Holiday Decorations on your Website
You've probably seen it on sites like Google. They do something
to tweak their site for Christmas and other holidays. The big
question is, when is that type of thing appropriate for business
sites, and to what extent?
For business to business sites, changing some element of the
site itself is not generally appropriate. However, you might
post a picture on the front page of an employee handing out
gifts, or maybe the winner of the office costume contest,
depending on the holiday.
When a site sells direct to a consumer, some additional dressing
up of the site is appropriate. However, there are still
guidelines for what you should and shouldn't do.
You shouldn't:
- Do anything that interferes with the user browsing your site
- Make changes so large that your site does not look familiar to
those who have visited it before
- Add any animation that detracts from the content (very minor
animation is okay, but no snowflakes falling over the whole site)
- Use cheesy clip-art
You can:
- Modify your banner at the top of the site to add a Christmas
tree, Santa hat, Jack-o-Lantern, etc.
- Change your color scheme to holiday appropriate colors (green
and red, orange and black), while everything else remains the
same.
- Add a holiday graphic to the bottom of a side menu.
- Simply put a holiday-related picture that also relates to your
business on the front page.
When you do any of these modifications, make sure you save the
original first! As long as you do that, dressing your sit up
occasionally can make customers and potential customers see that
you really care and are not just a faceless company.