Newsletter - main article November 2005
Keeping your website fresh
There are several benefits to keeping the content of your website fresh:
- Search engines will rate your site more highly, ultimately leading to more visitors
- Visitors will appreciate the new material and will be more likely to revisit the site
- With suitable material, you'll be seen as an authority in your field
Let's look at some of them in more detail
Search engines love new content. Despite the plethora of tips and tricks around getting higher search engine rankings, the best way is still to have good material, lots of it and changing often. The search engines are then more likely to view your site as live and a good source of relevant information
By adding new text, rich in the keywords for which you want to be found, your pages are much more likely to be ranked by the search engines. The more of your pages that are ranked for certain keywords, the more likely you are to be found through an online search
People want free material. When you visit a new site, don't you appreciate it when there's free information for you? Whether it's in the form of a simple paragraph or a whole Word document you immediately feel that your visit hasn't been wasted. When you've read the material available, isn't it nice to see more useful information the next time you visit that site? That's how it is for your site's visitors. They're much more likely to come back if you have new, useful material.
Be seen as an expert. If you write and post articles and documents on your industry or business sector, assuming they're well written, you'll inevitably demonstrate your knowledge and authority. Yes, you might be giving away trade secrets or enabling customers to 'do it yourself' but you're more likely to gain credence in your visitors' eyes. This makes them more likely to buy your products and services and to recommend you to their friends, relations and business contacts.
Suitable material can take many forms and be delivered in a number of different formats. Examples would be:
- White papers on best practice
- Articles giving news of developments within the industry
- News of developments within your company - success stories etc
- Reference documents on methods, techniques and guidelines
- Hints and tips, do's and don'ts
- Lists of Frequently Asked Questions (FAQs)
The material can be provided as simple text on the web page or in various document forms. Be a little wary of Word documents, Adobe Pdf's and similar formats as they can't be scanned and indexed by most search engines. Despite this, the value to your visitors could be great and vastly outweigh the additional benefit to your search engine rankings. Even then, by putting a summary of the document on your webpage you'll get some of the search engine benefits. You could even consider providing suitable spoken material in the form of an MP3 file. Visitors could download this and play it at their leisure on their PC, home CD/DVD player, in the car or on their iPods etc.
The point is that good, fresh material will always benefit your website, and therefore your business, in some way. Although it may take a little while to gather and format the information into an item for the website, the effort will be worthwhile. If you really want it to have the maximum impact, get it done by a Copywriter. It needn't cost a fortune to get it prepared by a writing professional and there are always several local people who can supply excellent references and testimonials.
If you'd like more details about how we can keep your website fresh and valued by your visitors, please call us on or e-mail us at
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