3 Reasons You Should Update Your Website Regularly
Your website is your promotional presence on the internet, working hard for you 24/7 to attract new leads and generate sales for your business.
Yet so many of the business owners I connect with don’t keep their website’s updated with new content, or even perform regular maintenance checks to keep it working well.
A neglected website can slow down how often Google scans and indexes it (meaning lower search rankings), but I also think it’s obvious to anyone that visits too. Even a little out-of-date information or spotting that the blog hasn’t been updated in six months can set off alarm bells for your prospective clients!
Let’s look at the potential consequences of not updating your website
You’re opening yourself to cyber crime
Particularly the case for WordPress websites (but any website can be hacked). If you don’t backup and update your website regularly, you’re making it easier for cyber criminals to get into your website data.
This could prove problematic (and costly) if this causes a breach in personal data for GDPR, which might be the case if you process orders through your website.
But other data can be affected. A recent security flaw in Google Site kit meant that hackers could access your Google Search Console through the plugin.
More often than not, hackers will use genuine websites like yours to piggy back their criminal endeavours, so it is important to ensure you keep on top of your website security. I recommend checking out your web hosting company to see what protocols they put in place and if they have recently had issues (such as GoDaddy who recently announced a data breach affecting over 19 million customers)
Fresh content is important to maintain high Google rankings
I come across a lot of business owners who spend a small fortune on the design and content of their website in a quest to “get it to the top of Google search results” and once published, abandon it.
Unfortunately, that isn’t how search engine marketing works. SEO is not a onetime fix, there isn’t any form of marketing that is! If you’re not consistently working on your website, then it cannot stay at the top of Google for long because your competitors ARE looking to gain the advantage wherever they can (i.e. consistently working on their website).
One way of keeping your website updated is by adding fresh content such as a blog regularly. Even once a month is fine if that content is of value to your audience and reinforces the message you’re trying to get across through your website.
Don’t blog and run, though. Make sure you share your blogs often on social media to generate traffic to your website.
Even better, is to monitor how well your website is performing using Google Analytics to see which pages are the most popular, where people tend to leave the website, etc and use that information to tweak your copy and content.
Your dream clients can tell when a website is neglected
Have you ever stumbled on to a website and it just hasn’t felt “right”?
Maybe it’s a sixth sense but I often get that feeling and see the copyright hasn’t been updated since 2018, or I check the date of the blog I’m reading and discover it’s from two years ago and just not relevant anymore.
I don’t think I’m alone in picking up on the signs of a neglected website.
We can tell when a design is old easily enough but there are other visual clues:, maybe the Twitter feed doesn’t work anymore or there’s an error message at the top of the page.
The thought that often crosses my mind is “if they can’t look after their website, how well are they going to look after me as a customer”. Harsh, maybe, but I think true.
Your website will only be as good at marketing your business as you are at keeping it up to date and relevant for your dream customers. If you’re struggling with WordPress updates, content writing, SEO and marketing advice, do get in touch with me. If I can’t help you, then I know the people who can!
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