrade after the Black Friday period in Hypernode
Should you need a larger Hypernode for a brief period, it is equally as simple and easy to schedule a downgrade after the rush.
You have the flexibility to revert to your original plan when the larger Hypernode is no longer necessary.
If you decide to upgrade your Hypernode to a larger plan for a single day, you will only be charged for that specific day.
This means you can confidently enhance your plan for an event, email campaign, or sales promotion without the obligation of a monthly commitment.
Simply upgrade your Hypernode plan one day ahead of your event, run your campaign or sales action, and once your daily visitor count returns to normal, downgrade your plan. Your billing is based on actual usage, so you only pay for what you need.
Additionally, if you happen to make an upgrade or downgrade within a 2-hour window, there will not be any extra charges.
This safety net ensures that if you accidentally make the wrong adjustment, you can easily rectify it without incurring additional costs.
If you need to run a quick test or confirm that the larger node suits your expected traffic increase, you can take advantage of this 2-hour evaluation period.
Ready to optimise your hosting for Black Friday success?
Upgrade to a larger Hypernode plan and enjoy the flexibility you need.
Whether it is for a specific event, sales action, or traffic test, you are in control. And do not forget, you can always downgrade when you no longer need the extra resources.
For personalised guidance on upgrading your hosting and ensuring your website’s readiness, schedule a free hosting consultation with Hypernode’s experts today.
Make this Black Friday your best one yet with flexible Hypernode hosting plans.
Hi! My name is Dion, Account Manager at Hypernode
Want to know more about Hypernode's Managed E-commerce Hosting? Schedule your online meeting.
schedule one-on-one meeting +31 (0) 648362102
