I know I’ve said this before but I thought it would important to emphasize the importance of updating your small business website to make sure that your content is up to date with your business. Updating makes sure your site doesn’t seem neglected, as the whole “build- a-website-then-forget-about-it” mentality doesn’t work anymore. Building a website just for the sake of having one is obviously a waste of the time and resources you invested in its creation. Instead, you should remember that your site is an important part of your business and demands your attention and proactive participation.
First of all, you should remember that updating your site helps to keep you on the good site of search engines like Google and Yahoo!. This shows that there’s always something going on in your site and activity is always a good thing.
Try to update daily if you can, add links or new images or something to keep your site up to date with your new products or services or any new content that you think should be on it. Don’t wait for the start of a new week or month especially if you think the content will capture the interest and attention of clients and boost your business.
Conduct regular site maintenance at least once a month. Be sure to check if your images and video are loading properly, read through the content for grammatical errors, and if your articles and write ups are still talking about things that say “recent” but are actually years or months old. If you still have these, remove from your NEWS section and put them in your archives section.
A little checking never hurts as you can’t have people visiting your site, wanting to see something that you say is there but it really isn’t. This can have a negative effect on your reliability for prospective clients and unless your product of service is unique, on the internet, it’s so much easier for visitors to just look for another site for similar products or services.
Similarly, you should also check the links on your site if you’ve got any. Whether it’s a video, picture, social networking site, or new article of our latest accomplishment, you should be sure that these links are up and running all the time. You can use sites like RankChecker.com to check the responsiveness of your existing links for you. Also, if you signed up for Google Webmaster Tools, they regularly send you updates on the condition of your links so it’s a good way to stay abreast with your links. You can also check if the sites which you put your links on are actually linked back to your site via Yahoo Site Explorer, it’s free.
Don’t be afraid to look for new sites which you can link to your own if you think it’ll help boost the number of visitors, just be sure to keep these links organized and not have them cluttering up the place.
Be sure to keep updated on your copyrights, licenses and security certifications, to ensure that these aren’t expired. The renewal of said documentation will make it easier for you in the long run as lack of certification can often lead to search engines notifying users that your site isn’t certified as secure and convincingly scare them away.
If you regularly put in designs for holidays and important dates like Valentine’s Day, Halloween or Christmas, be sure to take these down once the said date or season is done. Its fine to be festive and get into the spirit of the season but its altogether different when people expect you to be working instead of celebrating.
Remember that whether it’s a new year or a new season, monitoring and updating your site is something that you have to do if you want your site to prosper. Your small business website isn’t merely an investment, it is often a commitment so be sure to take the time to work on it so that the site, in turn, can work for you as well.
