5 Reasons Why Your Site Should Have Frequently Updated Content

2/2/10 - Written by: Nick LeRoy

When analyzing a website the first issue I like to address is its frequently updated content. I am referring to frequently updated content as blogs,
news sections, or anything that is updated on a regular basis. The value
of frequently updated content goes further than just search engine optimization, it's a great way to interact and grow relationships with your visitors. Below are five reasons why it's important to incorporate
frequently updated content within your website.

Increasing Search Engine Presence

With every blog post published, article authored, or news article released you are increasing your search engine presence. Each one of these will be placed on it's own unique web page that you can customize to be search engine friendly. Writing a unique title tag, placing your topics heading into an appropriate header tag as well as attaching alt tags to your images can help you rank for several link tail keywords.

Long Tail Keywords

You are probably already targeting several keywords throughout your website so why would you be interested in additional long tail keywords? It's simple, long tail keywords can bring a lot of traffic to your site.

Let me give you an example, lets say your company sells computers. Naturally you have a page for each brand, lets say a Dell, Mac, and Sony computers. You are already targeting broad keywords on these pages such as "Dell Computers" and have an uphill and lengthy battle until you reach that #1 spot. Writing an article focusing on "why you want to buy a dell computer" may give you a pretty good chance of ranking for that long tail keyword pretty quickly. Granted, this keyword might not bring you thousands of visitors a day, but if it brings you 10 new visitors a day it is still valuable. Just imagine if you have ten articles that each bring in 10 visitors a day, all that traffic adds up! From an SEO perspective, this is my biggest reason for suggesting that people implement frequently updated content to their site.

Retaining Your Traffic

If your website never changes, what is the motivation for users to come back to your website? Do you ever go to a newspaper site looking for the latest information regarding a sports team, politics, or even gossip? All these sites are updated frequently to make sure visitors return often. Good product or service related content is a fantastic way to get people to return to your site on a more frequent basis.

Internal Linking Opportunities

Content might be king but without any links your site is nearly invisible to the search engines. It's not just the external one way links that add value to your site; it's the internal links as well. Not only does internal linking help with the search engines it's also a great opportunity to guide your visitors to other parts of your website. The more frequently updated content you add to your site the more opportunities you have to leverage your internal links.

Social Media Opportunities

Have you been thinking about creating a Twitter account lately but didn't because you have no clue what you would tweet about? Building relationships with other online users and tweeting links to articles is a fantastic way to build traffic to your website. Social media is such a modern day phenomena that it's very important that you leverage it to your sites advantage.

Social media opportunities don't end at Twitter, you have Digg, Reddit, Facebook, Stumble Upon and many more. Unique articles and blog posts can reel in hundreds and thousands of visitors if implemented correctly.

I have given you five reasons as to why your site needs to have frequently updated content. Search engines like it, your users like it and overall it helps with the growth of your website.