Many website owners scramble to perform website updates only with the graphics and image of their website. Unfortunately, they are clearly missing the point of what actually causes visitors to turn into customers
Updated, fresh content is what drives traffic in and keeps them around long enough to consider making a purchase.
Having outdated content on your website is like going to a business meeting with a 1970s velour suit. It shows your audience (and Google) that you are not reliable and don’t care enough to keep them informed about your latest information.
Just like the saying goes, “content is king“, you need to start taking your content seriously and perform website updates regularly.
The problem is that without updated content, you are risking high bounce rates and Google identifying you with low authority. Eventually, this will affect your SERP rankings and soon your bank account.
Keep on reading to learn more about website updates and what you should do.
1. Keep Up to Date With the Latest Keywords
Outdated content also means that you have outdated keywords, and without the latest keywords, you are missing out on some serious opportunities to rank for the latest in current events.
Eventually, what you used to rank high for a year ago may not be what you could be ranking for today.
Outdated keywords also mean that your SEO practices are outdated as well. The SEO world changes monthly, introducing new tactics and frowning against the old ones.
If you haven’t done any website updates lately, chances are you need to stop doing some of the following SEO tactics:
- Keyword Stuffing – Google will Penalize you for inorganically using keywords.
- Using irrelevant keywords – this misleads visitors who visit your site, causing your bounce rates to skyrocket.
- Unnatural writing – do not write multiple phrases of keywords for web-robots to pick up, as it comes across as inauthentic.
- Lack of optimized content – There are strategic ways to optimize the content on your website, without this knowledge, you could be affecting your SERP results.
By staying on top of the latest in SEO changes, you can ensure that your website updates comply with the rules and you will not be penalized by Google.
2. Adding Quality Content
Stale content does absolutely nothing for your business, in fact, outdated content could hurt your SERP rankings.
If a visitor came to your website and noticed that all of your content was from over a year ago, they would consider your website to be unprofessional and unreliable.
On the other hand, if a visitor came to your website and noticed that your content is updated recently, they will have a sense of security with you, and feel that you care to notify them of your latest information and wisdom.
Keep in mind that this does not mean that you need to erase old content, in fact, it is quite the opposite. Deleting old content can hurt your rankings as you may have ranked for some of those articles in the past.
However, this does mean that you need to add new content frequently to keep your visitors coming back weekly or monthly for more information.
If you are not interested in writing your own content, no problem! Thankfully, you can hire a professional content marketing company to create some quality, optimized content for you.
3. Updating Your Images
When you were first starting out with your website, it may have been easier to use stock photos in order to get your site ready for launch. As time progresses, as well as your business, you may have noticed that these photos no longer represent your brand well.
A website update is a perfect time to work with a professional photographer and take some photos for your website. This could be photos of yourself as your brand, photos of your products or services, or anything that represents your brand well.
There is nothing like some professional, high-resolution photos to really embody your brand and display the message of your business!
4. Optimizing Mobile Responsiveness
If your website is not set up for mobile-responsiveness, you are missing out on a lot of potential traffic and major business opportunities.
According to research, over 60% of searches are now primarily on mobile devices such as tablets, iPads, and Smartphones. If your website was built before the digital age exploded to what it is today, you need to make some mobile-friendly website updates sooner than later.
The sooner you fix this problem, the sooner you are able to target an entire audience who could possibly become your new loyal customer or client.
5. Increase Your SERP Results
There is a common joke amongst online marketers that the best place to hide a dead body is on the second page of Google. This is because only 0.78% percent of people actually click on the second page of the search engine results page.
There are a few problems with an outdated website that could be severely affecting your search engine results page rankings. Having your website updated could make the difference of first page rankings to the 10th page.
High Bounce Rate
A high bounce rate is a clear sign that something is wrong about your content, or the navigation within your website.
If someone clicked on your website through a misleading ad or meta-description, they will immediately ditch your site and look for something that is more aligned with what they want.
This severely affects your bounce rates which severely affect your rankings.
Slow Website Loading Time
If your website’s speed is over 5 seconds, this could affect your rankings as well. If someone is looking into some information that your website may have but has to sit and wait for it to load, they will lose interest and click elsewhere!
Learn More About Website Updates
Making the right website updates will not only revamp the overall appearance of your website, but it will also improve your rankings and help you gain more traffic.
To learn more about how you can have professionally written, curated and optimized content for your website, send us a message and we would be glad to help you.
Comments are closed.