Are you simply too busy to blog?
We often speak to businesses that explain that they are just too busy to keep their website updated. Of course the day to day running of your business has to be your priority but can you really afford to neglect your website?
What impression does current and active website portray?
When you visit a website and the content has been refreshed since you last viewed the site, it gives the impression that this company is active and cares about their image.
There is nothing worse than visiting a news or blog page and the latest post is from 12 months ago. Although in reality that company is probably just too busy to dedicate the time and effort to focus on their website but unfortunately this is not the message that is conveyed to the visitor and potential customer.
I have no news to update my website with
This is another comment we frequently hear from many businesses in various industries. Once we talk to them we soon discover however, that this is very rarely actually the case. Just to highlight this we have complied a brief list of ideas that you may not initially feel are newsworthy but will certainly be of interest to your clients, customers and prospects:
- Award nominations / wins
- New products / services
- New legislation in your industry
- Advice / tips
- Top 10’s (eg top 10 tips to keep website up to date)
- Events
- New staff members
- Charity contributions / fund-raising
- Industry news
Work to a plan to keep your website updated
Having read this article we really hope we have spurred you on to go away and write some new and exciting articles to update your website, however it is easy to let this excitement dwindle once the weeks come and go and before you know your blog is already 3 months out of date.
Our advice would be to break it down and keep it simple. Look at the year over 12 months and see what events or news you know is coming up and you can plan for. For example if Christmas is a particularly busy time at which you release a product that only sells over this period, plan to start blogging about this in early November to build up interest in plenty of time. Similarly if you always sponsor an event in July, have this planned to blog about throughout the year leading up to the event to gain maximum exposure.
Choosing the right image to support your content
So you’ve taken the time to plan your blog articles and you are well under-way following your plan, it is then crucial that you spend the time to find or produce the right photography to support your article. As the saying goes, an image speaks a thousand words and if your photo does not look professional or does not work within the page of the site it is likely to distract people from reading your article.
The relevance of blogging for search engine optimisation (SEO)
Google, the leading search engine, has seen many recent updates to their requirement of a website to determine how highly ranked the site is within their search engine. This has resulted in websites which were previously considered highly optimised taking a dramatic plunge in the page ranking.
The aim of these updates is to reward honest and real websites so in turn individuals that are searching for, let’s say a ‘website design agency in Chester’ will discover a page of real businesses that actually offer website design and are located within the specified region.
The best way of successfully achieving the highest ranked website within your required search fields is to keep your content current and up to date. Google regularly revisits website to review their content and more importantly to discover their new content. If a website hasn’t been updated for several months Google will perceive that site as a dormant website and thus push it down in the rankings.
So when you next think you are too busy to blog, think again. At Entyce we update websites for many of our clients and we ensure we are working to a schedule to keep the site up-to-date and current throughout the year. Once you have a tight plan to work to any other articles and stories that arise can easily be included to the mix.
If you would like to discuss blogging or website design in more detail to see how we might be able to help give you achieve the best online presence for your business, please get in touch with our website experts on 01244 310140.