Like most things in life, businesses require constant upkeep. Financial teams keep a close eye on transactions, inventory, and budgets. Information technology resolves help ticket after help ticket, all while fine-tuning your company’s digital infrastructure. Marketing churns out steady streams of customer emails, social media posts, and sales collateral. You get the idea.
At MarketSmiths, however, we’ve noticed that even in this ecosystem of seemingly endless activity, company websites are often overlooked. Building a website from scratch or doing a major overhaul to design, layout, and content is a time-consuming undertaking. A lot of marketing and communications teams simply don’t have the resources or desire to do this on a regular basis.
But updating a website rarely requires wholesale demolition. While websites require regular attention, like any other part of your business, to perform at their peak, periodic content updates can make a big difference in your site and also require less time and resources than major infrastructure changes.
Clients and prospects often ask us how often they should update their websites. Drawing from our experience across hundreds of sites, we typically recommend small updates every month and more substantial rewrites every one to two years. Here’s why.
Search technology is always changing
A high rank on Google’s search engine results page (SERP) is essential to capture traffic and prevent prospects from clicking on higher-ranking competitor pages. Given that Google frequently updates its search quality rater guidelines, the set of principles Google raters use to evaluate the utility of search results, a well-performing website can slowly fall in Google’s SERP rankings without annual content changes.
Google’s guidelines used to revolve around three principles: expertise, authoritativeness, and trustworthiness. In the most recent update, they added “experience,” to the list, prioritizing first-hand advice and perspectives. We can also expect Google’s forthcoming AI-powered search feature to further transform SERP rankings in the near future.
If you haven’t already, now is a good time to update your website to emphasize your experience—along with your authority, trustworthiness, and expertise—to help distinguish your copy from the anticipated deluge of AI-generated content. Consider finding more ways to feature your subject matter experts, accomplishments, and credibility while also underscoring your unique human perspective. Web pages you might have overlooked in the past—like your Mission, Staff or About pages—call for fresh consideration.
Your business and the market landscape is constantly evolving
Your business is constantly changing, which means there’s likely an area on your website that no longer accurately represents your services or value. Maybe you haven’t added your software’s new feature to your product page or your office’s address has changed. These are quick fixes your team can make, and the reason we recommend regular, monthly website reviews.
But maybe the inaccuracy is more complicated, like a homepage hero headline that doesn’t reflect your sales team’s new messaging. Or maybe you’ve shifted your value proposition in light of industry changes. This might require a heavier lift, but it’s definitely not something you want to neglect for several years.
At MarketSmiths, our tagline, “copywriting for humans,” has taken on new meaning since the release of generative AI tools like ChatGPT. While we’ve always made regular changes to our website (we admit, it’s easier when you have a team of seasoned writers to tap for a new landing page at any moment), we’ve started thinking more holistically about our site copy. How do we highlight the value of human-crafted copy at the dawn of algorithm-generated content? How do we show people that a human touch is essential to truly connect with customers, spark a revelation, and inspire action?
Regardless of the nature of your business, your market landscape is evolving. Customer attitudes change, competitors evolve, and investors move on to the next best thing. It’s important to show customers that you’re innovating to keep pace with all these things, too. That’s where comprehensive, annual refreshes can make a big difference.
You have new internal targets
If you haven’t taken a serious look at how your website is performing, it’s a worthwhile exercise. Two excellent measures of your website copy’s effectiveness are your conversion and bounce rates.
While some industries have higher conversion rates than others, a strong conversion rate typically hovers around 5%, and a good bounce rate range falls between 26% and 40%. If you aren’t meeting or exceeding these goals, you may have some room for improvement. Your website copy could be too long, or your mobile experience could be lacking.
Pinpointing exactly what is turning away prospects—or calling in the experts to help you figure it out—can buoy these metrics and help you meet sales and marketing goals.
Build healthy website habits
Although it may seem daunting at first, website updates are much simpler when they’re routine. If your team can plan a small monthly review of your website for minor changes and one or two-year reviews for large refreshes, you’ll find yourself in a much better position several years down the line—free from the overwhelm that comes with a long-neglected site.
So, if it’s been a few years since you’ve critically looked at your website, it might be time for a refresh. Like that sad, forgotten celery at the back of your crisper, or the leftover gravy jar from five Thanksgivings ago, your website content may have passed its prime.
Need a hand creating a new landing page, refreshing existing copy, or revamping your whole site? The experienced writing team at MarketSmiths is happy to help.
