Between now and New Year’s, people who have never been through your door will look you up. They are buying gifts, booking a party, finding somewhere open late, or trying to work out whether you are worth the drive in holiday traffic. Most of them will do it on a phone, standing somewhere else, in about ten seconds.
Your website gets one look. Here is what that look is really checking, and how to find out whether yours passes before the rush instead of after it.
The ten-second test
Pick up your phone, not your computer. Search for your business the way a stranger would, tap through to your website, and time yourself on these:
- Can you read it without pinching? If the text is tiny and you have to zoom in, the site was built for a desktop screen and shrunk to fit. Most people will not zoom. They go back and tap the next result.
- Can you call with one tap? Your phone number should be a button. If it is plain text, or worse, part of a picture, nobody can call you from it.
- Are the hours right, including the holiday hours? Closed on the 25th, open late on the 23rd, a different Saturday schedule? If your site says otherwise, someone drives over to a locked door, and they remember.
- Does it look like you are still open? A copyright year from a long time ago, a “new” announcement from three summers back, a menu with old prices: each one quietly says nobody is looking after this.
- Can they get directions? The address should open in their maps app with one tap, and match what Google shows.
If you passed all five, you are ahead of most of the businesses you compete with. If you failed one or two, they are usually quick fixes. If you failed three or more, the site is costing you customers every day, and December is when it costs the most.
Check Google too
Your website and your Google listing work as a pair. Search for yourself on Google Maps and look at what a customer sees:
- Is your website linked? A surprising number of listings show “Add website”, which means everyone who finds you on Maps never sees your site at all.
- Do the hours match the ones on your website? When they disagree, people trust neither.
- Is the phone number current?
Fixing your listing is free and takes a few minutes. It is the cheapest marketing you will do all year.
Fix it now, not in January
The temptation is to wait until things calm down. The problem is that the people looking you up in December are the ones you most want: new customers with money to spend and a reason to choose somebody. A site that loses them in December does not get them back in January.
Holiday hours, a gift card page, a line about ordering ahead for parties: these are small additions that pay for themselves in one season, and they are far easier on a site that is already built to change.
What we do
We build websites for local businesses across Solano County: readable on any phone, one tap to call, hours you can change without calling a developer. It is $995 to build and $125 a month after that, which covers hosting, the domain, security, and changes whenever you need them, holiday hours included.
If you are not sure how your site holds up, ask us. We will look at it on a phone and tell you plainly what a customer sees, whether or not you hire us.