Site Updates: Keep it Current

Sites that are never updated have nothing to keep visitors coming back, and also find themselves being left behind by search engines.

Posted: June 23, 2008

Do you have any idea how many distinct websites are online right now, as of the end of 2007? According to a Netcraft survey, the number is running well over 100 million.

I want you for a minute to consider this number. Imagine that each website was a person. Now, say one day you call up one of these people and ask, "what's new?" They reply, "Nothing." So you try back in a month. "What's new?" "Nothing." A month later, "what's new?" "Nothing." Will you be calling back? No. Why waste your time? There are 100 million other websites out there. The website that never changes is the website that ends up leading a pretty lonely life.

Not updating your website is not only going to bore your visitors, it will also put up red flags when search engines visit your site. Search engines reference websites by sending digital spiders from link to link, indexing what they find. Spiders check for changes by comparing it to what they have previously indexed. If nothing ever changes, the spiders begin to assume that the site is dead and will eventually stop visiting. At that point, forget about ever appearing anywhere meaningful within search engine results.

You owe it to your customers and to your business to keep your website from becoming stale. Is there anything you can do to keep content rotating? Can you hook up a blog or RSS to your site? How about changing the text of some of your pages every month or two? Even a change as simple as updating the copyright year will at least let search engines know that yes, this business has not gone belly-up.

Even if the terminology or the ability to make these changes escapes you, fresh content is very important and isn't difficult to get online. Give us a call today at (559) 683-4030 or email us so that we can help you make the most of your internet investment!