I have been totally swamped over since the last post and have managed to completely ignore this website. My bad, but we must all prioritise, right? Anyway, having noticed a slow but steady decline in traffic to this website I decided that the least I can do is add a quick post. The topic? Simple, the very issue that brings me here to write this post. How often should a website be updated? Content is Bling, or as is commonly described in the SEO’s world, content is king.
The amount of content one should add to one’s website varies, but all in all it is a sure thing that lots of quality content really helps to get you found more frequently. People are looking for information online and if you can provide this in an easy to understand and relevant manor, chances are, the visitors will continue browsing, come back, add your RSS feed to their favourite reader or even convert for you.
For those of you wanting to know what sort of impact adding content has purely in terms of authority in the eyes of the search engines, well, it does help tremendously to add content regularly. This content must be worthwhile though and when considering how often you should update your website with new content, think about the following points:
- How much information do you have to share on your topic(s)?
- How often are your visitors likely to come back?
- How lengthy should your new content should be?
- What is the true value of this new information you are offering?
- Are you updating out of necessity because of service/product or price change?
Frequent updating of your website is essential if you want to outreach to new segments and sometimes it is simply a matter of necessity due to the fact that your products, services, prices etc are fluctuating. When Search Engines sees simple data changes such as prices, products etc they understands that the site is being looked after and is therefore an important addition or part of it’s listings. When Search Engines see new content being added on an ongoing basis they understands that you are more authoritive in your particular fields or niches (not pronounced niche all you Americans! :p) thus giving you better overall rankings in their SERPs.
Remember, the content must always be of a good quality, so don’t bother adding more information just for the sake of it or repeating yourself. The keywords here are Quality, Unique, Relevant and Readable. If you know that there is a limited amount of information you will be able to publish then spread it over time and publish one article every 3 days instead of every day for example (yes, every day is best… hell… every 5 minutes if humanly possible); but keep the updates regular. Your visitors will become accustomed to the frequency of your updates and are far more likely to return if the updates are regular rather than haphazardly appearing all over the week or month. If you have access to analytics just look to see how frequently your visitors return and you will know the minimum frequency with which to update your site.
Whilst it is good to update your website with new content as frequently as possible you must realise that in most cases, people want to get the information quickly and don’t want to read a novel on the subject. Keep your articles at a minimum of 500 words for the search engines, but not too long for the reader. If you do have particularly long articles that are any more than 1500 or 2000 words, I would recommend you paginate (split the article into more than 1 page).
How often should a website be updated? As frequently as possible.
So there you have it, and now I can breathe easy again, safe in the knowledge that Google will soon be visiting and finding some juicy new content to share with the world.