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.
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.
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.https://twitter.com/spatial_anomaly/status/1264579267502895104
3 Responses
What I love? The comparison of what you’re placing on your site to a bakery’s goods. Why would someone want to ready your old, crusty stuff if someone else is serving-up fresh-toasted bagels? I schedule website audits with my clients for once per quarter. This way, while we might not find anything major in need of updating, we never look at something a year later and go, “Oh…eeek. That’s out of date.” And what’s great? YOU don’t have to tell your client about the scheduled audit. Just do it.
And as to David’s comment above, there is no such thing as a duplicate content penalty from SE’s. While they do recognize the first instance of publisher for like pieces of content, they simply de-prioritize the duplications. They don’t have any derogatory “penalty” per se.
I know what you mean, may of the times SME website owners, will build a small brochure site, and think that’s the end of it. Keeping it fresh and updated, will definitely entice your visitors, and build a good relationship with them. Even if its small changes, like updating your product and services section, or news and events, Best is if you can get a blog on to it, which you post regularly on.
This post has a relevance that the vast majority of people simply won’t realise. Keeping content fresh is paramount to ensuring your site maintains a high level of traffic and that that traffic turns into customers for a business. The analogy of a bakery is very apt in this instance.
As this next point hasn’t been mentioned above, I have a word of warning. As much as copying content from an online source may be easy, this too will have as much of a detrimental effect to your site as leaving the old content in. When we say fresh, we mean fresh. Major search engines will pick up on duplicate content and penalise any site for it without hesitation. By all means, use online sources as a guide, but write your own content.