A Home Page Ready for the New Year

January visitors are planning

The people who visit in early January are not the ones who visited in December. December brought gift shoppers and people checking holiday hours.

January brings planners: people starting something new, booking the year's work, comparing three businesses before choosing one.

Many of them will land on a home page still dressed for Christmas, with a gift card banner, holiday hours and a photograph of the shop in tinsel.

The fix is a few hours' work this week, ready to switch on when the holidays end.

What January visitors want to know

• What you offer now, rather than for the holidays.
• What it costs this year, including any new prices.
• How to start, whether by booking, ordering or calling.
• When you are open, with regular hours back in place.
• Whether you are current, judged from photographs and dates.
• How to use a gift card received at Christmas.

The second is the one most often left wrong. Prices that change on January 1 reach the till and the printed list at once, and the website follows weeks later, if at all.

The first screen

The part of the home page visible before scrolling decides whether a planner stays. On a phone it holds a headline, a line or two and perhaps one button.

In January it should say what the business does, what is on offer now and how to start. A holiday greeting, however warm, does none of those.

Write the headline for the visitor's plans rather than the season. A line about booking spring work or starting a program says more than a wish for a happy new year.

Take the holidays down

List everything on the page that belongs to December: banners, gift offers, holiday hours, shipping deadlines, decorations and festive photographs.

Prepare the replacement now and switch it on the first working day. On most sites that takes minutes once the new text and photographs are ready.

Holiday hours should come down the day regular hours return. A notice saying closed until January 3 is wrong by January 4.

Offers that are true in January

If there is a January offer, put it on the first screen with its end date. If there is not, do not invent one; show the main products or services instead.

New prices belong on the site the day they take effect, on every page that lists them. A visitor who sees one price online and another at the counter remembers the difference.

Gift cards deserve a line as well. People who received one look for how to use it, and a short note saying where and how is a small welcome.

This season's photographs

Photographs date a page faster than words. A sunny patio in January, or a Christmas window in March, tells a visitor nobody has touched the page in months.

Take a few new photographs this week, while things are quiet: the counter, the team, the work, in winter light. A phone will do if the light is good.

Use real photographs of the business rather than stock images of strangers raising glasses. January visitors are deciding whether to trust you.

A worked example

A juice bar in a row of shops near a gym and a yoga studio sells juices, smoothies and bowls over the counter, along with three-day and five-day juice programs collected on Monday mornings.

Its busiest weeks begin in January, when people make resolutions and compare programs online before committing. Last January its home page still opened with a gingerbread smoothie, a gift card banner and holiday hours.

Below them sat summer photographs of the patio and program prices from before a January increase.

Customers asking about programs at the counter often quoted the website's prices, and staff spent much of the month explaining the difference.

This time the January version was written in the week before Christmas. Its first screen names the programs, the new prices and the Monday pickup, with a button to order.

New photographs show the counter and the bottles in winter light. It all goes live on the first working morning, when the holiday content comes down.

Change the words, not the layout

A new year is a reason to change what the home page says, not where things are. Returning visitors expect the menu, the phone number and the hours where they found them last time.

Swap the featured content deliberately, once, and leave it for the season. A home page that changes constantly confuses people as much as one that never changes.

What search results show

The home page's title and description often appear in search results, and they can be as out of date as the page. A description promising holiday gift ideas will keep showing long after Christmas.

Update both with the page. Google can take a while to show the new version, which is another reason to make the change early in the month.

Check the Google My Business listing at the same time: the hours, the photographs and anything changed for the holidays.

The pages behind the home page

The home page sends people onward, so check where it sends them. A button for January's offer should lead to a page about January's offer, not last month's gift guide.

Look at the two or three pages most visited after the home page and give them the same check: dates, prices, photographs and anything seasonal.

The counter-case

A business whose year does not turn in January needs less. A dental office or a locksmith may only need the holiday hours removed and a photograph refreshed.

A business that is quietest in January, such as a landscaper, may be better served by a home page about spring bookings than one about the new year.

For any business that January visitors are comparing, though, the home page should belong to the new year by the first working day.

Before the first working day

1. List everything seasonal on the home page.
2. Write the January headline and first screen.
3. Update prices that change on January 1.
4. Take new photographs this week.
5. Restore regular hours everywhere they appear.
6. Update the page title and description.
7. Switch it all on the first working morning.

Step two does the real work. Removing December only leaves a gap; a first screen written for January's visitors is what tells them they have found the right place.

Keeping the main content where returning visitors expect it is covered in a home page that changes every visit.

Frequently asked questions

West Coast Media Solutions Inc. provides web design, web development, hosting, digital marketing, and business consulting to organisations across Canada, drawing on more than twenty-five years in the field.