Redesigning your website before a busy season

If your busy season is coming, the question is not only whether to update your website but how much you can safely change in the time left. Start early enough that the new site is live and checked at least a few weeks before the rush. If that window has passed, fix the handful of things that cost you calls, and save the full redesign for the slow months after.

Work backward from your first busy day

Pick the day your phone usually starts ringing hard: the first warm weekend for an HVAC company, the start of wedding season for a florist, early fall for a heating oil delivery business, January for a tax preparer. Then count back:

Three to four weeks before that day: the new site should be live. This gives you time to notice a broken form, a wrong phone number or a missing page while calls are still slow.
One to two weeks before going live: the new site is finished as a preview and you are checking it, page by page, on your phone.
Before that: the building itself, plus your time to answer questions and send photos or corrections.

How long the building takes depends on who does it. A designer working from scratch may need weeks; a service that rebuilds from your existing site can be much faster. Our guide on how long a redesign takes gives realistic ranges. Whatever the number, add time for yourself: owners in the run-up to a season rarely have spare evenings.

Set a freeze date and keep it

A freeze date is the last day you allow changes to the website before the season. After it, you only fix things that are broken. Write it on the calendar.

The reason is simple. Every change to a website is a small chance to break something: a form that stops sending, a menu link that goes nowhere, a page that looks wrong on phones. In March that costs you nothing. In your busiest week it costs you jobs you will never hear about, because the customer who could not get through just called someone else.

If time is short: the order to fix things

When you have only a week or two, skip the redesign and go down this list. Each item is something busy-season customers hit first.

Your phone number. It should be at the top of every page and tappable on a phone, so one tap starts the call. Test it yourself.
Hours and availability. Update hours for the season. If you are booking two weeks out, say so: "Currently scheduling about two weeks ahead." People accept a wait they were told about.
The main service for this season. If spring means AC tune-ups and your home page leads with furnace repair, swap the order or the headline.
The contact form. Send yourself a test message and make sure it arrives, and goes to an inbox someone reads every day. Our guide on where contact form messages go explains how to check.
Seasonal offers or deadlines. If you run an early-booking discount, put the end date on it.
Broken links and dead pages. Click every item in your menu. Remove or fix anything that leads to an error page.

None of these needs a new design. Most can be done in your current website editor or by asking whoever manages your site.

What a full redesign should prioritize

If you do have the time, a redesign before the season should be judged on whether it makes the busy weeks easier, not on how it looks. Keep the priorities in this order:

Getting calls and requests through. Big phone buttons, a short form, and your service area on the first screen.
Answering the questions you hear fifty times a season. If every caller asks whether you service their town, whether you do weekends, or how soon you can come, put those answers on the site. Fewer repeated calls means more time for paid work.
Keeping what already works. If customers find your current site on Google, the new one should keep the same page addresses or forward the old ones. A season is the worst time to discover lost pages. Our guide on keeping customers from Google during a redesign explains what to ask for.
Being easy for you to update. During the season you will want to change hours, mark a service as full or post a notice. Make sure you can do that yourself in a few minutes.

Design touches like new colors, a new layout or new photos come after those. They matter, but they are the part you can still improve once the season ends.

The week before the season

Whether you redesigned or just tidied up, do this check in the final week. It takes under an hour.

Open the site on your own phone, on cellular data rather than Wi-Fi, and time how long the home page takes to appear.
Tap the phone number. Fill in the form. Click the booking or quote link if you have one.
Read the hours, the service area and the first paragraph of the home page out loud. Are they true for this season?
Check your Google Business Profile shows the same hours and phone number as the site.
Ask someone who has never used your site to find out whether you serve their town and how to book. Watch where they get stuck.

After the season: the right time for big changes

The slow months right after the rush are the best time for a proper redesign. You remember exactly what customers asked, which pages they mentioned and where they got confused. Write those down while they are fresh, then use them as the brief. If your business has a strong off-season and a short peak, our guide on websites for seasonal businesses covers how to set up a site that switches between the two.

What to do this week

Mark your first busy day and your freeze date on the calendar.
Count the weeks between today and the freeze date. Fewer than four: do the short list above. More than that: you have room for a redesign.
Make a list of the five questions customers asked most last season.
Test your phone link and contact form today.

If you would rather see a finished new site before deciding whether there is time, you can see your site rebuilt first and judge it against your calendar.