“I don’t have time to update my website.”
By Vicka Petrishko | 26 July 2010
So, you have spent all this time, effort and money on a brand new website. The process of adding your name to the World Wide Web was all too exciting and you are happy with the end result. Now you are going to sit and proudly watch it, like a trophy, assuming that other people will do the same. Uhm... what was it that they said about assumption again?
The reality is that much like a plant without water, a static website without updates will “die” and no one will find your name on this wonderful World Wide Web.
Numbers are your friends
One of the simpler ways to avoid the “death” of your website is by monitoring the statistics of your website. I could write about this for hours, but there are three basics you need to know:
- What is your unique visitor count?
- What is the duration of their stay on your website?
- What are the most popular articles on your website?
Firstly, the unique visitor count helps you assess how many new people are exposed to your website. While this may grow in numbers each month, it’s also important to know how long your visitors stay on your website, as this defines whether the information you provide is enticing. If your website content is not contributed to by its users (like YouTube), at the very least, the third one defines what your visitors find of value.
Time and again, I assist my clients in building functional websites or revamps (which usually double the hits within the first few months). Time and again, I sadly watch the subsequent gradual fall in the hits a few months after the launch. And what’s even sadder is that this happens to 80% of the websites.
You’re too busy for your website
Running my business, I fully understand the meaning of busy-ness. However, while you may not suffer the immediate effects of not exercising this month, you may feel the back ache a year later (or sooner). If you don’t put effort into your website today, you will feel the effects in a month. It’s actually a very simple formula:
Nothing new on website = no reason to go back = less hits = lower ranking on Google = less business
You get the point, right? While you are watching your website, your competitors are busy adding valuable information to theirs...
While my job is growing a healthy online “seedling”, as a business owner it is your job to water, trim and fertilise it. Speaking of plants, each time that you visit www.healthyliving-herbs.co.za, you will see something new on the homepage - be it a tiny snippet of useful gardening info or a recipe. Speaking of new stuff, AORTA updates their website with useful astrological info on a monthly basis and sends out a short newsletter to let you know about it. The 2 people who run these 2 websites (along with several other websites) are possibly the busiest people I know, yet they understand the value of adding value. Both make the time to plan for and fit the updates into their loaded schedules.
Can you afford to spend 4 hours a month on updates?
Yes, I am blessed, lucky and very grateful to get most of my work through referrals from existing clients. However, if this is not the case for you, you need to do some re-thinking about how you use your most valuable marketing tool.
The formula for this one is also very simple:
4 hours of your time a month = Valuable information + Social media = more hits
= higher ranking on Google = more business