Never Updating Website|How it Hurts & What You Can Do to Help

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A stagnant website won’t drive sales. If you are going to invest the time, money, and resources into developing and designing a new website, you also need to invest time, money, and resources to keep the content on that website current. This includes making sure images, product information, and purchasing information is up to date.

Failing to update web content can have a negative impact on both your website‘s customer experience as well as your site’s rankings in search engine results, affecting your ability to generate website traffic.

OUTDATED CONTENT IS BAD CONTENT

When information on your manufacturing website is not up to date, website visitors might assume you can meet their needs even if you are unable to do so or vice versa.

One of the worst ways to begin a customer-business relationship is to begin under false pretenses and fail to meet the customer’s expectations.

Not only is it embarrassing to explain to the customer that your website was incorrect, but it could also be damaging to your company’s reputation.

OUTDATED CONTENT NEGATIVELY AFFECTS SEO

Stagnant content is bad for your search engine rankings. Fresh content, on the other hand, can greatly improve your site’s SEO.

Google gives a web page a freshness score based on the date it was created. This score gradually decays over time as the content ages.

However, changes made to a page will also influence its freshness score, as does the rate at which change occurs. Therefore, a web page that is constantly updated with new information will score considerably higher in terms of freshness than a web page that has never been updated.

A higher freshness score will help you rank higher, so continuing to update website content is key.

UPDATING YOUR WEB CONTENT IN 4 EASY STEPS

Most manufacturers do not update their website simply because they are unsure where to begin.

These four steps can help you battle stagnation and keep your web content fresh, compelling, and exciting!

1. Make sure your company has login credentials and access to the admin side of your site.

In order to update your web content, you need to be able to access the admin side of your site. If you do not have login credentials, you will need to contact the people who developed your website and ask them for the login information.

2. Figure out whether you are able to make basic changes and edits to your web content.

Once you have logged into the admin section of your company’s website, evaluate whether you can make changes to your homepage, product information, and contact information. If you are not able to do so or don’t know how to do so, consider hiring a web developer who can give you some basic how-to instructions. Remember, you need to be able to easily add blog posts, upcoming events, product information, product photos, etc.

If you are not able to do so or don’t know how you may want to consider hiring a web developer who can give you some basic how-to instructions.

3. Have a steady stream of new content flowing onto your site.

How can you keep the content flow moving? Customer reviews and blog posts are two great strategies to keep things new.

  • BLOG POSTS You don’t have to be a professional writer to maintain a blog.There are a number of things you and your team can blog about to produce fresh, compelling content. For example, you might write a post about your products’ features, your company culture, or a customer who uses one or more of your products. Your freshness score will begin to improve if you commit to doing the bare minimum of one post per month, but the rule of blogging is, the more the merrier.
  • CUSTOMER REVIEWS Customer reviews are a great way to make sure your website is ever-changing. Not only do these improve SEO, but they also speak to potential customers who are shopping for a company like yours to do business with. Simply ask your current customers to review your business through a quick, online form or through email, and watch as your freshness score and company credibility improve.

4. Create a plan of action.

Now that you know how to add fresh, new content to your site, it is time to create a plan of action so that it actually gets done.

This action plan should include different ways you can keep your website’s content updated as well as strategies to improve your site’s user experience.

The takeaway here is that content is king. You need to continuously add fresh, new content to your website in order to keep your customers engaged and maintain your SEO ranking.

Great content goes a long way in helping your company maximize its visibility, drive sales, and improve its bottom line! 

Want to visit more about how your manufacturing company can improve your website‘s content and SEO? Contact us today to speak with one of our content or search engine experts.

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