It has become common knowledge that a strong online presence is essential to a business’ success. That said, there is far more to establishing a strong online presence. This is more than through simply creating and promoting your business website. Consumers find it is more frustrating to be faced with an outdated, poorly designed, difficult to navigate, and information-sparse website for a business than none at all. Fortunately, this can seem like a relatively easy problem to handle. You simply hire a professional web developer to help you create an outstanding website for your business. Then you can surely sit back and relax, right? Actually, not entirely.
Your Website’s Lifespan
Believe it or not, even the most outstanding website design has a finite lifespan. While industry professionals may disagree on exactly how long this lifespan is (many estimate somewhere between two to five years), they do agree that it is not very long. They also agree that a website’s lifespan is not fixed, but depends on what is done, or not done, to the website over the years. Fortunately, this means that there are certain things a business can do in order to successfully extend a website’s lifespan.
Some of the main factors that can shorten your website’s lifespan include:
- Failing to evolve the main message of your business over time.
- Maintaining the same content strategy without much or any variation.
- Not being aware of or responding to industry changes.
- Adhering to older website design trends, rather than newer ones.
- Lacking the proper formatting necessary for proper viewing on personal electronic devices like smartphones and tablets.
- Older content management systems that make changes and updates slow and difficult to perform.
- A decrease in search engine rankings and search traffic.
- Declining conversion rates indicating an inability to capture and hold consumer attention.
- Competitor website redesigns.
Using Effective Content Strategy to Extend a Website’s Lifespan
One of the easiest and most effective ways to extend your website’s lifespan is through proper website content planning and online content development. In order to understand why this is so, consider for a moment why consumers search the internet and click on certain website links. Generally speaking, they are looking for answers to their questions and solutions to their problems–things that cannot be done simply through the design of a website but must be achieved through website content.
That said, throwing uploads of content on your website is not the best idea. Chances are that your competitors are also aware of the fact that content is king when it comes to drawing in new consumers and creating conversions, which means that your content will have to somehow outshine the rest in order to rank well in search engine results.
Important Points for Creating a Content Strategy
When creating an effective content strategy, consider the following points:
- Find out what your target audience really needs and wants–what problems they are trying to solve and what answers they want.
- Create unique, high-quality content that focuses on consumer concerns, not on selling your brand, your products or your services. Professional content writers are well-versed in writing unique, high-quality content that delivers the greatest impact.
- Add fresh new content on a regular basis so that consumers are satisfied and always come back for more.
- Consider the value of adding images and videos to spice up your content and make it even more attractive. If a picture is worth a million words, a video may be worth a million more. These are easy ways to engage your audience and deliver important information and ideas.
The key to extending the lifespan of your website is essential to keep it as in-sync with your business as possible. This means that as your business evolves, so should your website. Creating a content strategy and adding unique articles to your website is one of the primary ways to engage your audience.
