Keeping Your Website Current

One of the best practices for attracting new clients and keeping the search engines finding your website is keeping the content on your website current. It is Google and other search engines job to find the best answer to whatever people are searching for. They want the most up-to-date and informative websites for their searchers. Your website can fulfill that need by updating your content when needed and continuing to create content.

When you update content, your website software should also send a ‘ping’ to the search engines telling them that there is new information. Fresh content also helps you to achieve and maintain your authority status. Google likes experts.

Your website needs to be good enough to E-A-T…that is it has to pass the guidelines that were just released by Google called E-A-T  (“Expertise, Authoritativeness or Trustworthiness”

Great and new content tells them that you are the expert! Content is also what builds trust with potential and current clients. When people see that you are committed to providing the best information, it makes you look good.

Steps to updating your content.

• Review your home page. It needs to communicate your Voice and set the perfect tone, and motivate visitors to explore your deeper pages.
• Review your About me page. Does it tell people what is in it for them along with providing enough information about you to build more trust with the potential client?
• Review your services page. Does it provide enough information about your services to make people want to schedule?
• After the top 3 pages are updated, look for the pages that are the oldest. In WordPress you can go to the posts and pages section and find the oldest posts/pages by date published. Update the pages/posts that are the oldest first. Some may actually have to be deleted.
• As you look through your website look for things you may have missed in the beginning like do all your website pages actually link to each other in some way? Linking is how search engines find and know your website is out there.
• If you find a page and don’t know what to do with it, it might be OK as is. Don’t just change one or two words. It won’t help. Google knows all and will know it isn’t new content.
• Continue to add new content. A website that works will have approximately 30 pages AND more and be constantly adding more. What can you possibly write about? Here is my big list of ideas for website content.

Other things to keep updated:

• Your Copyright date at the bottom
• Make sure all links are working