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 Keep Your Website Up-To-Date
by: Janice Byer, CCVA, MVA
In almost every business publication there are articles telling us
how, as a small business, we need to have a website. This is very true!
The Internet is where most people go to find a product or service that
they are interested in or may have heard about. And, if your business is
capable of serving customers throughout the globe, what better way to
keep your information available to that huge target audience than an
Internet presence?
So, we either do the website ourselves or hire a web designer (who
knows the latest trends and techniques) to put together a website that
will help bring in new clients. We spend a great deal of time compiling
the content and working out the details to make sure that our site has
all the information that our visitors will want.
Finally it goes live and…. except for putting our website address in
our signature lines of our emails, on our promotional material, and
mentioning it when we get a chance… we just leave it sitting there.
I am the first to admit that I don’t update my website as much as I
should. I do change the homepage whenever something is worth mentioning
and I add archives of my articles and newsletters. But, the remaining
100 pages (or so) are rarely changed. This is not good!
Our website is a piece of advertising that is always available to be
seen so it needs to be kept up to date. They say that people need to see
our company name seven times before they take action. But that doesn’t
mean they can’t see our company name seven times in seven different
ways.
When visitors come by our website, they see what we have to offer.
They may even have to return many times in order to see everything that
our site has to offer. But, they may not continue to return if they find
that there is nothing new for them to look at.
As small business owners, we are often looking for new ways to
impress our clients. As website owners, we should be thinking the same
way. We need to offer new and interesting content on our websites.
Here are just a few things you can do to keep your website looking
new:
1. If you write articles, be sure to archive them on your website.
And, the same holds true if you publish a newsletter. People will
continue to sign up for your newsletter (after they have read your
archives) so that they are sure to receive the next issue automatically
and won’t have to worry about remembering to head to the website to find
it.
2. Add a news headline service to your homepage. This will allow news
stories to be included on your website with very little effort on your
part.
3. If you have something new or exciting happening in your company,
add that to your homepage. If you are nominated for an award or have
just registered with your Chamber of Commerce, be sure to mention it on
your website. It doesn’t have to be a whole page of information, just a
little highlighted box that stands out.
4. If you designed your own website and you have learned something
new, show it off on your site (or use your site as your testing ground).
Or, if you have a designer doing your website and you happen to hear
that she/he is taking a course to upgrade their skills, why not ask them
if they would like to test out their new skills on your site? Some
designers will do the improvement at no cost to you, as they need
somewhere to do a test run.
5. If you are featured in a publication or on any other form of
media, or if your articles are published, be sure to have a page on your
website to list these accomplishments. Then, each time you are in a new
publication, you can add those to your website.
6. And testimonials… these are extremely important to your company’s
reputation. Be sure to have either a page dedicated to those kind words
or scatter them throughout your website in a way that they will stand
out when your visitors are going through your pages. Then, as you get
new testimonials, you can replace others or add to them.
There are many other ways to keep your site up-to-date… alternate
your graphics; update your links; offer a special for any holidays that
are approaching; and so much more.
Use your imagination and remember that the more information you offer
on your website, the more likely others will want to have a link on
their site that leads to yours. And this can help in your placement in
search engines.
Finding the time to make updates, if you are the designer of your
site, can be a challenge. Try to do a little at a time or hire a web
designer to keep your site up to date.
About The Author
Janice Byer is the founder of Docu-Type Administrative & Web Design
Services (),
a professional Virtual Assistance and Website Design company,
specializing in helping small business owners get ahead. She is a
certified Canadian Virtual Assistant and Master Virtual Assistant
and winner of the Most Successful Start Up 2000 and Home Based
Business of the Year 2000 Awards
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