Keeping Your Site Current

by
Jeff Colburn

It's imperative that your website's information be current. This can prevent you from many problems with your clients.

If you have anything on your site that's date sensitive, such as a sale, promotion, coupon or similar items that have expiration dates, then remove them when they expire. I had a friend who used her website to advertise a sale she was having at her store. The ad filled one entire page. Well, about six months after the sale had ended I went to her site and found the sale still listed. She did have an expiration date, which was a good idea, but also caused some problems.

By leaving this expired ad up it caused some problems with a few clients. Some people came to her store expecting the discount mentioned in the ad, and became upset when they found out the sale was over. Some people became so upset that she gave them the discount anyway.

While this solved the immediate problem, she still had unhappy customers. These customers no doubt told all their friends about the unprofessional way the store was run. There's no way to prove it, but I'm sure she lost sales from these unhappy customers spreading their unfortunate experience. Also, you have people coming in that when they find the sale has ended feel cheated, stupid (Jeez, I didn't notice the expiration date), embarrassed, and all around unhappy. They then try to funnel all of these negative emotions onto the storeowner, or whoever happens to be behind the counter. Now you have the owner and employees feeling unhappy. It goes on and on. All because the owner didn't remove the page or update it with something like, "I want to thank everyone who made the sale such a success. Keep checking back to see when our next sale will happen."

Making a simple change like that would have prevented all of the misunderstandings, made everyone happy and increased site traffic as people kept going back to the sales page to see when the next sale would be.

Besides removing outdated material, you should regularly put new content on your site.

This can be done easily by putting up new articles, news related to the topic of your website, contests and anything else that will keep people coming back to your site.

Putting articles on your site is an excellent way to keep it current. These articles can also be a great way to promote your business. There are sites on the Internet where people go to get articles to use in their ezine or on their sites. Placing your articles on one of these content sources can be great promotion for you. Create a good, and short, promotional paragraph to go at the end of your article telling readers who you are and what your business is about and be sure it includes your website address. These are also great places to find content if you can't write, or just don't have the time.

Some of the content sites I use are:

• Ideamarketers - www.ideamarketers.com
• GoArticles - //goarticles.com
• NetterWeb - www.netterweb.com/articles
• Author Connection - www.AuthorConnection.com

You can also offer a free online newsletter, just like the one you're reading now. A monthly newsletter is best, but even a quarterly one will keep your name in front of your clients and potential clients. Again, just write an article to use in the newsletter or use one of the above article sites to find material.

Keeping your site current by removing outdated listings and adding new information will give people a reason to come back often. And with each visit they will be expose to your products and services, which increases your chances of a sale.