The
Art of Website Maintenance
Author: ©Erin Ferree
Now that you've designed and launched your website, you have a
powerful marketing tool for your business. But, your website is
only as useful as the content is current. The process of keeping
the content on your site current is called website maintenance,
and it's important to keep both visitors and search engines supplied
with new information. Just like regular maintenance on your car,
you have to make changes on your website every few months to make
sure that things run smoothly.
If
you update the content on your website on a regular basis, potential
clients will be drawn back to your site to find out "what's
new". The search engines pay visits to websites in their
queue regularly. The catch is that you'll stay in the queue only
if you update your site regularly. If the search engines visit
your site several times in a row, and don't find anything new,
they may decide not to come back-which can be a blow to your search
engine rankings.
So,
when is it appropriate to update your website? You don't want
to waste time and money nitpicking at your site if you don't have
updates of real value to add. You should update your site if you've:
-
Grown your skills. Have you gotten a new accreditation? New licensing?
Improved your skills? Any change in your skill set is a great
reason to update your website-and your potential clients-with
your new capabilities.
-
Expanded your products or services. Do you have a new offering?
Add it to your website and start making new sales in that area.
-
Completed a successful project. If you've just finished a project,
include it on your website. Create an online portfolio, add a
case study-build a section on your website to use as a place to
show the world your success.
-
Gotten more testimonials, or added to your client list. Including
more feedback on your offering helps to build your credibility.
Be sure to get a testimonial from each of your successful client
projects. Updating your testimonials regularly will also show
clients who have visited your site a few times that your offerings
are "up to snuff".
-
Written an article. Writing articles is a great way to keep your
website up-to-date and to put more content on your site. Search
engines love content-rich sites, and visitors will love to see
the new information. So, if you write articles to educate your
clients and promote your business, be sure to place them on your
website as well. They're likely to be full of keywords related
to your area of specialty, which will help your ranking in the
search engines.
-
Press releases. You should post all press releases and other information
you publish about your company to your website. You never know
who may be visiting, and you may get written up for your accomplishments.
-
Changes in your business. Have you hired someone? Changed your
business structure, and you're now required to notify the public
of that? If so, you should probably review your website and evaluate
how you can add that information.
-
Yearly check-ups. You should do a basic check on your site at
least once a year, to make sure that the content is current. Some
things to check on include:
-
Your copyright statements should be updated yearly
-
Test and validate your links, to ensure that they still work
-
Your time references should be changed. If your "About"
page says how many years you've been in business, this is the
time to change that!
-
Your pricing and offerings-do you have new products or services?
Have your prices increased over the past year?
Spotlight
any major updates on your home page as well, so that people will
learn of those updates as soon as they enter your site. The search
engines will also discover the new update as soon as they enter
your home page if you leave a bit of information, with a link
to the full story, on the home page. That will act as a breadcrumb
for the engine to follow-the engines will follow your link to
learn more about it.
Any
of these reasons, and dozens of others, are great reasons to make
changes to your site. If you make keeping your website current
a priority, it will pay off with better search engine rankings
and increased sales and leads through your website.
Once
you've decided to make your changes, the next choice is how to
go about doing that. There are two steps involved in maintaining
your site:
1.
First, decide whether you prefer to edit your content on paper
or online. This can be done in a couple of ways. You can start
by printing the pages that have outdated information and then
updating that information on paper first. Or, you can copy and
paste the outdated content from your website into a word processing
program such as Microsoft Word and then edit that file on your
computer.
2.
After you have updated your text content you can choose either
to make the changes yourself or to hire a web designer to make
the changes. There are several tools that you can use to make
changes to your site yourself. We recommend an easy-to-use tool
called Macromedia Contribute. It's fairly inexpensive, its simple
to set up and learn, and it allows you to back up to older versions
of your site if you make mistakes.
We
suggest that you use this tool to make only simple text changes.
More complicated changes-for example, to the overall design or
navigation-are more difficult to make, and having a professional
make those changes will save you energy and frustration.
If
you are comfortable with a more complicated software program,
then we recommend a professional-grade tool such as Dreamweaver.
With a better software package, you'll be able to make some of
the more complicated changes yourself.
By
building more-and more current-information into your website,
you will also begin to build trust with your potential clients,
since they will have a snapshot of what's currently happening
in your business and available to them. Your website can go a
long way towards making sure that your online prospects know,
like, and trust you-which can lead to more sales from your website.
