A lot of local work is seasonal. Some trades stop entirely for part of the year. Others shift to a different kind of job. Most have a busy stretch where the phone does not stop and a quiet one where it barely rings.
The business handles the change without much difficulty. The website usually does not, because it was written in one season and left there.
The result is a site advertising the wrong work at the wrong time of year, every year, in both directions.
Two failures, opposite in shape
Advertising the out-of-season work. Somebody arrives wanting the thing you will not be doing for four months. You either turn them away or take a booking that sits.
Being silent about the in-season work. The thing you most want right now is buried on a page below whatever the site was built around.
Both are the same problem: a static description of a business that moves.
Prepare the changes in advance
Seasonal changes are the most predictable thing in your year, which makes them the easiest to prepare for.
Once, in a quiet period, write out what the site should say in each part of the year. What goes at the top. Which service leads. What the front page emphasises. What the profile description says. What the hours are.
Two or four versions, depending on your trade. Written once, reused every year.
Set the switch dates now
Put the changeover dates on the calendar, ahead of the season rather than in the middle of it.
The reminder should list the surfaces, not just say that the season changed. Website front page, the relevant service pages, the profile description and services, hours if they move, and any automatic reply or voicemail that mentions what you do.
A reminder that just says the name of the season produces one edit and leaves the rest.
Do not delete the out-of-season pages
The page for work you do in summer should stay up in winter. It is still where somebody planning ahead will land.
What changes is the emphasis and the wording about availability. The page says clearly when the work is done, whether you are booking for it now, and what happens if somebody enquires out of season.
That turns an out-of-season visitor into a booking rather than a bounce.
Say what happens in the quiet season
If you shut down, reduce hours, or stop taking a kind of work for part of the year, publish that.
Say when you are back, whether messages are being read in the meantime, and whether anything urgent is handled differently. A closure with no next step reads as a business that may have stopped altogether.
Then set the reversion date on the calendar in the same sitting, with the same surface list.
Take photographs in every season
Proof clusters in the busy season, because that is when the work is happening and when somebody thinks to photograph it.
Make a point of getting shots of the off-season work too. Otherwise the site shows one kind of job all year and the other half of what you do has no evidence behind it.
Watch for the stale seasonal offer
Seasonal promotions are the most reliable source of expired content on a small-business website.
Whatever goes up for a season comes down at the end of it, on a date written in the calendar at the moment it was published, listing every surface it appears on.
Use the quiet season for the work you never get to
The off-season is when the site actually gets fixed, because it is the only time there is room.
Correcting stale facts, checking claims, photographing finished work from the busy season, writing the pages you meant to write. None of it happens in July.
Put that on the calendar too.
The short version
Write the seasonal versions once. Put the switch dates and the surface list on the calendar. Keep out-of-season pages up with honest availability wording. Photograph both seasons. Take the offers down on time.
If you want an outside look at what your site currently says compared to what you are actually doing right now, the free check covers your website, your Google profile, your search results, and your reviews. Nothing is logged into or changed, and the findings are yours to keep.