How often do you re-invent or update the content on your website or blog?
Do you even have a blog?
What is your web content strategy?
How does that tie into your overall marketing plan?
Most resellers we’ve worked with can’t answer these questions.
Nine times out of ten, the reason is the organization doesn’t have a marketing staff that’s made up of more than a few people. Heck, sometimes it’s only one person, and they’re sales folks, receptionists, or even owners of the company.
Whether that’s the case in your organization or not, the truth is writing fresh content is becoming more and more of a necessity. When daily tasks and responsibilities mount towards the front of to-do lists, writing content often takes a back seat.
This post is designed to help you realize the importance of keeping your content fresh, and some of the ways organizations of any size can get a start in the right direction. Below, we’ll dive into some of the immediate steps you can take to accomplish this without pulling your hair out.
Part 1: 4 Reasons to Keep Your Content Fresh
One of our marketing consultants always refers to resellers’ websites as their “virtual store front.” It’s a great comparison, because the “big flashy sign” of your website is your content. It’s what attracts customers in the door and, in this case, what keeps them coming back. Along with keeping customers engaged, some of the other benefits of keeping your content fresh and up-to-date include:
1. Search engines can find you: Think about it like this. Google is in the business of providing relevant information to the people that use them as a search engine. Google’s main objective is to make sure the most relevant content is at the top of searches so users keep coming back. So what does that mean to you? Unless you are keeping your content fresh and driving in-bound links, your ranking on search engines will never improve.
2. So your customers keep coming back to your website: Once a visitor knows what you do, what keeps them there? What keeps them coming back? Updating content on a consistent basis can be a great reason to proactively let your customers and prospects know that you care about keeping them informed, and helps accomplish number 3…
3. Position yourself as a thought leader: Many of our resellers don’t under the true value of “giving away” technical expertise or how one can solve a certain IT problem.
Positioning yourself as someone who can provide unique information and fresh takes on old problems can help ensure that customers and prospects will reach out when they have a true IT initiative they are trying to solve.
4. Specific to the IT industry, you need to keep your messaging up-to-date with latest technology or else you can expire: Do you still have information on your website about Windows 95? It might feel like a stretch but you’d be shocked what we see some websites talk about. Consumers are looking for information on IT that’s generating buzz. Make sure your website is following suit.
In part 2 of our Keeping Your Content Fresh series, we’ll dig into how to accomplish this without killing yourself.
