This is the fifth post in a series of articles which expands on Six things you absolutely have to have on your website.
The Six Pack Series
Frequent updates are indispensable for running a successful website. In the previous decades, a company could have a nice looking, static website and be on the edge of innovation, but that is not the case anymore. According to Netcraft.com, there are over 485 Million websites as of September of 2011. It is important to realize that this may not be completely accurate, but as you look at the huge number, you get the idea. There are lots of websites on the World Wide Web these days.
As a result, it is easy to get lost in the shuffle. The search engines continuously search for websites that are being updated, especially frequently, and send them to the top of their rankings. As a result, this is one of the best reasons to have a frequently updated website.
There are multiple ways to keep a website updated. Some ways include adding articles to your website, updating product information, updating your calendar, adding news about your industry or your own company and finally, running a successful blog.
With this need to update your website more frequently, I think it is imperative to have a good Content Management System (CMS) installed on your server. This is especially true for small businesses and non-profit organizations. A CMS will allow your organization to update your website easily without billing your designer saving you money. Some CMS’s you should consider are Joomla, Drupal, Pixelsilk or, my choice, WordPress. All of these will allow you to more easily and more effectively, update your website more frequently.
Of the options for updating your website above, running a blog on your website is probably the easiest option to implement and further, it will allow you to update using some of the other options. For example, you can easily add news and articles to your website using your blog and also you can update or do product launches if you have just a few products or services.
Here are five key reasons for having a blog on your website.
1.News and Articles
News and articles on your products, your company or your industry can establish you and your business as an expert in the field. Your customers want to know what you think, and writing these articles will allow you to communicate that with all of them at once. Further, it can keep your customers informed on your business’ successes.
2. SEO
As mentioned before, a frequently updated website gets noticed by search engines. Those websites that update often are friends to those search engine spiders. A blog can enable this like no other feature on your website.
3. Sticky Content
Do you read a sports blog? How about a technology or some other blog? Think about it, a blog creates sticky content that hooks a reader or visitor bringing them back again.
4. Small scale product launches
Do you have a new service? How about a new product? Do you think the loyal customers you already have would want to know about it first? If you have more than a few dozen products and services then you will need a e-commerce solution, but if not, you can launch your product or offer updates to the customers you already have. Your blog is also an excellent way to build the hype for a new product or service launch.
5.Shareability
A blog is inherently built to be shareable. Great posts are retweeted, shared on Facbook and a whole host of other social media websites. Further, if you have an RSS feed, your blog is instantly syndicated further pushing its shareability. This shareability allows your company and/or business to be shared as well introducing new readers to you and your products and services.
Following it up
These are very compelling reasons to frequently update your website. The best websites on the world wide web are convinced of the need, and now you are too.
How can you make a plan to implement a strategy to update your website more frequently?