One thing that never ceases to amaze the Gravytrain team is how infrequently most website owners tend to post or update their site’s content (ironically, we’re notoriously bad for writing in our own blog. Guess we should practice what we’re preaching!). A number of our clients have finally started to take heed to our requests to continually build new content, whether in the form of blog posts, employee journals, new pages, manuals or other instructional pages, or other text-heavy pieces that are original and full of value to the reader.
Here are a few reasons why you’ll want to ensure that you are adding new content to your website each day:
Search Engines Love Content
It’s true – search engines absolutely love content that is unique and valuable. Picture Googlebot as a very hungry squirrel that roams back around your yard every day or two looking for food. If there’s always something kicking around in the form of new content, Googlebot is going to have something to add to its index and to show that your business is still alive and kicking with no signs of dropping off.
Posting up new content regularly also means that you will be working to avoid dropping down the ranks in Google thanks to the “Freshness Algorithm“, which is designed to push newer content up to the top results.
You Have Something to Post About on Twitter and Facebook
If you’re like us, you probably don’t feel that posting about which of your employees wore mismatched socks today or some other inane BS is worth updating the company’s Twitter, Facebook, Google Plus or other social media feeds. However, if you have one of your team members writing blog posts on your site each day or you are adding other valuable content that customers or prospective customers might be interested in, it’s well worth updating Twitter and Facebook to let everybody know. If you have a good reason to update, you won’t cheese any of your followers off – and every update means refreshing your brand in front of at least a few pairs of eyes.
Free Website Traffic!
Another upside to posting new content on a regular basis is that you are bound to attract some additional visitors to your website. This can be especially helpful if you run a business that can handle clients outside of your local area. If your client base comes mostly from your local city or metropolitan area, make sure that you are posting up new content regularly that includes information regarding your city.
It can be challenging to figure out what to write about on a daily basis, so it’s best to sit down once a month or so and figure out a list of topics that one of your staff members can drum up 500 words about each day. Also, try to approach a project like this like a newspaper or other periodical would; you can think up weekly columns, employ guest authors in your industry, and when you’re ready to take things to the next level you can produce videos that may end up getting shared around on YouTube, Facebook, etc.
At the bare minimum, get a blog going and post in it daily! If you’d like some thoughts on how to get this content produced, contact us.