10 Quick Website Fixes Before the Holiday Rush

The holiday shopping season is coming. Your website is about to get slammed with more traffic than any other time of year. And if it's not ready, you're going to lose sales—plain and simple.

I've watched Dubuque businesses lose thousands of dollars because their website crashed on Black Friday or their checkout process was too confusing during the busiest shopping week of the year. These problems are 100% preventable.

You don't need a complete website overhaul. What you need is a quick tune-up to make sure everything works when it matters most. Here are 10 fixes you can knock out in a weekend—or call me if you need help getting them done fast.

Test Your Checkout Process on Every Device

This is the big one. If someone can't complete a purchase, nothing else matters. Pull out your phone, your tablet, your laptop. Try to buy something on each device.

Is the "Add to Cart" button easy to click? Can you see the checkout button without scrolling? Does the form work on mobile? Do credit card fields accept paste for autofill? Test everything. Have a friend test it too.

I've seen buttons that were too small to tap on mobile, checkout pages that broke on Safari, and forms that wouldn't submit on older browsers. You find these problems now or you find them when customers are trying to give you money and can't.

Update Your Shipping Deadlines and Holiday Hours

Put this information everywhere: your homepage, your product pages, your checkout page, your footer. Tell people exactly when they need to order to get their stuff before Christmas or Hanukkah.

Be honest about it. If the cutoff is December 18th for standard shipping, say that. Don't make people dig through your FAQ to find this information. And if your office is closed certain days, put that up front too.

For local Dubuque businesses offering local pickup, make sure those hours are crystal clear. Nothing's worse than someone showing up to grab their order and finding you closed.

Check Your Site Speed Right Now

Go to PageSpeed Insights and run your homepage through it. Then test your product pages and checkout. If you're scoring below 50 on mobile, that's a problem.

Slow sites kill conversions. People won't wait around. A one-second delay in load time can drop conversions by 7%. During the holidays when everyone's in a hurry, they'll just go to your competitor instead.

Quick speed wins: compress your images (use TinyPNG), remove plugins you don't actually use, clear your cache, and if you're on cheap hosting, this might be the time to upgrade for the season.

Make Your Search Function Actually Work

Try searching for your most popular products. Does your site find them? Now try common misspellings or alternate names. Does it still work?

If someone searches for "men's blue sweater" and your site returns nothing—even though you sell exactly that—you just lost a sale. Fix your search or improve your product descriptions so search actually finds stuff.

If your site search is terrible and you can't fix it quickly, hide it. Better to have no search than a broken search that frustrates customers.

Add Trust Signals and Return Policies

People are spending more money during the holidays, which means they're more cautious about where they spend it. Your site needs to scream "trustworthy business" not "sketchy operation that might steal my credit card."

Make your return policy easy to find. Add security badges near your checkout. Include your physical address and phone number. If you've got good reviews, display them prominently.

For Dubuque area businesses, mention that you're local. "Family-owned business serving the Tri-States since 2010" carries weight. Use it.

Create a Gift Guide or Holiday Landing Page

Don't make people hunt through your entire catalog to find gift ideas. Create a simple page: "Holiday Gift Guide" or "Gifts Under $50" or "Stocking Stuffers."

This doesn't need to be fancy. A basic page with photos, links, and prices works fine. The goal is to make shopping easier. Group products in ways that make sense for gift-givers, not just your internal product categories.

If you're a service business instead of retail, create a holiday-specific offer page. "Holiday Gift Certificates" or "Book Your January Deep Clean Before the Rush" or whatever makes sense for your business.

Set Up Abandoned Cart Emails

Most people who add stuff to their cart don't buy it. During the holidays, that's even more true—people are browsing, comparing prices, getting distracted.

If your platform supports abandoned cart emails (Shopify, WooCommerce, most ecommerce systems do), turn them on. Send an automatic email a few hours after someone abandons their cart reminding them about it.

These emails recover sales you'd otherwise lose. They work. Set them up once and they run automatically all season.

Update Your Contact Information Everywhere

Check that your phone number, email, and hours are correct on your website, your Google Business Profile, your Facebook page, everywhere. Customers need to reach you when they have questions about orders.

If you're extending your hours for the holidays, update that information now. If you're adding staff and can answer emails faster, mention that. If there's going to be a delay because you're swamped, set expectations early.

Better yet, add a FAQ section to your site answering common holiday questions so you're not answering the same email 50 times.

Check Your SSL Certificate and Security

Look at your website URL. Does it say "https" with a little lock icon? If not, you have a problem. Browsers will literally warn people that your site is "not secure" before they can even see it.

SSL certificates keep customer data encrypted. They're also required for payment processing. Most hosting companies provide them free now. If yours doesn't, get one installed before Black Friday.

While you're at it, make sure your payment processor is up to date and working. Test it. Place a real order if you have to. Don't find out your payment system is broken when a customer tries to buy.

Prepare Your Inventory and Stock Levels

If you're selling physical products, make sure your website shows accurate inventory. Nothing's worse than someone ordering something for Christmas only to get an email days later saying "Actually, we're out of stock."

Update your product pages to show stock levels if possible. Or at least hide products that are completely sold out. And have a plan for what happens if you sell out of something popular mid-season.

Can you take backorders? Can you suggest alternatives? Figure this out now, not when your bestseller runs out on December 10th.

Get This Done This Weekend

You don't need to do everything perfectly. You need to do enough that your website doesn't cost you sales during your biggest revenue season of the year.

Pick the three items from this list that matter most for your business. Do those first. Then tackle the rest as you have time.

And if you realize you're in over your head—your checkout's broken, your site's slow, or you just don't have time to deal with this—call someone. A few hundred bucks to fix these problems now is way cheaper than thousands in lost holiday sales.

For Dubuque area businesses that need help getting their site holiday-ready fast, we offer quick tune-up packages. We can knock out these fixes in a few days so you're ready before the rush hits. Reach out if you need backup.