Seven Ways to Keep your Web Site Content Fresh

We’ve all heard the expression “Content is King.” This maxim especially holds true for your company Web site. Fresh, relevant and up-to-date content will help your site perform better in search engine rankings and will keep customers and prospects engaged and coming back.

The challenge is coming up with all this fresh content. As busy marketers, we don’t always have time to write or update copy, which is an important task but not always the most urgent. Sometimes it gets pushed down the to-do list and before you know it, your Web site hasn’t had a fresh posting in weeks or even months.

That brings us to recommendation #1 on how to keep your Web site content fresh.

1. Don’t go it alone. Whether you are a small or big company, put together a “content task force” of colleagues who will take responsibility for developing content for one area of your Web site. Product managers for new product information; public relations people for press releases; graphic designers for photography and illustration; technical support reps for frequently asked questions. 

You can recruit anyone who has knowledge of a specific area that is of interest to your audience and is willing to compose the first draft of an article (marketing can be responsible for editing and publishing). The point is, if you can summon a team to help generate content, it will be much easier to keep your Web site fresh and relevant—to search engines as well as customers and prospects.
2. Post press releases. Your company is in business every day and therefore generates news on a regular basis. Write press releases to announce new products, new partnerships, new customers, new events, and new white papers—almost anything new. Use keywords in the copy and link those keywords to corresponding pages on your Web site.

3. Keep product areas updated. Make sure the products section of your Web site is up to date with information on the latest versions, features and benefits. If you have only high-level descriptions of products, create additional pages with detailed information for each product. Post PDFs of product-specific collateral.

4. Begin a blog. A blog is not only a great way to generate new content, but also to interact with customers and prospects who might read postings and leave a comment. You can have a blog that’s written by one person in your company or you can recruit multiple contributors. Develop a schedule with author assignments so people know when their article is due.

5. Post copies of e-newsletters. That e-mail newsletter that you send out monthly or quarterly? Be sure to post a copy of it as a Web page on your site. Create an archive page with links to past e-newsletters. Don’t forget to include an offer on those pages inviting people to subscribe to future e-newsletters.

6. Write white papers and technical articles. Stay on top of the trends in your industry and customer issues to help generate white paper or technical article ideas. Here are some tips: explain a technical process, write a “how-to” paper, analyze an industry trend, or describe different approaches to solving technical problems. Your focus should be educational and your objective to be useful to your audience.

7. Go beyond copy. Content isn’t just text. It can be photos, illustrations, audio podcasts and video. Add photos or illustrations to all your product pages; post an audio interview with a product manager or executive; shoot a video of your products in action at a customer site.

When developing new content, always keep in mind two things: (1) Know your audience and be relevant to them; and (2) use keywords in your copy to help with search engine optimization.

Comments

[Seo Firm]

I really found those hints helpful, Begin a post really helps traffic to your site in a sense people going to come and post their comments on your products .... and its also beneficial for your marketing point of view.

[Steve]

MM: Thank you for concise and useful hints on the ever present quest to stay fresh and relevant. I'm going to adopt the newsletter approach as something new to offer in our business web presence.

[SEO Betty]

Great ideas all the way around, including Galen's about customer profiles.

The recommendation in No. 4 to keep an assignment schedule is critical, even if only one person is blogging. I'ts much easier to post regularly if you already know what you're going to write and when you're going to do it.

[Galen Sonntag]

Good ideas, good suggestions. Good content is always a hard to get resources. We find customer profiles a great way to add content.