How Often Should You Update Your Website?
by Natalie Eastaugh on 20-Nov-2013 13:48:00
There is no straight forward answer to the question, but a good benchmark on how often you update your website copy, or content, should be driven by two basic things:
1) Consumer expectations
2) Trends or statistics around your site
Google constantly reminds us that content is king and bearing in mind the recent algorithm updates, making sure we are producing quality content that is useful to anyone visiting our websites is vital to keeping ahead of competitors.
Very often when you are confronted with creating content for your website, you find it daunting. You could even feel somewhat apprehensive, as you face many decisions about what you want to put in front of your potential customers. Probably the biggest challenge you face is simply getting started.
Updating the content on your site may sound laborious and hard to do, but isn’t when you understand the value you are giving back to your business and only requires a small effort.
The easiest way to start would be to have your website built on a content management system (CMS) so you can control your content updates. And, by content updates we don’t only mean copy or pieces of text, but images and video are other examples of content too! Nobody enjoys landing on a website that hasn’t been update for months, even years, and the outcome is likely they will move on in seek of fresh and new alternatives – in other words your competitors.
More information on content managed websites can be found here: Questions to ask your content management system web designer.
On the flip side, too many updates to your website too frequently will make it difficult for you to gather the right information about the activities on your site, leaving you with less-educated decisions to make!
There is no need to rewrite your content every few weeks – that is a task no one would enjoy. But by regularly looking at your website stats in terms of visitor numbers, visits on internal pages, sales and comments you receive, you should be able to identify when is a good time to give your website a little boost by making a few amends, adding to existing copy or creating brand new copy for your site.
By following a few simple guidelines, we can help you create quality and relevant content about your product or service for your website.
Some easy things to consider when updating your content:
1. Provide useful content that is concise and tells the visitor or customer exactly what they want to know about the product or service they are looking for, before they make their purchase.
2. Write the content for your customer and not the search engine. This is a common mistake in SEO, recently addressed in the last algorithm updates by Google. Speak to your customer and give them the solution to their problem – that is why they landed on your page in the first place, so don’t miss the opportunity to convince them why your product or service will help them more than your competitors.
3. Do research. Research your customers, find out what it is they want and give it to them. Find out what your competitors are doing, and think of ways you can better their strategy. Remember, they are looking at your site too!
4. Keep your content relevant to that page. For instance, if your website page is about organic eggs and chickens, then make sure the content on that page delivers in relevancy! Don’t write about organic pigs and beef. Maybe a simplistic example, but the underlying message needs to hit home.
5. When using content or copy written by someone else, quote or reference it with a link. This can be worthwhile as it gives your reader, visitor or customer extra added value and a good user experience. It also safeguards you from plagiarism, which is not accepted by Google.
6. Keep your sentence structure short, that way you eliminate possible grammar issues. Create paragraphs and keep one idea to each paragraph – this will help you keep your message targeted.
7. Keep your writing style simple and scan-able. Very often readers on the web scan over information – by keeping your writing simple you can at least capture the scanners and get your message across.
8. Use lists – people like reading bullet points.
9. Create meaningful and catchy headlines to get the attention of your reader or customer, and entice them to read further.
10. Ever hear the phrase ‘a picture is worth a thousand words’? Images and video are really quick and simple to upload, and another way to update your content if you don’t have the time or inclination to write.
11. Still feeling less inclined? Hire a copywriter – this may be your best investment yet and their services are available at reasonable prices. A good copywriter will take the time to understand your customer, and market your website accordingly, with quality and original writing.
The aim of Google is to deliver relevant results to searchers, simple! By creating original content that is relevant and useful, delivers the punch and engages with your customers means your website popularity and reputation will grow quickly.
Article by Natalie Eastaugh
photo credit: RLHyde via photopin cc- Inbound Marketing (SEO, PPC, Social Media, Video) (804)
- Strategy (348)
- Marketing Automation & Email Marketing (180)
- Sales & CRM (176)
- Website Design (156)
- Business Growth (145)
- Hubspot (123)
- Lead Generation (107)
- Google Adwords (97)
- Content Marketing (90)
- News (46)
- Case Studies (43)
- Conversion (43)
- Ecommerce (36)
- Webinars (30)
- SEO (22)
- Events (19)
- Video (17)
- LinkedIn Advertising (15)
- Video Selling (15)
- AI (13)
- Software training (13)
- Niche business marketing (11)
- The Digital Prosperity Podcast (10)
- Facebook Advertising (6)
- August 2025 (12)
- July 2025 (14)
- June 2025 (5)
- May 2025 (19)
- April 2025 (15)
- March 2025 (13)
- February 2025 (13)
- January 2025 (8)
- December 2024 (2)
- November 2024 (4)
- October 2024 (21)
- September 2024 (4)
- August 2024 (8)
- July 2024 (14)
- June 2024 (16)
- May 2024 (25)
- April 2024 (15)
- March 2024 (18)
- February 2024 (5)
- January 2024 (10)
- December 2023 (6)
- November 2023 (10)
- October 2023 (13)
- September 2023 (12)
- August 2023 (14)
- July 2023 (13)
- June 2023 (14)
- May 2023 (15)
- April 2023 (13)
- March 2023 (14)
- February 2023 (13)
- January 2023 (15)
- December 2022 (13)
- November 2022 (6)
- October 2022 (8)
- September 2022 (22)
- August 2022 (15)
- July 2022 (13)
- June 2022 (16)
- May 2022 (14)
- April 2022 (16)
- March 2022 (17)
- February 2022 (11)
- January 2022 (8)
- December 2021 (6)
- November 2021 (7)
- October 2021 (11)
- September 2021 (10)
- August 2021 (7)
- July 2021 (7)
- June 2021 (4)
- May 2021 (4)
- April 2021 (1)
- March 2021 (3)
- February 2021 (5)
- January 2021 (4)
- December 2020 (7)
- November 2020 (6)
- October 2020 (5)
- September 2020 (9)
- August 2020 (18)
- July 2020 (17)
- June 2020 (17)
- May 2020 (10)
- April 2020 (21)
- March 2020 (24)
- February 2020 (21)
- January 2020 (12)
- December 2019 (23)
- November 2019 (12)
- October 2019 (14)
- September 2019 (16)
- August 2019 (15)
- July 2019 (13)
- June 2019 (6)
- May 2019 (8)
- April 2019 (4)
- March 2019 (2)
- February 2019 (2)
- January 2019 (2)
- December 2018 (3)
- November 2018 (24)
- September 2018 (11)
- August 2018 (9)
- June 2018 (3)
- May 2018 (6)
- April 2018 (14)
- March 2018 (12)
- February 2018 (16)
- January 2018 (15)
- December 2017 (15)
- November 2017 (18)
- October 2017 (23)
- September 2017 (19)
- August 2017 (28)
- July 2017 (27)
- June 2017 (25)
- May 2017 (18)
- April 2017 (17)
- March 2017 (16)
- February 2017 (17)
- January 2017 (14)
- December 2016 (21)
- November 2016 (27)
- October 2016 (25)
- September 2016 (16)
- August 2016 (20)
- July 2016 (19)
- June 2016 (14)
- May 2016 (20)
- April 2016 (24)
- March 2016 (22)
- February 2016 (28)
- January 2016 (27)
- December 2015 (28)
- November 2015 (19)
- October 2015 (9)
- September 2015 (12)
- August 2015 (5)
- July 2015 (1)
- June 2015 (10)
- May 2015 (3)
- April 2015 (11)
- March 2015 (14)
- February 2015 (15)
- January 2015 (12)
- December 2014 (2)
- November 2014 (23)
- October 2014 (2)
- September 2014 (2)
- August 2014 (2)
- July 2014 (2)
- June 2014 (7)
- May 2014 (14)
- April 2014 (14)
- March 2014 (7)
- February 2014 (2)
- January 2014 (7)
- December 2013 (9)
- November 2013 (14)
- October 2013 (17)
- September 2013 (3)
- August 2013 (6)
- July 2013 (8)
- June 2013 (4)
- May 2013 (3)
- April 2013 (6)
- March 2013 (6)
- February 2013 (7)
- January 2013 (5)
- December 2012 (3)
- November 2012 (2)
- September 2012 (1)
Subscribe by email
You May Also Like
These Related Blogs

How Facebook Ads Work
Most businesses that take out paid digital adverts do so through Google AdWords. However, all the main social media platforms also provide paid advert …

5 Marketing Strategies That Are Guaranteed To Get You More Customers
With a variety of different marketing strategies out there, implementing the one that will bring you the maximum number of customers requires plenty c …

How To Get More Of The Customers You Want And Keep Them!
While making a one-off sale can be considered a success, having a customer base that is loyal and makes multiple purchases is the ideal you should be …