Your website is the cornerstone of your online presence. When you regularly update its content, you’ll boost your SEO (search engine optimization), improving your website’s rankings in search engines like Google. You’ll also increase user trust and improve customer and prospect interactions with your website and business. Here are some important ways you can ensure your website remains on Google’s good side, while providing a positive experience for your visitors.
1. Ensure the basics are up-to-date.
No one wants to visit a website that’s out-of-date or missing key information. Pay particular attention to the following areas:
Contact Information: Ensure your phone number, email, address, and any other contact information leads to you.
Business Hours: Your regular operating hours should be clearly posted. Add an announcement banner on your home page if you’ll be closing for holidays, vacations, renovations, etc. Be sure to take the announcement down later.
Social Media: Include all relevant social media icons on your home page and ensure they are linked to your channels. If you’re not regularly posting to your social media accounts, don’t promote them on your website.
Sales and Special Promotions: Always include announcements about special sales, discounts, coupons, and other promotions—but be sure to take them down when they expire.
External Links: If you have links to other websites, be sure to check them regularly. The Internet is constantly changing and the sites you linked to when you first built your website may no longer exist. Broken links create a bad user experience and can negatively impact your SEO.
This website makes it clear that reservations are required and provides a click to call link.
2. Start a blog.
A blog is a great way to draw website traffic and engage with your readers. It’s also one of the easiest, most cost-effective ways to keep your website fresh. To help your website come up in organic (unpaid) searches, ensure your content is relevant to your readers and written with the right keywords and phrases. Finally, be sure to post regularly—at least once a month.
READ: 3 Ways Blogging Benefits your Business
3. Continually add pages to your website.
Your business is always changing, growing, and improving. Anything you want to be made searchable and public should be added to your website. Examples include adding new products or services, expanding your service area into other cities and towns, or offering informational resources and support. Adding fresh, new content with relevant keyword phrases will help increase your number of first page online search results. You can achieve this through:
Landing Pages written about the core products or services of your business.
Location Pages to attract visitors within the territories of service-oriented businesses.
Informational Pages that serve as a resource to prospective customers.
This is an example of a landing page Sprout created for travlBudi, a travel agency near Concord, New Hampshire. Owner Linda Bucknam knows everything there is to know about making the most of a Disney vacation. This optimized landing page helped her come up on page one search results for “Disney travel expert in Concord, NH.”
4. Consider a website refresh.
If it’s been a while since you first built your website, consider doing a refresh. This will make it feel new and exciting to your long-time visitors, and get Google’s attention. This could be as simple as changing your home page’s featured image, swapping out some photos, or adding in a few more design elements. Bear in mind that any changes should stay true to your branding—the core imagery, colors, fonts, and style of your website shouldn’t change.
Your website is never really done.
The most important takeaway from this article is that your website is never really done. Google and other search engines crawl through and index websites all the time. Regularly updating your website content ensures they know it’s current and active. Your content might be great, but if it’s the same it was five years ago, search engines may assume it’s no longer relevant.
Help with website maintenance and updates
If you don’t have time to update your website regularly, or don’t know where to start, contact the pros at Sprout for Business. Our friendly, professional team is happy to discuss your options with you. Call us at (603) 227-5240 or visit us online.