Why You Need to Continue Updating Your Website

The times of not having a website and being able to compete as a business are over. Unfortunately, there are plenty of businesses that think that simply having a generic website is enough. Consumers have become as informed as ever, and a poorly designed site could make their first impression about a business a negative one. Regularly updating a company site is important in today’s world for a variety of reasons. A few simple tweaks of a website can do immense things in terms of search engines as many factors help rank websites. Loading time is one of these factors that many people do not realize impacts their business’ website. For this reason, not overloading the homepage with videos or other media can actually help search engine rankings. The following are a few of the many reasons that a business needs to continually update their website. 

Content Needs to Be Updated or Improved

The copy on the website that is separate from the blog also needs to be updated. This could include using new phrases or outlining new services that are now offered. The most important thing that website copy can do is intrigue the visitor to stay and click around. The attention span of the usual web visitor is not very long, so it is important to create concise and appealing copy to retain their attention. Hiring an experienced website copywriter can be very affordable if nobody at a company can do this in-house. 

Design Needs to Keep Up With the Times

The last thing that anyone wants to do is work with a business that has an embarrassingly old looking website. A company that claims to be a tech company but looks like their website was designed for a middle school project is not going to win customers with their site. For businesses like that of a doctor’s office, a good website is imperative as nobody wants a doctor that can’t even afford a decent website. There are certain features of a webpage that are essential depending on the section of the site. Take a look at the sites of competitors to make sure yours is as good or better than their website. First impressions are important in business, so update the company site consistently to keep those impression positive. 

Testing Versions Against Each Other

Testing how effective certain pages are when compared to others can help do a myriad of things, including boosting sales or leads. Landing pages from email marketing campaigns are a great example of pages to test against each other. Testing designs against each other is also possible and, with Google Analytics, it is quite easy to refer to the data. Ecommerce-based sites should constantly be trying to make the customer experience better. This does not mean that the site should update daily but rather ask current customers where they would like to see improvement. Customer feedback on the website can be some of the most valuable, especially if the feedback contains common themes across different customers. 

Marketing Offsite With Great Blog Content to Link Back To

A company’s website that has a blog needs to produce great content consistently. Updating this content can make it easier to link back to naturally when running a content marketing campaign. Creating an editorial content calendar can make it easy to schedule posts for the entire month on one day if the content is complete. Do not limit the blog’s content to just written content as podcasting and videos are also incredibly popular forms of content that can attract consumers. Update resources on the site if they are related to laws for a legal-based business, for example. As the laws change, the resource becomes worthless to readers as it presents inaccurate information. This can be a good way to generate traffic by keeping a resource updated constantly for visitors. 

Hire Someone to Manage and Develop the Website 

Handling all there is to do to maintain a website can be a full-time job in itself. Finding an ADA-compliant website designer is important as this can help eliminate the risk of a lawsuit due to the website. Hiring a person to manage the website after it has been designed is a wise decision, but outsourcing this is a much better decision. There are website management companies abroad that offer 24-hour support, which can be extremely important for businesses that have had server issues in the past. Take a look at both options, as having an entire team will provide more for the dollar than a single employee.

Keeping a website updated will take a proactive approach as well as knowledge of where website design is going in a specific business niche. Do not allow the company website to look dated or dead as this can be a sales killer! Updating the site regularly is well worth the money and time spent. 

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