Website Updates: Making it Part of Your Routine

Redeveloping a website is a significant undertaking for any company. Too often, we meet companies who have spent a lot of money and time redeveloping their website, only to sit unattended after it has been launched. A website is a key marketing tool for any company and it needs to be nurtured.

For many companies, a website is often the first touch point for prospective customers, employees, strategic partners. Which is why creating a strong first impression is so important. Aside from having a professionally designed and developed website that allows visitors to easily navigate through it’s also important to have up-to-date information.

• Create a schedule – Set a regularly scheduled time for making updates. Depending on your business it could be as often as every week to every quarter.
• Keep it simple – Updating content doesn’t have to be arduous. It could be as simple as posting a press release or news article.
• Develop a process – Depending on the content to be updated, it may be useful to develop a workflow to identify necessary roles and approvals. For example, if a company is announcing a product update, identify key personnel that need to be involved in developing and/or approving content for the website.
• Include imagery in updates – If you have an imagery-rich site or home page, be sure to include these elements in your update schedule. Depending on the nature of the imagery, for example, if you are using original photography, you may want to update it on a quarterly or bi-annual basis depending on costs and feasibility. Updating imagery creates energy, particularly, if your customers/prospective customers visit your site frequently. It creates the perception that things are happening – that the company is actively engaged.
• Edit content for SEO – Depending on your company’s SEO (Search Engine Optimization) strategy, you may need to include time for analyzing changes in keywords and updating content (page content and backend content such as meta descriptions, meta tags). A SEO-friendly site is critical to maintaining and/or improving page rankings on top search engines.

Updating a website is important for any company. Depending on available time and resources, you may also want to include an ongoing maintenance relationship with your web vendor. This may include a few hours of the web vendor’s time each quarter to implement updates – it can be a cost-effective way to ensure that updates are done on a consistent basis.