I would also like to make the point that if one of the reasons your site is not being regularly updated is because you have to get your web company to do it for you, or your staff find it difficult to use the CMS behind your site – then it is time for a change.

Get training for your staff

or

Have your site shifted to a user friendly CMS (Joomla is one good option to check out).

Don’t let the construction of your site stop you from keeping it fresh.

Ten more reasons to update your website content.

Some reasons to add to the existing list.

1. A good website should be dynamic. And that means plenty of new stuff, and plenty of interaction – make this a place readers WANT to return to.
2. Your site content, perhaps especially your home page, should always look fresh and relevant. Dated material is obvious to readers very quickly.
3. Good intentions are not enough! Starting off adding new material (with dates on it, like press releases or newsletters) is only a good idea if you keep it going. Seeing a site with the most recent release or newsletter dating back to the previous year, or even earlier is NOT a good look.
4. Your products and services are constantly changing, and your site needs to reflect that. Even when you are super busy, make sure it is someone’s role in the company to be updating what’s new on your site.
5. Relevant social media “conversations”. Fresh, interesting content on your site gives you something to talk about in the world of Facebook (business and fan pages), Twitter, LinkedIn and anywhere else you and your audiences like to hang out and share.
6. Keep your business on its toes. If you don’t have new and interesting things to share with the world via your website – why not? Have you stopped growing, researching, developing, responding, innovating? Is your business in a rut – or does it just look that way?
7. The world around you is changing – fast, even if you’re not. Make sure you regularly check the language on your site to make sure it is still relevant to your audiences. Perhaps your audience has changed, but the jargon or terminology on your site hasn’t. Running a regular check for your key audiences is a great way to help ensure you stay in touch.
8. Communication is a constantly evolving process. And that’s what your website is – a primary communication tool. Don’t forget that.
9. Refresh your window display. If you were a retailer, how often would you change your window display? Once a week, once a month, every season? Change your site frontage just as often. Show the passers-by that this shop window is loved and attended to.
10. Reflect your marketing activities. If you are actively marketing online, make sure your site is perfectly tuned to your marketing campaigns. Create special landing pages for your adwords to get the flow going with potential customers who are interested enough to click through to your site – reward their interest by taking the time to give them what they are looking for. Don’t assume that what is already on the page is enough.

Would love your own comments about why you think a site should – or should not, be updated.

Till next time

Karen

1. Put your audience first – what will they be looking for on your site? What will turn them on, and keep them there to read all the good stuff and maybe even purchase your products or services … and what will scream out at them to just click right off the site.
2. Use the tools at your disposal. There are many free tools to analyse how people are interacting with your website and most of them are free. Make sure you install Google analytics at the very least, and learn how to use it. This is powerful information that too many people ignore.
3. Keep your sentences short and sweet. People will be scanning the page, so they need to get the sense of what you are saying quickly. Avoid long, complex sentences – attention will be quickly lost. 
4. Review your site content as if you had ADHD. Flick your eyes over the page. Do your main messages stand out? Are your calls to action obvious and compelling? Do you immediately understand what the page is about and what you are expected to do from here?
5. Make things clickable. People expect everything on a web page to be clickable – headings, pictures, anything that5 looks like a button, logos. So don’t disappoint. Make them clickable, link them to relevant places, AND, use alt text so when they mouse over your links, they can see what they are.
6. On that note, avoid using Flash. Sure Flash animations can look great, but they are pretty much invisible to the search bots.
7. Keep your best stuff above the fold. All the user research shows that many people will not scroll down the page. So never put your most important calls to action at the bottom, below the fold. Never.
8. Make sure you use some keywords on the page. Don’t “stuff” unnecessary keywords into the headings and text, but DO make sure there are sufficient relevant words on the page to be recognised by a search engine. You would be surprised by the number of sites that just have something like a product name and product photograph on the page – and no searchable text.
9. Make sure text is text, not an image. Don’t make the mistake of using a graphic designer who puts all the fancy fonts etc into an image – which looks great on the page, but can’t be reviewed by the search engines. You may have to sacrifice a little of the designer-ness, to help your site be found. And after all, there is no point having a fancy looking site if no-one but you ever sees it, right?
10. Get second, third and fourth opinions. Test your site for usability and to see if your messages are getting across. Don’t just ask people who will say that it is great, even if it’s not. Ask your target audience, your customers, for their opinions, and be prepared to make changes if what they say makes sense.

There you go, a great little guide to awesome web content. If you do all of those ten things, you are way ahead of about 60 – 70% of the sites currently out there. Of course there are plenty more things you can do once you get all of this right, but this list is a great place to start.

Karen

(or Batman and Superman)

Right?

Well that seems to be the trend, as things get tougher out there for the traditional marketing media of print, television and radio, internet spending is increasing, and the expectations of what the net can deliver are getting higher.

Thing is, what we instinctively know is that while people might be cutting back on their subscriptions to magazines, pay television and newspapers, and consciously avoiding the advertisements that are the bread and butter of those media, they are spending more time online – in the world of free entertainment and connectivity that only the internet can deliver.

So how are you making the most of that for your business?

Are you ensuring that your website is delivering both content of value, and entertainment? Is it providing a chance for people to connect with your product, service and staff in a meaningful way, and with each other through your site?

What we are finding in our daily business of helping clients develop new sites, rebuild existing sites or optimise their existing sites, is that they need to understand the importance of developing two things:

1) Valuable content that is regularly updated and that people will return for, and link back to

and

2) Interactivity – the chance for your customers, readers and potential customers to talk to and see each other, to ask questions, discuss your products and services and bigger issues in your field. Provide them with a platform or a forum to connect in a meaningful way.

The challenge with both of the above is that there are no shortcuts to doing this in a meaningful and genuine way. There are no bots or algorithms that will replace the role of intelligent human beings thinking about and creating content and interfaces that other human beings will find of value.

Only you can do this.

So starting thinking about how you will add value to your internet presence and make the most of having those extra eyeballs looking for ways to be entertained and engaged.

Till next time,

Karen