5 Ways To Keep Your Website Content Fresh

For content to stand out it needs to be current. Think your website visitors won’t notice? Go back and have a look at dated content and flag how many different ways it jumps out as old news – it won’t take long for you to realise that being current matters.

It’s not just for looks, keeping your website content fresh is important as it builds trust as well as boosts brand recognition and helps your information match current trends, preferences and user needs. With so many websites abandoned but still functioning, you need to show your visitors that you are still here, you’re paying attention and you are doing the work.

Having current online content also bodes well with Google so you can maintain (or increase) your search performance – something that is key to being found online. 

All those great bonuses should be enough to get you motivated to update old content or continue to press on with developing new content on a regular basis.  To give you some direction on how to get started we’ve provided five easy-to-action tips that you can apply to get your website content and content strategy up-to-date and winning clicks.

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Why you should update your website content

If you are like most business owners with an online presence, once you’ve written your content and hit publish it’s complete and you never look over it again.

You have a valuable resource sitting right there on your system ready to go. The reason why updating content works so well is that the internet gives people instant, rapid and timely information. Everything around us is constantly changing so anything new and current will fit right in – while the opposite is also true that anything older stands out like a sore thumb.

It’s not just your readers relying on your content, Google loves fresh and current information too.

Dusting off your old content to give it a fresh feel will increase the chances of a traffic boost as well as give you a better chance of ranking well in the search engine returns.

Easy ways to update content include changing the photos of your business and staff. If you have staff profiles make sure any staff members who have left are removed and any new staff are included.

When it comes to writing content for blogs, case studies and product information, reading older content is inspiring. You will probably see changes you want to make instantly that sound better than before, accommodate changes to your programs or are a better fit for your maturing audience and company.

If you write your own content you will be getting better at writing every time you do it, practice does make perfect. Looking back on blogs and information pages you wrote a few years ago you will easily see ways your writing style has changed and improved so you can cut in an edit which will be fun and rewarding.

It’s also a great opportunity to find mistakes you may have overlooked in previously published content. Fresh eyes make identifying these and cleaning up easy and you get the opportunity to put out more reliable and trustworthy content the second time around.

Up-to-date content is a major component of maintaining trust and authenticity for your online business.

Updating your content is far less time-consuming than writing new content – although both are great strategies to adopt for keeping your website visitors engaged and seeing great SEO results. You can divide your content plan to write one or two new pieces of content each month and have two rewrites completed so you get great content volume and reduce your workload.

Many business owners tend to overlook existing content when developing content plans. Old content is a great opportunity to make small changes that increase website visibility, and improve customer experience, especially when you couple your work with website analysis tools to update older articles that have ranked well or had a high volume of click-throughs in the past.

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We’ll give you no-nonsense marketing and SEO strategies that will bring you high-quality leads.

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5 critical website updates to stay current 

While it is all too easy to miss the little details that make your content dusty and insignificant, it’s just as easy to clean them up and make them shiny new. Let’s take a look at five simple changes you can make to keep your content fresh.

#1. Watch Your Language

How you talk to your audience might change over time as you define who your ideal target market is. Buzzwords and slang can be a good way to add some personality to your content but these will date quickly and need to be adjusted.

Social awareness is another part of everyday language that is constantly changing and evolving. What changes you need to make here will depend on your audience. Look for ways to use more inclusive language as appropriate to your visitors so they feel welcome and accepted.

This is especially important if you have old-style jokes or cultural references which are now seen as inappropriate and offensive. 

#2. Always include and update dates

Avoiding dates in your content might seem like a great way to avoid people knowing how old they are, but it also means they can’t see how new it is either. The best way to get around this is to include dates in your content and update frequently.

An example of using dates effectively is in a blog post title like:

5 ways to clean up your finances in [fl-year]

This is beneficial for a number of really positive reasons:

• It motivates you to check your content regularly
• It gives visitors a reference for when your products and information are relevant
• Google will be able to read dates easily and rank you well for your efforts

Make sure you make updates to dates that appear in other areas of your website, for example, the copyright date below the website footer. You’ll also need to make sure you are adding to your testimonials frequently too. Adding dates to your testimonials gives them more authenticity. Having current feedback posted can only mean great things for your audience’s response.

While this step might seem simple, the impact on the audience’s end is really high. Consider someone reading content on your website but the copy is out of date by a few years. 

If you have no dates readers won’t know that the content is old meaning they are browsing products or service packages that are no longer available or the prices have changed.

The result is that your visitor will either feel confused or misled. Both scenarios will have them leave and never come back.

#3. Blog posts

Usually, you’ll reference some kind of current event or situation in your blog posts that might be seasonal, political or social. For example, covid consumed all our attention for two years but isn’t necessarily a relevant topic now. Even though your blog might not have been about COVID-19 lockdowns at all you might have referenced it to be relevant to the current worries and fears of your readers or to discuss a personal situation you were facing that allows the reader to get to know you better. You can rewrite the blog to have the same main content without the references to past events or circumstances meaning your information is stripped of the timeline and fresh to go again.

#4. News

Industries, including yours, are constantly changing. Make sure you include content that captures industry changes and developments so visitors can stay on top of current offers, legislation and systems. If you offer a service or product, make sure you’re up to date with new developments. This goes for your internal news too. Make sure you keep visitors updated on what’s happening with you and how you are evolving. A blog about a product that was “just released” two years ago can be rewritten to showcase its popularity, usefulness and what type of customers have loved it. This will help increase visitor engagement and demonstrate that you are an expert in your industry.

#5. Links 

Links are important for a completely different reason. When links have been left unchecked they can become irrelevant, moved or broken. Broken links not only prevent a user from getting the information they need, but it also looks untrustworthy and reflects badly on your business. The other danger with broken links is that once off your website a visitor might stay off-site looking for additional information from other providers.

You need to check links frequently (or use an online tool like Ahrefs) to locate and remove outdated and broken links. This will also help improve your SEO.

Dusting off your content gives it a fresh and engaging feel that is relevant and trustworthy. When you update your old content your customers will perceive that you’re on top of everything in your business and industry. What they can determine from that is that you can offer them the best possible outcomes based on current knowledge and experience.

If you would like some help giving your content a freshen-up, contact the team at Chillybin today.