“Should I be doing anything to my website before Christmas?”
It’s a question I start getting around now, usually from shops, cafés and salons who remember last December feeling like a scramble. And it’s a good one to be asking in September, because here’s the honest truth: the businesses that have a good Christmas tend to sort their website in the autumn. The ones who leave it are the ones emailing me in a panic on the 3rd of December asking if I can “just quickly change the opening hours” while they’re rushed off their feet.
So let me walk you through what’s actually worth doing, what genuinely matters, and — because I’d rather be straight with you than talk you into work you don’t need — when your site is probably fine as it is.
Why now, and not November
The temptation is to file this under “December job”. It isn’t. There are two good reasons to sort it while the nights are only just drawing in.
The first is lead times. If your site needs more than a quick tweak — a new page, a shop section, a proper tidy-up — that takes a bit of time to do properly, and the closer you get to Christmas the busier everyone is, me included. I only take on a couple of projects at a time so each one gets my full attention, and the autumn slots are the ones that go first.
The second reason is Google. If you want to be found for the Christmas searches — “gifts in Liverpool”, “Christmas menu near me”, “late-night opening” — Google needs a few weeks to notice your changes, crawl them and start showing them to people. Publish in autumn and it’s settled in and ranking by the time anyone’s actually searching. Publish on the 20th of December and you’ve missed the very window you built it for.
Get the boring-but-vital stuff right first
Before any festive bells and whistles, the plain basics are what actually win or lose you custom over Christmas. These are the ones people skip and then regret.
Your opening hours — including the Christmas ones. This is the single most-checked thing on a small business website in late December, and the most commonly wrong. If you’re closing early on Christmas Eve, shut between Christmas and New Year, or running special hours, say so clearly — on the site and on your Google listing. Nothing loses a customer faster than turning up to a locked door because the website said you were open.
It has to work on a phone. Practically everyone browsing over Christmas is doing it on their phone — on the sofa, on the train, in a queue for something else. If your site’s fiddly, slow or awkward on a small screen, you’re losing people at the worst possible moment. Mobile isn’t a nice-to-have, it’s where the custom is.
It has to be dead easy to contact you, book, or buy. However someone wants to take the next step, make it obvious and one tap away — a phone number that dials when you tap it, a booking button you can’t miss, a basket that doesn’t fight you. Christmas shoppers are busy and impatient, and every extra click is another chance for them to give up and go elsewhere.
The Christmas-specific bits worth adding
Once the basics are solid, a few seasonal touches genuinely earn their keep:
- A seasonal offer, menu or gift guide. A Christmas menu for a café or restaurant, a festive gift section for a shop, a “treat someone” list for a salon. It gives people a reason to choose you, and something to share.
- Gift vouchers. If there’s any way for someone to buy a voucher for your business, Christmas is when they’ll want to. Even a simple “message me to buy a gift voucher” beats nothing at all.
- Clear deadlines. “Order by the 18th for Christmas”, “last festive bookings”, “back open on the 2nd”. People plan around these, and spelling them out saves you a hundred DMs.
None of it needs to be flashy. It just needs to be there, clear, and up to date.
Getting found in time (the bit people leave too late)
A lovely website nobody can find doesn’t help you. Being visible over Christmas takes a run-up, which is exactly why we’re having this chat in September rather than December.
Your Google Business Profile does a lot of the heavy lifting for local searches and the map, so make sure it’s set up properly — festive hours on it, a few recent photos, your current offers. Reviews matter more than ever when people are choosing where to spend their money, so it’s well worth nudging your happy customers to leave one before the rush rather than after. And if you want to genuinely climb the Google results for the searches that bring in Christmas custom, that’s the slow-burn SEO side — slow-burn being the whole point. Start it now and it’s working for you by December. Start it in December and it’s working by spring.
If you sell online, this is your Black Friday
If you take orders through the site, the stretch from Black Friday to Christmas is very likely your biggest of the year, so it’s worth a proper once-over. Is the checkout genuinely smooth on a phone? Are your delivery cut-off dates crystal clear, so nobody’s furious on the 23rd? Is it obvious what’s in stock and what isn’t? A clunky online shop leaks sales quietly, and never more so than when everyone’s buying at once. Honestly, half an hour spent placing a test order on your own site, start to finish, tells you more than any amount of guessing.
Don’t forget what comes straight after
Here’s the bit almost everyone misses: for a lot of businesses, the real gold is early January. Gyms, personal trainers, anyone in health, home improvements, “new year, new me” everything — the searches spike hard on the 1st. If your site’s already sorted for Christmas, you’re also ready for that surge without lifting a finger. Two busy periods, one bit of autumn preparation.
When you’re honestly already fine
I promised I’d be straight with you, so here it is: if your website is already solid — it works well on a phone, your hours are easy to update, it loads quickly, and it’s clear how to get in touch — you might not need to do much at all beyond popping your Christmas hours on and maybe adding a seasonal offer. Don’t let anyone talk you into a big rebuild you don’t need just because it’s October. A few small, timely changes often do the whole job.
And if updating it yourself is the sticking point, that’s exactly what ongoing care is for — you message me the new hours or the festive menu, and I sort it, so it’s never you wrestling with the website at 11pm on Christmas Eve.
The honest summary
You don’t need to reinvent your website for Christmas. You need it to load fast on a phone, show the right hours, make it dead easy to buy or book, and be findable in time — and that last part is why autumn is the moment, not December.
If you’d like a hand getting yours ready, or you just want an honest opinion on whether it needs anything at all, drop me a message and I’ll take a proper look. You can also see how I work first, if you’d rather know what that involves before you get in touch.