How to Keep Your Website Updated

It is crucial that your website remains updated. Search engines reward updated content by visiting websites more often and keeping current web pages in their indexes. Now more than ever, since economic times are hard, an updated website can be a clue to customers that you are still in business.

Many businesses struggle with updating their website and posting new content. Here are a few ideas you can use to help create new content more often and keep your website updated.

Carve out some space on your homepage.

An easy indicator to new visitors and return visitors that your website content is up-to-date is something new on your homepage. Find some space on the homepage to highlight other places on your website, announce new content or post a special offer or call to action for visitors.

Setup a Content Review Schedule.

If your website has been up for a few months and you haven’t read through the content since the website launch, create a schedule to read your own website on a regular basis. You will find things that need to be updated or that you would like to re-write. When we executed a steady review schedule on our website, our bounce rates improved between 15-60% on our web pages.

Use your Social Media channels.

If you have no problems getting those Tweets out, or checking on your Facebook page or LinkedIn profile, try to find ways to use these updates to also help update your website. Can the content you are posting on your social media sites become website content? Do all of your social media posts contain links to your website content?

Create a Six-Week plan.

Sometimes the biggest enemy to new website content is the blank page. There is nothing worse than trying to come up with something to write when you are under a deadline or too busy to think. When you have a quiet moment, plan your content updates for the next six weeks.

Identify Key Pages

Some pages on your website are more likely to require frequent updates then others. Go through your website and identify those pages and put an appointment on your calendar to check them weekly, or more often if needed. If your website doesn’t seem to have any pages that need new information on a regular basis, its time to create some. Do you have frequent product updates? Changes in operating hours or procedures? News updates that provide credibility? Press Releases that could provide great keyword text for search engines? Look around at your other communication processes and you may have all the new content you need.

Look at your Keyword Reports and Research

Keyword research reports are a great place to look for website content. Look at your Google Analytics reports or do a search using a keyword suggestion tool like Wordtracker. What you will find are questions users have typed into a search engine about your area of expertise. Common sense tells you, your content will attract visitors if you give them what they are searching for.

What if you talk better than you write?

Sometimes it just easier to explain to someone what you do than trying to write it down. The content of your website is a great asset. Content keeps visitors and draws search engine traffic. Your website is worth the investment and one investment we recommend is using a professional copywriter to help build your website content. Not everyone is a great writer, but you know your business. A good copywriter can conduct an interview to identify the key points of your idea/service/product and then create the new content so it is “web friendly”. We have resources if you need a reference, consider adding this to your budget.

Just Get It Done!

Make updating your website part of your regular schedule. Put it on your calendar. A lot of website owners opt to add Content Management tools to their websites in order to help with this problem. If your website includes these tools, make it a priority to learn how to use them. If you are still not getting it done, find some help.

Online Resources

Here are some reference sites to help with website content.

Writing for the Web – Resources by Jakob Nielson, guru of usability.
What is a Website Content Review?
Top 10 Best Practices for Government Websites – This is a set of standards posted by the US Government on how government websites should be run. The list of best practices is great for anyone.