Are you wondering what you will gain by Spring cleaning your website? Then this post will help you understand why and how you can update your site for improved results. It’s about much more than just looking pretty. In fact, it offers a broad range of significant benefits for your site and your business alike.
For a website to have a bright future, it needs ongoing adaptations and updates. Pretty much like your hair-do, your website needs to be frequently cleaned, styled, updated, trimmed, and accessorized. A website is not wash-and-wear, like a beach hairstyle!
By constantly updating and refreshing your webpages, you will generate more traffic, appeal to new and different readers, influencers, and attract links. That is why search engines recommend frequently updating your site. However, many webmasters don’t know and understand the hidden power behind regularly updating their sites.
Here are some of the reasons why you should regularly post new content to your site, and take the time to refresh your site:
Benefit # 1: Updates Inspire Links to Your Content
It’s not only your readers who are looking for fresh content. Other webmasters and bloggers are constantly searching for interesting links to feature and share with their readers. By regularly refreshing and updating your content, you can inspire others to share your URL. This means that your site will be exposed to a whole new audience, which will help improve your traffic and search rankings.
Known as “link bait,” this content is so fresh, unique and valuable, that many other webmasters immediately link to your content, bringing in multitudes of new readers to your site.
Benefit # 2: Updated Sites Appeal to Readers
Internet users are bombarded with new and fresh content and information. You are challenged to provide a constant stream of fresh and unique information that keeps your readers entertained. You can cross-link between similar materials to make sure they can easily find content that they enjoy on your site.
I have also been advising my clients to take advantage of responsive web-design, which further appeals to a wider audience by making your site available to users on a variety of devices, operating systems, and browsers.
Tip: The best way to provide material that your readers enjoy and to keep them coming back to your site, is to look at your most popular content, and give them more of the same.
Benefit # 3: Fresh Content Improves Search Rankings
Some search engines update rankings on a submission basis, whereas Google regularly crawls your site to detect new content and website changes. It uses the information gathered to update and adjust search rankings. By providing regular, quality updated to your web content, you will get the best out of search engine crawls.
Tip: Updating your homepage is one of the best approaches, as is adding a blog to your website. A blog is an easy way to add new content to your site on a regular basis. From your blog, you can link to different sets of content on your site, and the search engines will pick up on that, and quickly index it on Google, thus improving your ranking.
Benefit # 4: New Information Gives You the Edge
The internet is filled with websites vying for attention from readers, and your focus should be on beating the competition. By keeping your site up-to-date and keeping your content fresh, you can stand out from the crowd.
With frequent technology and SEO changes, such as the upcoming new “softer” Panda update, websites become dated very quickly. Therefore, you should update your site at least weekly.
Benefit # 5: Fresh Website Updates Benefit Your Marketing Efforts
Your RSS feeds and blogs allow you to share new content with your audience right away. That means that you can easily target a wider audience. By talking about new ideas and sharing new content, you can build relationships with readers.
Your website readers will subscribe to your blog feed, or feature your RSS on their websites, which spreads your content to an even wider audience. As such, it can help to drastically enhance your marketing efforts and open you up to a wide range of marketing possibilities.
I hope this post has helped you understand the importance of frequently updating your website, whether it is through adding new content, or through a new update to your site’s appearance and functionality. A small investment of time (or money, if you choose to pay someone to help you update your site) will dramatically increase your website’s success.