Build holiday product pages and the gift guide in October and early November, with photographs of samples and honest arrival dates, so they exist when shoppers search rather than after they have bought elsewhere.

On the shelf in November, online in December

Holiday stock is ordered in the summer and arrives through October and November. It goes onto the shelves within days.

It goes onto the website in December, when someone finally has an afternoon. By then many shoppers have searched, compared and bought.

Pages added in mid-December also have little time to be found. A search engine may not show them until after Christmas, when the stock is already marked down.

The products were ready in time. The pages were not.

Why the pages come late

The fifth is the real reason, and it has an answer. A page can go up before the stock does, as long as it says honestly when the item will be available.

When gift shoppers start looking

Gift buying starts with research, and for many people the research starts in November. Some begin in October, especially for anything that has to be shipped or made.

A shopper searching in the third week of November for a gift for a teenager who likes to cook finds whoever has a page for the right thing.

A shop with it in the back room and nothing online is not part of that search.

Writers putting together gift guides for magazines and blogs work earlier still, and they can only include products they can find.

Build the pages before the stock arrives

Most shop systems let a product page exist before the product does. Build each page in October with the name, the description, the options and the price.

Publish it with a plain statement of availability, such as arriving mid-November or ships from November 14. Shoppers can find it, plan around it and, if the shop allows it, order ahead.

The date has to be honest. If an arrival slips, update the page the day you know, because someone planning a gift around it is relying on it.

Photographs before the rush

Photograph samples, or the first finished pieces, as soon as they exist. Use the same background and light for everything, so the holiday range looks like one collection.

Take several angles, a close detail and one photograph that shows size, in a hand or beside something familiar. Photograph each colour or option you will sell.

Supplier photographs can fill gaps if your agreement allows their use. Your own photographs of your own stock are usually better, and nobody else's site has them.

A worked example

A leather goods maker with a workshop and a small shop on a high street sells wallets, belts and bags online and over the counter.

Each fall it makes a run of smaller gift pieces: card holders, key fobs and valet trays.

The run is finished by mid-November. In past years the pieces reached the website in the second week of December, after the craft fairs were over.

Last December, people who had seen the card holders at a fair searched for the workshop's name with the words card holder, and found belts and bags. Others emailed to ask whether anything could still ship in time.

The cause was simple: the pages did not exist when people searched, and once they did, there were only days left for anyone to find them.

This year the first finished piece of each item was photographed in early October, in every leather colour.

The pages went up with dimensions, colours and a ships-from date, and last year's gift page was updated at the same address rather than replaced.

A gift page that comes back every year

A gift page groups the holiday range by price or by the kind of person it suits. Keep it at the same address every year, such as /gifts, and update it.

A page that returns each year keeps whatever links and search history it has built. A new page at a new address every December starts from nothing.

Link to it from the home page from early November, and keep it readable on a phone: a photograph, a name, a price and one line for each item.

Give search engines time

New pages on a small shop's site can take days or weeks to appear in search results. That alone is reason to start in October.

Make sure new products appear in the sitemap, which most shop systems handle automatically, and submit the sitemap in Search Console. Fetch as Google lets you request a crawl of the key product pages sooner.

Link to new products from the home page and their category pages too, since search engines find pages by following links.

Shipping dates on every page

The question every December email asks is whether it will arrive in time. Answer it before anyone has to ask.

Post the last order date for Christmas delivery at the top of the gift page and on each product page, for each region you ship to. Update it as dates pass, and say clearly when only local pickup remains.

Give the date by which an order must be placed, not a promise about the day it arrives. The first is yours to keep; the second depends on someone else's trucks.

The counter-case

A gift shop whose holiday trade is almost all walk-in, with a website that exists mainly for hours and directions, gains less from product pages built early.

Made-to-order work cannot always be photographed in advance either. There, one gift page with examples of past pieces and a clear ordering deadline does the job.

For any shop that sells online, the advice stands: build the pages when the stock is ordered, not when it is unpacked.

Before November

  1. List the holiday stock with arrival dates.
  2. Photograph samples as soon as they exist.
  3. Build each product page in October.
  4. Publish each page with an honest arrival date.
  5. Update last year's gift page at the same address.
  6. Submit the sitemap in Search Console.
  7. Post last order dates for Christmas delivery.

Step four is the one most shops resist, because showing a product that has not arrived feels premature. It is also the step that lets shoppers and search engines find the product before the rush rather than after it.

Setting up sizes and colours so the cart offers only what exists is covered in product variations that confuse the cart.

Frequently asked questions

When should holiday product pages go up?

In October or early November, before gift shoppers start searching. Pages added in mid-December have little time to be found, and many shoppers have bought elsewhere by then.

Can a page go up before the stock arrives?

Yes, if it states honestly when the item will be available or ship. A clear arrival date lets shoppers and search engines find the product before the rush.

Where do photographs come from before stock arrives?

From samples, the first finished pieces or supplier images you are allowed to use. Photograph each colour or option you will sell, on the same background and light.

How long does Google take to find new pages?

On a small shop it can take days or weeks. Check the sitemap includes them, submit it in Search Console and link new products from the home page.

Should the gift page be new each year?

No. Update the existing page at its existing address, so it keeps whatever links and search history it has built up instead of starting from nothing.

Which shipping dates belong on the site?

The last order date for Christmas delivery, for each region you ship to, on the gift page and each product page, updated as dates pass.

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.

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