When was the last time you updated your website content?

Your website’s live – you worked so well to get all the copy and images looking their best. Everyone’s happy and the champagne is swinging.

Fast forward six months. Everyone’s still happy but, the website is looking a little tired and the news section hasn’t been updated since it went live. Sound familiar? Or worse… maybe swap out six months with sixteen months?

Once a website goes live, it’s just the beginning. 

I’m sure we’ve all heard that before, so why do we ignore it? Time. Money. Forgot to do it. Know-how. Motivation. Too busy. This list sounds like the reasons why I don’t wash my car! In the end, it comes down to procrastination because there are ‘better’ or more demanding things to get done.

What does this mean for your website? Well let’s look at some different scenarios from a client perspective…

The client who never updates.

The website is looking a little bit tired. That one seasonal image is now looking super out of place… but hey! if it was left for another quarter it could be relevant again!

Search Engines are indifferent to the site. They are ranking the website, but it’s slowly moving down the list because competitor websites have more recent content.

The client is probably happy, thinking that everything is ticking along nicely and that now that the website project is completed they’re ‘done’!

The client who updates weekly.

The website is looking good! A fresh face every week, or new articles in the news section every other day.

This client is signalling to their customers that they are active, relevant, available. Newer content is perceived as more trustworthy.

Search Engines are happy there is new content! New content is improving the website’s ranking. Tip: Keep in mind that search engines like to have longer and quality posts to index.

Updating websites has huge benefits, not only for you, our clients, but for search engine optimisation too.

Some of you might be saying “We update our content all the time…”

Well done! High five! Keep it up, and don’t stop at the website – update your social media too!

Can you update more than what you are doing at the moment? Remember, constantly and consistently align your content with your website and business strategies to maintain your marketing effectiveness, to stay relevant, topical, fresh, and to keep the search engines constantly ranking you highly.