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

Yes, once again I am talking about doing what it takes to make your site stand out and connect with your target audiences. And even better, create the kind of content that is different enough and edgy enough to make readers send their friends and colleagues to read it for themselves – or email/share your site links.

All too often we get scared when it comes to doing something cool with our site content. The pressure to be polite, politically correct, grammatically correct, and really, kinda boring … is very strong.

But …

If your target audience is not corporate, if being PC doesn’t serve you, and if people really appreciate a genuine, authentic voice on your site, then why not do it?

We talked to a client today who has a product that is very “retro” … which is one way of saying it hasn’t changed or been upgraded in decades. And the customers really like it that way. So the new owners have no intention of changing its essence, and our job is to represent that authentically through their new website.

Fun job!!

So I would encourage you – if that is the position you are in, not to get hooked up on making everything so vanilla and inoffensive that no-one really wants to read your content (cos why would they?)

ciao for now

Karen

When you are creating a website you want people to come back to over and over again … and a site you want people to recommend to others, it is important that it has depth and  flavour.

The interwebs are full of vanilla sites that are little more than online brochures, they have no depth, no personality – no real reason for people to want to come back again.

Talking to a client today, I was suggesting that to really build loyal followers and increase visitors to their site, it needs to have more personality, and more insider information than something as relatively flavourless as a wikipedia page.

Sure wiki is a great resource, but how often do you refer to the same wikipedia page more than once?

No personality resides there, and you really don’t expect much in the way of fresh information to be added on a regular basis.

For your site to really draw the traffic, make sure it is fresh and flavourful, with plenty of zing to it!

(Next post, how to add some zing.)

Enjoy!

Karen

For a long time I have been thinking about starting a blog that provides a chance to share some of the things I have learned along the way about marketing and communications.

For many years (I started in PR early in 1987) I struggled with the label PR consultant – and even after being their parent for 17 and 19 years, my sons still don’t really understand what a PR person actually does.

That’s because when a PR person is really doing their job well, they are invisible. Ironic really – biggest marketing problem you could ever have – no visibility. But, the fact that the industry survives and thrives is largely due to referrals between those businesspeople in the know. And these days, a lot more profile due to the fact that bloggers are now being exposed to the PR practitioners skills.

So one of the interesting things about transferring my skills to the world of SEO and online content is that to an extent, SEO is really the same. If you are doing it well, it is seamless and invisible to the casual viewer.

Ultimately, great SEO helps website owners create awesome content that naturally draws lots and lots of viewers, keeps them in the site for a while, encourages them to come back, and inspires them to recommend your site to other people.

That’s what works.

So what do you do as a business owner if you don’t have that kind of website?

My suggestion is to spend some time with yourself (and your business partner/s, senior staff, stakeholders) really thinking about what it is that inspires you about your business. What keeps you in the game, what do you have to offer your clients or customers on a daily basis?

Once you have worked that out – and you might record it in pictures (of happy, excited customers perhaps), words, video or audio … then it’s time to really get creative about how to instil that inspirational content into your website.

If you are excited about what you have to offer, then other people will pick up on that if you communicate it well.

Thing is, communicating something exciting is hard to do with words alone.  The more ways you can convey that excitement via your website, the better.

• Think tangible.
• Think interactive.
• Think compelling images that are worth more than thousands of words.
• Then find the right web maestros to help you make that happen.

Get it done, then keep feeding it with your personal source of excitement and inspiration. Don’t just put it out there and forget about it. Treat your website like your children – it needs your care and attention every day.

Whew!

So that’s it.

My first post in Stream of Consciousness SEO … and it was!

Look forward to streaming some more with you very soon.

Karen