Business hours on your website: keeping them right

Wrong hours cost more than missing hours. A customer who drives over because your website said you were open, and finds the door locked, may not try again. The fix is simple: show your hours in one clear place, write them the way people read them, change them before every holiday and season, and keep them identical on your website and your Google Business Profile. Here is how to set that up so it stays right without much effort.

Write hours the way people read them

Customers glance at hours. They want to know whether you are open now, or when you open next. Make that easy:

One line per day, or grouped days. "Monday to Friday: 8 am to 5 pm. Saturday: 9 am to 1 pm. Sunday: closed."
Always say "closed" for days you are closed, rather than leaving them out. A missing Sunday makes people wonder.
Use plain times. "8 am to 5 pm" or "8:00 am – 5:00 pm". Avoid 24-hour time and avoid "8-5" on its own, which can be misread.
Note the time zone only if you serve people in other zones, such as for phone appointments.
Separate different kinds of hours if you have them: "Showroom", "Phone lines", "Emergency calls". A plumber's office may close at 5 pm while the emergency line runs all night. Say both.

Lunch closures, early closing on Fridays or one late evening a week all belong in the list. A customer who comes at 12:30 to a shop that closes from 12 to 1 is a customer you lost.

Where hours belong on the site

The contact page: the full list, every day of the week.
The footer: a short version on every page, such as "Mon–Fri 8–5, Sat 9–1". The footer is where many people look first.
The home page: for walk-in businesses like a bakery, a café, a barber or a hardware store, show today's hours or the full week near the top. For businesses customers call or book, the hours belong next to the phone number.
Next to the phone and booking buttons: "Call 8 am to 5 pm, weekdays." That tells a caller whether someone will pick up.

Write hours as text, never as part of a picture. Text can be changed in a minute, read on any phone and read by Google.

Holidays: the change most sites miss

The days around major holidays are when hours are most often wrong and when customers are most likely to check. Before each one, update the site:

Put a short notice at the top of the home page a week or so before: "Closed Thursday, November 26, for Thanksgiving. Open regular hours Friday." Take it down the day after.
Update the hours on the contact page if the closure is longer than a day, such as over Christmas and New Year.
Update your Google Business Profile's special hours for the same days. In your profile, go to the hours section and add "special hours" for each date. Google then shows those hours instead of your regular ones for that day.

The US holidays that most often change small-business hours are New Year's Day, Memorial Day, the Fourth of July, Labor Day, Thanksgiving and the day after, Christmas Eve and Christmas Day, and New Year's Eve. Some businesses also close for Easter, Veterans Day or local events.

Seasonal hours

Many businesses have a summer schedule and a winter schedule: a garden center, an ice cream shop, a pool service, a ski repair shop, a landscaper, a tax preparer in filing season. For these:

Write both schedules on the site with the dates they apply: "Summer hours, Memorial Day to Labor Day: open daily 10 am to 8 pm. Winter hours: Friday to Sunday, noon to 5 pm."
Show the current one first, and change the order when the season turns.
Update Google's regular hours on the day the season changes, not just your site.
Say when you are closed for the season and when you reopen: "We're closed for the winter. Back on April 1." A closed-for-the-season notice keeps people from thinking you went out of business.

For a seasonal business, the yearly site routine is worth writing down. A once-a-season website routine has a short checklist.

Matching Google, every time

Many customers see your hours on Google before they ever see your website: in the search results, on Google Maps or in the panel on the right of a search. If your site says one thing and Google another, customers do not know which to trust, and often trust the wrong one.

Keep them identical. Every time you change one, change the other the same day.
Check Google for "suggested edits". Google sometimes changes hours on its own, from user suggestions or what it finds elsewhere. Log in to your Business Profile now and then and check that the hours are still yours.
Check other listings too, if you use them: Apple Maps, Yelp, Facebook, Bing. The same rule applies.

How your Google Business Profile and your website work together explains why these two should always tell the same story.

When something unexpected happens

Snowstorms, a power cut, a sick day for a one-person shop. For short, unplanned closures:

Update Google first, since that is where most people check on the day. You can mark the day as closed in special hours from the Google Maps app on your phone.
Add a one-line notice on your site if you can edit it from your phone.
Post on social media if your customers follow you there.
Change your voicemail greeting.

If your website is hard to edit from a phone, that alone is a reason to pick a setup where a change like this takes a minute.

What to do this week

Check your hours on your site's contact page, footer and home page, and make them identical.
Compare them with your Google Business Profile and fix any difference.
Add any lunch closures or special evenings you have left out.
Put holiday reminders for the next twelve months in your calendar.
If you are seasonal, write both schedules on the site with their dates.

If changing your hours on your current site means calling someone or waiting for a designer, you can see your site rebuilt first and try changing the hours yourself in the panel.