Short answer: kick off a website project in the weeks after Christmas Stroll, shoot photography before the island empties out or use the quiet to shoot interiors, build through January and February, and launch by mid-March so Google has indexed everything before Daffodil weekend in late April. A summer launch means fixing problems while you are busiest and losing bookings you will never see.

Why summer launches fail

Every year someone decides in June that the website needs to change. What happens next is predictable. The owner is working eighty-hour weeks, feedback takes three weeks per round, photos get taken in a rush during service, and the new site goes live in August, after the customers it was meant to attract have already booked elsewhere.

Google also needs time. A new page can take weeks to be crawled, indexed, and ranked. If your site launches on the Fourth of July, it is fighting for visibility during the exact weeks it needed to already be winning.

The island's calendar gives you a better option. Nantucket's peak runs roughly Memorial Day to Columbus Day, the Chamber's Daffodil Festival opens the season in late April, and the deadest stretch is January through March. That dead stretch is your build window.

November and December: decide and gather

Stroll weekend, the first weekend in December, is the last big push of the year. Use the weeks around it to make decisions, not to build.

  • Write down what the site needs to do next summer. Book rooms, fill tables, sell paintings, generate landscaping leads from off-island owners. Be specific.
  • Collect what you already have. Logo files, old photos, your menu or price list, reviews you are proud of.
  • Get a quote and a timeline from your designer. Read what to ask before hiring one.
  • If your business is open for Stroll, shoot photos then. Decorated storefronts and full rooms photograph far better than a shuttered building in February.

January: content and photography

January is when the real work happens because nobody is interrupting you.

  • Write, or have written, every page. Your about page, your services, your story. Owners write better in January than in July.
  • Shoot the photos you could not get in December. Interiors, products, headshots of the team, the boat on the hard. See why island businesses cannot fake their photography.
  • Confirm your Google Business Profile is accurate and set seasonal hours properly. My guide to seasonal hours on Google walks through it.

February: build and review

The site gets built. Your job is to give fast, honest feedback. One consolidated round of notes beats ten emails. Look at every page on your phone, not just your laptop, because that is how your customers will see it.

This is also when you handle the unglamorous parts: domain access, email setup, redirects from old page addresses, and making sure the contact form actually lands in an inbox someone checks.

March: launch and index

Launch in early to mid-March. Then:

  • Submit the sitemap in Google Search Console.
  • Update your Google Business Profile link, your Instagram bio, and your Chamber listing to the new site.
  • Publish one or two pages of genuinely useful content aimed at the people planning their summer. Rental guests, wedding parties, and charter groups are booking in March.
  • Ask three loyal customers for a Google review while things are calm.

By Daffodil weekend, the new site has been indexed for a month, the photos are real, and every booking from April to October runs through something you are proud of.

Launch week checklist

  • Every page loads on a phone in under two seconds.
  • Hours, phone number, and address match Google exactly.
  • The contact form has been tested from a phone.
  • Old links redirect to new pages.
  • Title tags and descriptions are written, not placeholders.
  • Someone knows how to update the menu, hours, or listings.

If you missed the window

It is never too late to fix a broken site, but scope it down. Fix the phone experience, the hours, and the contact form now, and save the full redesign for after Stroll. I take on a limited number of off-season projects each year, so if you want a spot for this winter, get in touch early.