Or, the benefits of website maintenance for small businesses.
You may think that once your website is up and running, you’re done. However, that is only the beginning. For a small business, website maintenance is essential. If you want anyone to visit your website, keeping it current and up to date is just as important as setting it up in the first place. The benefits of website maintenance for small businesses are many and, in this blog post, we look at some of the main areas to consider.
If prospects visit your site and it is obvious that it hasn’t been updated in months, they are likely to assume that you haven’t done much work recently or, worse, that you’re no longer in business. Keeping your website up to date shows people that you are busy and evolving, and helps attract new customers and keep existing ones.
Along the same lines, search engines regularly re-index web pages, and sites with new content are judged more relevant than those without any. Sites that are constantly refreshed are placed higher in search result rankings.
The more dynamic your website’s content is, the more likely people are to view it, read it and share it with others (known as inbound links). This could be through social media, or perhaps a link to your site from their blog or their own website, and all of it helps generate traffic.
Regular, effective website maintenance is therefore essential to make sure everything works as intended. Broken links and missing pages, for example, can be frustrating for your site’s visitors. In addition, new browser versions may require you to update your website so that it works properly, and adding newly released technologies can help improve the visitor’s browsing experience.
So, what can you do to keep your content fresh?
Here are 10 quick website maintenance tips:
1. Include a blog
A blog is a great way to add new content regularly and relatively quickly. Blogs are often based on personal reflections or opinions. You can, for example, talk about your industry, publish product reviews for your customers, comment on articles, and so on. You can always consider virtual marketing content management help.
2. Add a “Meet the Team” page
Once you have added it, make sure to update it regularly as people join or leave the company. For example, include a short profile for each team member, telling readers about their background, their role and their hobbies. You may even want to consider a page for each of your most experienced staff members.
3. Have a photo / video / portfolio gallery
Your gallery can contain recently completed projects, product images, events, and so on. Don’t forget to add a description to your images, because search engines index neither photos nor videos.
4. Highlight customer testimonials
This gives you the opportunity to keep updating new content and is a very useful way for visitors to get a sense of you, as a business, and of your products or services. You can set this page up to let customers post their own reviews (with moderation settings) to keep it dynamic.
5. Promote special offers or sales
Sales and promotions are great ways to keep people interested, and since they are time-limited, you will need to change them once the promotion is over. (Sending an email to your database about your sale or promotion can also help drive visits to your website.)
6. Include a company news section
This should be updatable regularly, but must not be limited to big announcements. The news section can introduce a new staff member, say goodbye to someone leaving, promote your latest contract, charity events, new product launches – anything that may interest your website’s visitors.
7. Create an “Other resources” page
This can include useful websites, links to industry statistics and other research. It is a great way to get inbound links.
8. Publish your newsletters online
If you send a customer newsletter, consider publishing it online about a week after sending it. You can publish one article per week to stretch out this new material.
9. Run a poll
Install a widget that lets you run a simple poll (for example, asking people to rate the qualities they value most in a supplier) and display and update the results in real time. Once the poll is over, the full results can be turned into a news article or a blog post.
10. Add a “Tips and tricks” section
Share tips and videos for your products with “How-tos” and invite customers to submit their own.
Your website is one of your most important marketing tools and, even if it needs a little upkeep, it must not be ignored. It should be a resource for your existing customers and a first point of contact for new prospects. As such, your site must make a good impression, but if your site lacks freshness, search engines won’t rank it and internet users won’t find you.
Did you find this article helpful? Let us know, and if you would like to know how we can help your new business, or if you would like to learn more about our e-commerce website development services, do not hesitate to call us at 1-877-426-7272 or use our contact form in the menu above.
