It is only September and already my thoughts are well and truly on Christmas. No, not on how I plan to spend my vacation time or what presents I need to purchase, but rather, my thoughts are making sure that my clients’ websites are ready for the online Christmas sales rush.

Now is the time to start implementing the plans that you made months ago regarding your online marketing for Christmas. If you have a plan and are implementing it, then congratulations! You are well on your way to having a good Christmas sales season, driven by search engine visitors.

Unfortunately, my experience in dealing with website owners is that many wait until November or even December before considering what changes need to be made to their search engine marketing plan. By then it is too late to capitalize on the additional Christmas traffic and sales.

So here is what you should be doing in my eyes, to get ready for the Xmas rush now:

1. Ensure your website domain and pages are included in the search engines’ databases.
2. Make sure that your web pages are optimized correctly for the right terms and keywords, maintaining a realistic approach that will bring quality traffic.
3. Check your site’s layout and marketing message to ensure you are going to be converting the visitors your search marketing plan generates.

Results can take weeks, sometimes months, to appear from the time a change is made to realising the benefits. So make the changes now to ensure you finish 2005 off in a sales frenzy.

Remember that search engine optimization is a marathon and not a sprint. These initial hints are the first steps to ensuring your have a lucrative Christmas. Stay tuned as I present regular updates to ensure your whole online marketing effort generates more sales than last year.