Website maintenance, much like routine home or automobile maintenance, is a vital—though not especially glamorous—part of the ownership process. When it comes to your website and social media outlets, the principal reasons for content upkeep are, broadly speaking, twofold: revenue and reputation. Your website and social media do different things to grow those attributes, of course, but the interconnected nature of them often allows updates to touch on both.
Why Should I Care?
While this probably doesn’t take as much explanation as the importance of some other services, protecting (and growing) your business’ revenue and building a stronger reputation among your audience are key to longevity. Keeping your website and social media pages current accomplishes both, as previously mentioned. In both cases, the effect is two-fold.
In terms of revenue, up-to-date content both accurately informs your customers (current and potential) about the current services, products, and/or promotions you offer and allows you to improve your search visibility by refining keyword strategies. We discuss the importance of that latter aspect in detail in our blog about search engine optimization, but for our purposes here all you need to understand is that regularly refreshing the content on your website will almost certainly improve the odds that the people looking for you can find you.
On the reputation front, regular content updates help demonstrate that the people who run your business are knowledgeable, of course, but in a more basic sense they show potential customers that your business is active. Have you ever searched for a business only to come up with a barebones Google My Business entry and a Facebook or Twitter page where the most recent post was months (or years) old? IF so, did you get the impression that that was a thriving enterprise with an active customer base? Probably not—most folks don’t see inactivity as a reason to court a business. Being perceived as knowledgeable is vital, yes, but so is being seen as an actively operating company.
Other Considerations
While it might not be the most obvious angle, up-to-date content can also play a role in cybersecurity. A shocking number of websites—about 95%—presently include some amount of outdated and vulnerable code. Old or infrequently updated content is an all-but-certain signal to cybercriminals that your website is among those ripe for attack. Fresh content, on the other hand, could signal that your website is among that small percentage that’s maintained well enough to be secure. This should by no means be a primary concern related to the content, but it is one more reason to stay current.
IDMI.Net’s Web Maintenance Services
At IDMI.Net, we understand the importance of regular, high-quality content updates to both your website and social media outlets. Our process is highly collaborative between your business and our in-house writing team. Generally, it begins with us collecting information about your company’s existing messaging and preferred tone; from there, our writers work up a preliminary copy for you to review and, where necessary, request changes. Our writers do try to keep search engine optimization in mind when they draft content, especially if we’re working with you formally on that front, so bear in mind that some compromises on verbiage may be necessary to achieve your desired results.
Once the copy has been finalized for the particular platform in question, our team will schedule the update and deploy it on the agreed-upon date/time. This step is especially important in cases where we’ll be handling multiple content updates for your website and/or social media platforms—a series of or regular posts, staged content updates or rollouts, and so on. Our writers are proficient in both marketing-oriented and technical copy, so whatever your business needs to communicate we can accommodate.
Our maintenance plans can be tailored to suit the needs of businesses of all sizes across a diverse range of industries. We know that not every business—or every interaction—is alike, and we take care to craft content, tone, and a schedule that works for each unique situation. Real, experienced human beings handle your upkeep, not some automated tool.
Not Sure Where to Start?
If managing your website or social media content leaves you feeling frustrated or overwhelmed, you aren’t alone. It might be time for you to enlist the services of qualified professionals. Mismanaging your messaging by failing to stay current or timely can cause just as much headache—or perhaps more—than failing to engage entirely. Our team is here to help you succeed. Contact us to find out how.