Guide for business owners
How to update your website hours without a developer
The short answer
Update your Google Business Profile first: it holds the hours Google Search and Maps show, and you can change it yourself in a few minutes. Then change the hours on your website. On Squarespace, Wix and Shopify you can do that yourself in the built-in editor, and usually on WordPress and Webflow too if you have a login. If someone else built the site and there is no editor you can use, ask your developer once to add ReCopyFast's line, then change the hours yourself from then on.
Checked against the linked sources on .
Start with Google Business Profile
When someone searches for your business or looks it up on Maps, the hours in Google's business panel come from your Google Business Profile, not from your website. Fix them there first, signed in to the Google account that manages the profile.
- Go to your Business Profile and select Edit profile, then Hours.
- To change a holiday or one-off day, select Edit next to Special hours. Review a suggested date, or choose Add a date.
- If you're open, uncheck Closed and enter the hours. If you're closed all day, leave Closed checked.
- Select Save.
Google's help says special hours only show when your regular hours are set to Open with main hours, suggests confirming official holidays even when your hours don't change, and recommends marking the business temporarily closed for closures of 7 days or more (Google's special hours help).
Wrong hours cost visits: in a 2022 survey commissioned by Yext, a listings company, 44% of 1,000+ US respondents had visited a closed location in the past year because the business hours online were inaccurate (Yext, 2022).
Squarespace, Wix or Shopify: you can do this yourself
These platforms come with their own editor, and hours are usually ordinary text on a page or in the footer. If you can log in, you don't need a developer, or us.
- Squarespace: edit the page, click into the text block that holds your hours, type the new hours and Save (Squarespace text blocks).
- Wix: open the editor, double-click the text box with your hours, type, then publish. Wix has more than one editor, so the menus differ a little (Wix text help).
- Shopify: in the admin, go to Online Store, then Edit theme, open the section that shows your hours (often the footer or a contact page), edit its text and Save. Which sections you have depends on your theme (Shopify sections and blocks).
Can't log in? The account may be in your developer's or agency's name. Start with how to edit a website someone else built.
WordPress: Pages, then the editor
- Log in to your site's WordPress admin.
- Go to Pages and open the page that shows your hours. If they're in the footer, look under Appearance; where exactly depends on your theme.
- Click the text, type the new hours, then select Update (or Save).
- Open the live page on your phone to check it.
If the page opens with a big Edit with Elementor or Divi button instead of your text, it was built with a page builder. See how to edit WordPress text without Elementor.
Webflow: the Content editor seat
Webflow has retired its legacy Editor. Clients now edit as a Content editor, signed in to a Webflow account with a seat on the site's Workspace (Webflow's deprecation FAQ). Open the page, click the text, use the pencil icon and type; Webflow's help also lets you open a page for editing by adding ?update to the end of its address (Webflow content editor help).
If your designer never gave you a seat, ask for one. Whether you can publish, and on which plan, is set in their Workspace.
A site someone else built, with no editor you can use
Custom-built sites, sites made with AI tools and sites where only your developer has the login often give you no editor at all. Each change of hours becomes an email and, often, an invoice.
- Ask your developer for your own login to whatever editor the site has, if it has one.
- Or ask them once to add ReCopyFast's line. After that you click the hours on your own site, type, and publish.
- If your developer has disappeared and nobody can change the site, get access first: the domain, the hosting and the logins should be in your name. Here's how to check who owns your website.
Holiday hours checklist
- Google Business Profile: add special hours for each day that differs, and confirm official holidays even if your hours stay the same.
- Website: a short dated notice at the top of the homepage, plus the hours on your contact page and in the footer.
- Every other place that lists your hours: maps apps, review sites and your social pages.
- Online ordering or booking: block the closed days there too, or customers can still book them.
- Phone: update your voicemail greeting.
- Door: a printed sign with the dates.
- The day after: take the notice down and check the regular hours came back.
Where ReCopyFast fits
ReCopyFast is for the last case: a site someone else built, where you have no editor, or one you'd rather not touch. Your developer adds one line to the site, once. Then you open your own website, click the hours, type the new ones and publish.
If you can already change your hours in Squarespace, Wix, Shopify or WordPress and it feels fine, keep doing that. You don't need us.
How it works, honestly
You can change existing words and swap existing photos, not the layout, new pages, forms or code. Published changes are applied in the visitor's browser just after the page loads, so the original text can show for a moment first. Google can run JavaScript when it indexes pages (Google Search Central: JavaScript SEO basics), but Google also notes that not all bots can run JavaScript, and those see the original text, so keep your main headline and key search text in the site itself. We don't promise any SEO benefit. If your developer later moves things around or redesigns a page, some of your changes can stop showing, and we don't warn you about that yet.
Questions owners ask
- Which hours does Google show: my website's or my Business Profile's?
- The business panel in Google Search and Maps shows the hours in your Google Business Profile. Keep your website and your profile the same; when they disagree, customers don't know which to trust.
- Do I need a developer to change my hours on Squarespace, Wix or Shopify?
- No. If you can log in, the built-in editor lets you change the text that shows your hours. You need someone else only if the account isn't in your name.
- How should I show holiday hours on my website?
- Put a short notice with the dates where people look first, at the top of the homepage and next to your regular hours, and take it down the day after.
- Can I change my hours from my phone?
- Often. Google Business Profile can be edited from Google Search and the Maps app. Most website editors are easier on a computer.