On a big sale day, open the home page with the offer, written as text: what it covers, when it ends, and one link to the sale. Then schedule the normal page to return.

The first page on the busiest day

Today is Black Friday. Most people reaching a store's home page today came because of the sale: an email, an ad, a post, a friend's mention.

On many sites the home page greets them as it did last week: the usual photograph, the usual welcome, and the offer further down or on a slider's third slide.

A visitor who came for the offer and cannot see it assumes they are in the wrong place or the sale has not started, and starts looking elsewhere.

Boxing Day is about five weeks away, and the same thing will happen then unless the page is planned now.

What a sale-day visitor looks for

The third is the one most sale banners leave out. A visitor who knows the offer ends on Monday at midnight Pacific can decide calmly; one who does not either rushes or puts it off.

Where offers get lost

Sliders are the usual culprit. Few visitors wait for a third slide, and on phones many sliders show only the first, or move too quickly to read.

Pop-ups come next. On a phone they are dismissed by reflex, often before anyone reads them, and the offer goes with them.

Then there is text inside a banner image: unreadable to screen readers, a smudge on a small screen, and slow to correct.

And a full-screen photograph above the offer pushes it below the first screen of a phone, where people arriving in a hurry seldom scroll.

A temporary layout, not a redesign

The sale-day home page needs one new section, not a new design: a band at the top with the offer as a heading, what it covers, the end date and time, and one button to the sale.

Below it, a few of the sale's best sellers, so a visitor can start without another click.

Everything else on the normal home page stays where it was, underneath. Regular customers find what they expect, and sale visitors find the sale first.

Build the band in live text on a background colour or a single light photograph. It loads quickly, reads on any screen and can be edited in a minute.

Switch off any video or slider for the weekend as well. The busiest day is the worst day for a heavy page, since every visitor arrives while the server is under most strain.

Build it before the day

The sale itself should have a page with its own address, built and checked days ahead: every product on it in stock, every price right, every link working.

Prepare the home page change as a copy of the normal page, so going live is a swap rather than an edit made under pressure.

Look at both on a phone with someone who has not seen them. They will tell you whether the offer is clear within five seconds.

Point the emails and ads straight at the sale page. The home page then serves everyone else who arrives that day.

A worked example

A men's grooming products store sells beard oils, shaving soaps and gift kits from a shop in an old brick building and through its website.

Last year its Black Friday offer on gift kits was the third of four slides on the home page, set inside an image. On phones the offer appeared only after several seconds.

The sale emails linked to the home page. By lunchtime the store had answered a dozen messages asking whether the sale had started.

This year the kits have their own sale page, and the emails link to it. The home page opens with a band in text: the offer, the kits included, and the end, Monday at midnight Pacific.

The slider is switched off for the weekend. The change went live at six this morning, and the normal home page is booked to return on Tuesday.

Scheduling the switch

Most store platforms let sale prices switch on and off by themselves on set dates. Home page changes are less consistent: some themes and plugins can schedule them, many cannot.

Where the platform cannot, decide who makes the change, at what time, and who checks it afterwards. A switch planned for midnight needs somebody awake at midnight.

Check the time zone in the store's settings as well. A sale told to end at midnight in the wrong zone ends at somebody else's midnight.

Putting it back

Schedule the end when you schedule the start, and treat it as part of the same job. A sale band still up in mid-December tells visitors that nobody is minding the store.

Check everywhere the sale appeared: the top band, any announcement bar, product badges, the menu item, pop-ups and shipping notes.

Keep the sale page's address alive afterwards, saying the sale has ended and linking to the same products at regular prices, since old emails and shared links keep sending people there.

The next busy day

Cyber Monday is three days away, and Boxing Day follows in December. The same band, with new words, serves both.

Save it as a reusable section, with a short note on switching it on and off. Next time the work is the wording, not the building.

A business whose busiest day falls elsewhere can treat it the same way: an opening day, a registration deadline, the first warm weekend.

The counter-case

A store whose sale covers everything, with a home page that is already plain, may need no more than an announcement bar and a correct end date.

A business that does not run sales can ignore the band altogether. Its home page simply needs to stay fast and clear today.

And the band must never become permanent. A home page that always shouts about a sale loses the ability to announce one.

On the day itself, though: the offer first, in text, with one way in, and the normal page back on schedule.

Before the next sale

  1. Build the sale page with its own address.
  2. Copy the home page and add the offer band.
  3. State the end time with its time zone.
  4. Check both pages on a phone.
  5. Point emails and ads at the sale page.
  6. Schedule the switch and name who checks it.
  7. Schedule the return at the same time.

Step seven is the easiest to forget. The start of a sale has a deadline everyone feels; the end has none, so book it at the same moment.

What usually occupies that top space the rest of the year is examined in the home page video nobody presses play on.

Frequently asked questions

What should a sale-day home page show first?

The offer in words, what it covers, when it ends with the time zone, one button to the sale page, and when orders will ship.

Why not put the offer in a slider?

Few visitors wait for later slides, and on phones many sliders show only the first. An offer on the third slide is effectively hidden.

Should the offer be an image?

No. Text inside an image cannot be read by screen readers, blurs on small screens and is slow to correct. Live text works better.

Where should sale emails link?

To a sale page with its own address, built and checked in advance. The home page then serves everyone else who arrives that day.

How do I schedule the change?

Sale prices can usually be scheduled in the store platform. Home page changes vary, so where scheduling is unavailable, name who makes the switch and who checks it.

What happens to the sale page afterwards?

Keep its address working with a note that the sale has ended and links to the same products, since old emails and shared links keep arriving.

West Coast Media Solutions Inc. provides web design, web development, hosting, digital marketing, and business consulting to organisations across Canada, drawing on more than twenty-five years in the field.

Black Friday offer stuck on slide three?

Send us your home page. We will build a temporary offer band you can reuse on Boxing Day.

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