We are only five months away from Christmas. From October to December it is the best shopping time of the year. People are equipped to spend money and throw caution to the wind so that they can find the best holiday gifts for family and friends. Majority of us are wondering how we can take advantage of the holidays and earn a little money for ourselves to allow us for the holidays.

ACTION NOW! It is certainly not too early to start building your online store ready for Christmas shopping and at the same time you really don’t have much time to waste. I’ve included a month-by month cheat-sheet to ensure that you get the HIGHEST possible sales for this Christmas.

August: There are companies selling ecommerce solutions to allow you act fast and spend your time wisely so that you can seek a way to take advantage of the holiday spending. Test out suitable ecommerce software if exploring to possibly change solutions. Now’s the excellent time to make such changes since you won’t have much time to make sure changes going forward. If not happy with present shopping cart, you can either survey for the right one or consider a few major carts such as InstanteStore, VOlusion, Yahoo Store, NetSolutions, CommerceSpace, 3D Cart and Early Impact Product Cart. Bare in mind, fit yourself with professional online business solutions.

September: This month is the appropriate time to start aggressive on SEO work. Implement keyword research having tools like Wordtracker.com or Google Keyword Tool that offers free trial. Since time is restricted, you may aim “buying keywords” first and then “research/browsing keywords” later on. You may ask “What’s the difference”? Buying keywords are more actual for example “Ipod Nano 8GB best price” or “Apple Ipod Nano 8GB” whereas browsing keywords are more fundamental “apple ipod nano”. Begin writing articles, press releases and syndicating content to establish links to your store’s webpages using the keywords you’ve associated.

October: Do construct your in-house e-mail list. Be sure that you offer something alluring or value to your visitors in exchange for their e-mail address and name. You may want to put yourself in your customer’s shoe while doing this. Then make sure you distribute your alluring list and excellent promotions at least once a week. You must have them get used to obtaining and reading your e-mail offers. This will in directly get the early Christmas shoppers start purchasing now.

November: Basically, Christmas shopping wave begins! Do A/B and/or multi variate split testing to create your results. Make sure to test out your headlines, layouts, offers and even prices to see which combination works the best. Can use Google’s free Analytics + Multi-Variate testing (http://www.google.com/analytics) to do this for free. You’ll discover small changes can sometimes bring you TREMENDOUS difference in results. Optimize all these and make sure you don’t leave any money on the table. Bear in mind to put up CLEAR notices telling your customers when’s the LATEST date to order to make sure they will receive it before Christmas. Ultimately a good time to get your e-mail list with Christmas exact offers.

December: Do continue hitting list with Christmas offers and continue making tweaks to boost visitor-to-customer conversion. It is crucial that you Do NOT make any major changes. Split testing is fine. Ride the wave and make sure your supplier and fulfillment house can manage all your orders.

With all of these things at your fingertips and with such a little time left, you will find that with your time directed in the right way and the aid you need you can build a successful Internet business.