How Do I Update My Small Business Website for the Holidays? (2026 Checklist)

TL;DR: Update two places, and do it now rather than in December: your Google Business Profile and your website. On Google, set Special hours, which cover closures of up to 6 days in a row, and post an Offer with dates. On your site, put your holiday hours where people look, add one short holiday page or post, and refresh your hero photo. Do it early because Google says crawling a page “can take anywhere from a few days to a few weeks.” The 2026 dates: Thanksgiving is Thursday, November 26, Small Business Saturday is November 28, and Christmas is a Friday. In WebZum each of these is one sentence in the editor chat: change the hours, add a holiday post, give a photo a winter look, and undo if you don’t like it. See your site free. (Disclosure: WebZum is our product. Every number below links to its source.)

Verified October 18, 2026 against the linked sources.

The customer who drives over on December 24

Here’s the holiday problem in one scene. Someone checks your hours on their phone, sees “open until 6,” drives over at 4, and finds the door locked. They don’t blame Google. They blame you, and some of them say so in a review.

Holiday updates are mostly about preventing that, and a little about catching the extra traffic the season brings.

How big the season is

The National Retail Federation forecasts US retail sales in November and December 2026 will grow 4.2% to $1.013 trillion, after 3.1% growth to $972 billion last year. Retailers expect to hire 325,000 to 375,000 seasonal workers (NRF, October 15, 2026). Those are NRF’s forecasts for retail. Service businesses feel the same calendar in other ways: people book cleanings before guests arrive, order pies, and get the car fixed before a road trip.

Small businesses also get their own day. American Express created Small Business Saturday in 2010, and it falls on “the Saturday after Thanksgiving” (American Express). Thanksgiving 2026 is November 26 (OPM federal holiday schedule), so Small Business Saturday is November 28, 2026. Amex says it has helped generate “over $241 billion in reported sales.” That’s Amex’s own figure for its own program, so treat it as Amex’s claim.

The 2026 dates to plan around

From the federal schedule (OPM):

• Wednesday, November 11: Veterans Day
• Thursday, November 26: Thanksgiving Day
• Saturday, November 28: Small Business Saturday (Saturday after Thanksgiving)
• Friday, December 25: Christmas Day

Christmas on a Friday means a lot of businesses close Thursday afternoon through the weekend. Decide your hours now, then put them in both places below.

Step 1: Google first, because that’s where people check

Most customers see your hours on Google before they ever visit your site. Google’s rules for the busy season:

• Special hours handle short closures. “You can set special hours if your business temporarily adjusts its hours of operation or remains closed for up to 6 days in a row” (Google Business Profile Help). For a longer closure, check Google’s help for the right setting before you rely on special hours.
• Confirm holidays even if your hours don’t change. Google: “It’s a good idea to confirm your hours for official holidays, even if they’re the same as your regular hours.” Google says this “makes it clear to customers that your special hours are accurate.”
• Edits aren’t instant. “We review your changes before we update them live on your profile” (Google). Don’t leave it for the night before.
• Use an Offer post for your holiday deal. An Offer “requires a title, dates, and time” and gets a “View Offer” button automatically (Google).
• Keep phone numbers out of the post text. Google says posts with a phone number in the description “might get rejected if they cannot be verified as being connected to the business.”
• Give the post a date range. “Posts older than 6 months are archived unless a date range is set.”
• Add fresh photos. Google’s 2026 Business Profile playbook, citing Google internal data, says businesses with photos get 42% more requests for directions on Google Maps and 35% more clicks through to their websites (Google GBP Playbook 2026). Those are Google’s claims about its own product.

Step 2: Your website, before Google gets there

Updating your site in October isn’t overplanning. It’s timing. Google’s documentation: “Crawling can take anywhere from a few days to a few weeks,” and requesting a recrawl “does not guarantee that inclusion in search results will happen instantly or even at all” (Google Search Central). A holiday page published in mid-November may not show up in search until the rush is half over.

What to change:

1. Hours, wherever they appear. Footer, contact page, any “visit us” section. If your hours are on Google and on your site, they have to match.
2. One clear holiday message. A short page or blog post with your closed days, last order or booking date, and any holiday special. Link it from the home page.
3. A seasonal hero photo. The big photo at the top is the first thing people see. A winter version of your real storefront says “we’re open and paying attention.”
4. Your offer, in words. “Pie orders close November 23.” “Book a pre-holiday deep clean by December 15.” Specific beats festive.

For the technically minded: Google’s structured data for local businesses supports seasonal hours through validFrom and validThrough dates in openingHoursSpecification, and Google’s own example is “a business closed for winter holidays” (Google Search Central).

The secret: you don’t need to fake freshness

There’s an old SEO habit of changing the date on old pages every season so they look new. Google calls this out. One of its warning signs is “changing the date of pages to make them seem fresh when the content has not substantially changed,” and it says adding or removing lots of content just to look fresh won’t help (Google Search Central).

So update what actually changed (hours, the offer, the photo), and leave everything else alone. That’s less work and it’s what Google asks for.

The checklist

The honest beat about AI photos

Editing a photo by chat is new and it’s easy to overdo. Our rule: decorate, don’t invent. Adding fall leaves and pumpkins to your real counter is decoration, the same as putting up a wreath. Adding a product you don’t sell, or a dining room you don’t have, is false advertising with extra steps. Customers who show up expecting the picture remember the difference. We’ve written about why real photos beat AI images. Holiday edits work best on your real photo.

What WebZum does with this

Every WebZum site is edited by typing into a chat box at the bottom of the preview. For the holidays, that looks like this:

1. Change your hours. “We’re closed Thanksgiving Day, Thursday November 26, and close at 2pm on December 24.” Click Update business info and the site updates in about 30 seconds. The same step changes your phone, email, address, WhatsApp or LINE contact, business name, or site language.
2. Add the holiday post. “Add a blog post about our holiday hours and our pie pre-orders.” If your site doesn’t have a blog yet, the editor adds the Blog page and writes the first post. In our test it took under a minute.
3. Give your real photo a seasonal look. “Give the hero photo a cozy winter feel, with a little snow on the window.” The photo editor’s Edit tab changes your existing photo. In our tests a small edit took under 30 seconds and a bigger one about six minutes. Want something new instead? The Generate new tab creates a fresh photo. You can also upload your own photo and have it enhanced. Nothing changes until you hit Apply.
4. Change the colors for the season if you like. “Make the colors warmer, deep red and cream.”
5. Don’t like it? Undo. “Undo that last photo change.” Undo updates the live site, and version history shows what each edit did, so going back after New Year’s is one message.
6. If you advertise, adjust the ad too. In WebZum’s Google ad editor you can add holiday keywords (“thanksgiving pie orders”) and set which days and hours the ad may show, so it doesn’t run while you’re closed. You set the ad budget yourself.

What it costs

The preview and edits are free, with no credit card. Publishing:

• Basic, $19/month: your site on a webzum.com subdomain with hosting, SSL, and an AI assistant that answers visitors.
• Professional, $34/month: everything in Basic, plus a custom .com domain we register and pay for, and no WebZum branding.
• 3-year deal: buy 1 year, get 2 free. $216 for three years of Basic (about $6/month), $396 for Professional (about $11/month).

30-day money-back guarantee. Cancel anytime.

FAQ

How do I update my small business website for the holidays? Change your hours everywhere they appear, add one short holiday page or post with your closed days and offer, and refresh your hero photo. Then set Special hours on your Google Business Profile so both match. In WebZum, each change is one sentence in the editor chat.

How do I set holiday hours on Google? In your Business Profile, go to Edit profile → Hours → Special hours, pick the date, and set your hours or mark it closed. Special hours cover changes or closures of up to 6 days in a row (Google).

When should I post my holiday hours? Now. Google reviews profile edits before they go live (Google), and crawling a new web page can take a few days to a few weeks (Google). Thanksgiving 2026 is November 26.

Should I change the dates on last year’s holiday posts? No. Google lists “changing the date of pages to make them seem fresh when the content has not substantially changed” as a warning sign (Google). Write a new post for this year, or update the old one for real.

Can I use AI to make my store photos look festive? Yes, if you decorate rather than invent. Seasonal touches on your real photo are fine. Showing products or spaces you don’t have isn’t. WebZum’s photo editor edits your existing photo by chat, and you can undo by asking.

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Your holiday hours should be right before the first customer checks. Type your business name and see your site free, before you pay anything.