Prepare your website for Christmas

Just like that, Christmas is almost upon us. If you’re planning on closing your business for Christmas (I really hope you are), there are a few things you could do to make sure your company website is all set for the holiday season.

My name is Paul Edwards, I am a Web Consultant and Frontend Developer and I’ve been working in the web industry since 2005. If you have any questions about the things discussed in this blog post, please let me know and I will do my best to help. You can reach me via my contact page.

1. Add a notice to your website: Let your website visitors know that you’ll be closed for a few days by adding a banner or message to your site and add detailed hours on your contact page. Include the dates that you’ll be closed and any alternative arrangements you have for customer support or orders.
2. Adjust your online store: If you have an online store that ships physical products make sure to disable the option to place orders during the closed period or set up an automatic response to let customers know when you’ll be able to process their orders. You could also offer some holiday discounts or promotions to encourage customers to shop early.
3. Plan for social media: Use social media to keep your followers updated on your holiday hours and any special deals or promotions you may be offering. And don’t forget to thank your customers for their business and wish them a happy holiday!
4. Set up automated responses: If you receive a lot of inquiries or customer support requests through your website or email, set up automated responses to let people know that you’ll be closed for the holiday season. Include information about when you’ll be back in business and any alternative arrangements you have in place for customer support during this time.
5. Perform WordPress maintenance: If your website is powered by WordPress, make sure to update your core, plugins, and themes to the latest versions, take a full backup of your website, and run a database optimization plugin to remove unnecessary data and improve performance.
6. Check server space: Have a look at your hosting account, is it running near to capacity? If you have automated backups and other processes configured will your hosting account run out of storage space over the holiday? To clear some space you can download any backups and delete them from your server.
7. Talk with your website maintainer: You have carried out the above tasks and your website is in a good state to be left over Christmas, however, if something does go wrong who will you call. Do you have a maintenance or a disaster recovery agreement in place should something go wrong? Talk to however maintains your website and agree what will happen if something goes wrong.

By following these steps, you can make sure your website is all set for the holiday season. Then you can kick back and relax with a mug of hot cocoa and some cozy blankets, knowing that your website is in great shape. Happy holidays!

Thanks for spending your time reading (or listening) to this. Should you feel that your website would benefit from a health check and/or ongoing maintenance please give me a call on 01903 527927 and I will do my best to help.