Content Strategies: Get Fresh with Your Audience Today

by dthomas on September 15, 2011

Get Fresh!

If your company’s Web site has been drawing less and less attention from customers, perhaps you have a freshness issue. It’s not that you’re getting testy with customers, but that your site’s content hasn’t been updated on a regular basis for some time.

Fresh content you can market and advertise to customers is critical in today’s online world. As more customers turn to the Internet to shop for and purchase products, it’s imperative that your content be interesting, informative and, most importantly, fresh.

Stale Content Leaves Your Site Smelling Bad

If you have a small business and are wondering why your site needs fresh content, look at it from this perspective:

In the event you were running a bakery, you wouldn’t leave stale goods on display for days and weeks, would you? Of course not. Nobody would buy a cake that could be used to play discus, or a pie you could use as a substitute hockey puck.

Keep Your Content Updated

If the content on your company’s Web site is from several weeks ago, current and potential customers are left to wonder if you have anything new to offer them. They’ll wonder why you don’t change the look, and how much importance your site really has at your company. Then – since we all look at things from a “me” perspective -, they’ll wonder how much importance you’ll give them if they hire you.

Now, should you find your site’s content needing some refreshing, don’t just post copy for the sake of it. It’s important that a site’s content have a good ebb and flow to it, so just throwing anything on there for the sake of updating it doesn’t do the trick.

Content Strategy is Critical

When putting your content strategy together, remember that having an individual or individuals in place to oversee the content is the starting point. With a person or persons giving the content their full attention, the site will have a regular look and feel to it, providing your business with a leg up on the competition.

Critical Thinking

As you prepare your site’s content, keep several factors in mind:

When you maintain fresh Web site copy, it tells your customers you’re on top of things in your respective industry;
Having the site updated regularly lessens the chances you’ll be penalized by major search engines such as Google. Such penalties will oftentimes result in decreased visibility for your site;
Topical information like press releases, newsroom items, etc. need to be fresh. If the last press release on your site is from six months ago, customers may begin to wonder what in the world your business has been up to as of late;
As important as the content is, review the site’s design from time to time. Is the look getting a tad old? Has it been a while since you put any effort into your site’s look and feel? If it’s time to update the design, don’t hesitate to do it. That being said, don’t be constantly changing your look (there’s a fine line, people!);
Lastly, get some outsider views of your company’s Web site. Nine times out of 10, in-house folks are going to say it looks great. Get the viewpoint of someone outside the company who is unbiased.

With fresh content on your company’s Web site, your business stands a much better chance of attracting potential customers, maintaining many of your current customers, and always having a fresh business perspective.

Guest post by Dave Thomas

Dave Thomas is an expert writer on items like direct mail companies, and is based in San Diego, California. He writes extensively for an online resource that provides expert advice on purchasing and outsourcing decisions for small business owners and entrepreneurs at Resource Nation.