Google has these fascinating facts to share about last year’s holiday shopping season:

• 78% of shoppers used the internet to help them research the right buying decision
• 29% – yes just 29% – of shoppers relied on help from friends, relatives, and colleagues
• 40% of all holiday shopping happened online

Given the proliferation of and fascination with smartphones and tablet PCs, you know this trend’s going to continue. And most likely, it’ll strengthen here in 2015.

And when should you be ready for this to happen?

In the same post, Google says you need to start thinking about it before Halloween. Because your customers, 25% of them to be exact, started their holiday shopping before Halloween (in 2014). And 48% said they did MOST of their shopping before Cyber Monday in 2014.

…Cyber Monday happens the first Monday after Thanksgiving and falls on November 30^th this year.

So if you’re used to procrastinating, or have friends and family for doing most of their holiday shopping on December 24^th, don’t fall victim to the thinking that everyone does it that way!

Many people certainly do. But about half are done way ahead of time.

What Can You Do with This Information?

Well, the simple fact for local and small businesses is your website needs to be mobile-ready. In our experience, many businesses have website designs that appear dated to customers. Or they look fine on laptops and desktop PCs, but they don’t display correctly on smartphones. Or they’re hard to use on smartphones.

Websites not ready for mobile devices make customers think one of two things:

1. You’re not in business anymore
2. You don’t care about your business or customers

Websites are just like having clean bathrooms. You always keep them spotless because you know that your customers judge you on it.

It costs money to get mobile-ready. But it’s not a huge or prohibitive cost. And it pays for itself many times over time.

Some Other Ways to Capitalize on the Holiday Season

They’re simple and the costs pay for themselves:

• Decorate your website and social media profiles with holiday-themed imagery. You don’t need a massive website overhaul. Just a few graphics to show the holidays are on your mind.
• Send handwritten “thank-you” cards by mail. No joke here. Remember, most businesses do what’s easiest – so they e-mail or Tweet. Handwriting a “thank-you” card goes a looooooong way in building relationships with your customers.
• Monitor PPC for new keyword opportunities. Search trends shoot up, and sometimes out of control, during the holidays. Monitor closely for high-ROI opportunities.

That’s what you can do to make the best of this upcoming holiday season.

Enjoy yours!