Like many of the important things in our business life a website needs some regular attention also.
The search engines tend to look less favourably at websites that haven’t been updated in a while or have references to things that happened some time ago.
So what can you do to help your SEO and ensure that your website is kept up to date to keep the search engines and site visitors coming back?
One of the first things to consider is having a blog or current news section on your website.
But you also need to remember that just having the blog or news is the easy bit, you have to keep them updated. The current convention is that a blog needs a couple of entries a week, preferably daily. However, just three entries a month will be better than nothing.
The key here is to be consistent, make a commitment to the updates and stick to it. Again the search engines will be less likely to revisit your site regularly if you update for a few weeks and then neglect to do so for the following months.
Blogging will help your SEO
But before you start panicking about having to spend hours in front of the computer writing stuff for your blog, there is some good news:
- You don’t need to write War and Peace each time. An article with as few as a hundred words will do, as long as it’s done often.
- If you struggle for ideas on what to write you can look to your industry press. Most industries have regular ‘news you can use’. One of the easiest things to do is to write an opinion on something that’s happening in your sector.
- You could use voice recognition software to help. This gives you the ability to dictate your article to your computer and it will type the words. Dragon NaturallySpeaking
is the best around and should cost you around £100 for the professional edition. I use voice recognition software when I have to write lengthy articles because my typing speed is around 30 words a minute but I can dictate at close to 100.
- If time really is a struggle then you could contract out the blog writing to a third party blog writing service. This frees you up to do your job and also means that your website is regularly updated without the hassle of finding and writing content. Yes it will cost you, but it may save you money if the time saved is more valuable than what you’re paying for the articles.
If you want some good reason why your business website should have a blog then read: https://www.buzzwebsitedesign.com/2011/02/5-great-reasons-why-your-business-needs-a-blog/
The second way of updating your website is to use Twitter and then feed it into your website so it displays the latest posts.
This may sound quite technical but your website manager/designer should be able to put some code into the home page of your website and have it show your Twitter updates. The only thing you have to do is to keep your Twitter account updated and this only takes a few minutes a day.
Another way to keep your website fresh is to highlight some of your products and services periodically. If Christmas is a big thing in your business then make note of it on your website. Or maybe summer is your thing, can you emphasise summer on your website?
Whatever you choose to do with your website always remember that the search engines, and Google in particular, love websites that are regularly updated. Your website will be more highly ranked in the search results if you update your site more than your competitors. Adding relevant content can only ever help your SEO.
Give us a call on (0116) 3552194 if you’d like to know more about having a blog on your website or if you’d like us to write regular and engaging content for your existing blog.