Online Success 2: Keep Your Content Fresh

October 01, 2024

Sound Advice

My high school football coach was as tough as they come. In one of my first practices under him I asked him why I couldn't run as tight-end the way I always had, and he said something I'll never forget: "You do it my way, the right way, every time so that you don't have a chance to learn any bad habits!" Working with your website shouldn't be that tough, but the principle is the same, so I'm telling you this at the beginning so that you don't start forming any bad habits: Learn good habits from the start so you don't start forming bad habits.

Update Your Content Often

So what does that really mean for you? The first rule of achieving online success is to get into the habit of updating your content frequently so it stays fresh. Here are some general guidelines to keep in mind as you follow this golden rule of online success:

Update your website text daily. Make the most frequent changes to your Home page and aim to make changes to different places on your site each day. Regular updates improve your SEO score and increase your visibility in web searches.
You should also be swapping out images on a regular basis. Change images in your slideshows. Swap out an aging product in your What's New section for one that is truly new. Change supporting photos on some of your lower-traffic pages periodically to keep them fresh. We will teach the 'how' of all of this, but it is up to you to make the time and do it.
Make time for your website. It's easy to get busy with other business operations of your store and to let the website slide. Neglecting your website even for a few days can become a bad habit. At the beginning it's easier since the website is new to you and so very much in need of work, but as you go along you have to continue to make time for your content. Try to block out fifteen to thirty minutes of 'web time' each workday, a time when everyone knows and expects you to be working on the site. Before you know it, you'll have developed a new habit that will help you keep things fresh and new for the search engines and your online visitors.
Publish or perish! This classic academic maxim is true in many professions, and is also critical in your online success. It is not enough to tweak text and swap images from time to time. It is not enough to feature your new products and market them well. Your competitors are all doing that. What you need to do to stand out from the crowd is to publish something more impactful from time to time. Write an article with useful advice, techniques, or tips for people in your industry and post it on your site. Put together a tutorial, a video, or a PDF download you can offer as a freebie where you teach how to do something cool and interesting. Whatever it is, doing something like that once a month would be good, but if you could do it two to four times a month, the internet will love you.