How Often Should You Update Your Website?
As you start looking into optimizing your website for SEO purposes, you may see conflicting information about whether or not it’s advantageous to update your website regularly. What’s the real answer?
According to Will Coombe, author of 3 Months to No. 1: The “No-Nonsense” SEO Playbook For Getting Your Website Found on Google, Google rewards freshness. Since relevance is a big Google ranking factor, it stands to reason that new content must equate to relevant (a.k.a. useful) content. Regular website updates show search engines that your website is relevant and current, which may result in higher search engine rankings over time.
For this reason, one of the best things you can do for your website in terms of giving it an SEO boost is exactly what you’re reading now - a blog. A blog is the best way to continually add new content to your website without clogging existing important pages on your website with paragraphs of text.
If you decide to start a blog or already have an existing one, don’t try and outsmart Google by just changing the date the blog posts were released in the hopes of being boosted. Instead, link to older blog posts from your new ones to show that they’re still relevant. Google will recognize when crawling your website.
If you’re looking for a good place to start improving your SEO ranking, begin by posting 1-2 blog posts per week. I know - it sounds like such a hassle. But it’s worth it. One of the highest-ranking websites I’ve worked on in the past was a resource for AP Government high school teachers. This website posted a new “class starter” every day of the week in a blog-like format, which greatly improved its SEO ranking in the long term.
Don’t think you’re a very good writer? Consider hiring a copywriter on Fiverr who specializes in SEO-friendly blog posts, provided the content isn’t too technical. One post will cost you anywhere from $20 - $100. Make sure to read through the reviews and/or ask for a writing sample to make sure that their writing style matches what you’re looking for.
Are you a pretty decent writer but don’t have the time? Consider a copywriting AI tool to help. An AI copywriting tool is essentially computer-generated writing. You can find a list of the best AI copyrighting tools on Neil Patel’s website. From my experience, they aren’t perfect, and won’t generate a perfect blog post from one or two sentences, but they’ll help you fill in the blanks where it’s needed.
Conclusion
In general, it's recommended to update your website with fresh and relevant content at least once a month to maintain a steady flow of new information for your visitors and search engines. This could be in the form of blog posts, new product descriptions, or other types of content that are relevant to your target audience.
When it comes to improving your website for SEO, it’s important to remember: quality over quantity. Instead of simply updating for the sake of updating, you should focus on making intentional updates that bring value to your website viewers.
Remember, SEO ranking improvement is a slow climb - not a sprint.
