If the content on your website is old and no longer 100% valid, it can really hurt your reputation and credibility. In today’s community-based economy reputation is everything. If people want to travel somewhere, they will probably check the hotels and restaurants on TripAdvisor, Facebook or in Google reviews. They will try to book places at best-ranked providers and will try to avoid businesses with bad reviews.
In this article I’ll unfold 7 different aspects how outdated content on your website can harm your business.
1. People don’t get what they expect
Let’s say you want to book a room at a small summer guesthouse. Its website promotes on their website that a family room costs $80 for a night and they have a trampoline for the kids in the garden. Sounds like a good value for your money, so you call them to book.
Then the guy at the other end of the line tells you: “oh, sorry, our website i quite old, since then we’ve raised the price to $100/night”. It doesn’t sound too good, does it?
Let’s say, you book the room anyway, and when you arrive there you realize that the trampoline is nowhere. Your kids become sad because jumping on it is their favorite sport. When you ask the owner why it isn’t there, he just answers: “oh, it’s broken down since last year, and we didn’t have the chance yet to get it repaired”.
What kind of review would you leave for a place like this?
It’s not just about what assets the place has for what price. But it’s about what your visitors expect from you. They will expect from you what you offer to them on your website. The exact equipment for the exact prices – a crystal-clear offer. If they don’t get it they will think you lied to them.
2. They won’t be sure if your business still exists
It’s a very obvious one. Let’s say you see a website today that has a label on it:
“Last updated: 24th February, 2005″
You are right if you ask here the question: “Are they still in the business? Or is it just a dead site left alone on a far-away server?”
Most of the site’s visitors won’t call or email them to figure it out. They’ll just move on to the next similar website.
Hopefully your web content is not this old…
3. If you neglect your web pages, do you also neglect your property?
A very serious question. Today, when content marketing is everything, people tend to value your whole business based on your online presence. Even if your physical site is looked after every day, if your website doesn’t reflect it, people will doubt it.
4. Sharing is caring
If you publish new content frequently on your website, you’ll never have to worry about what to share on your social media channels. And Facebook fans, Twitter followers, etc. like to see regular content updates. The more content you post, the more likely someone will share it.
5. The more often they hear about you, the more likely they will choose you
This is so-said in the world of marketing that an average person has to hear more than 9 times about a product before he/she buys it. It means that it has a very low possibility that they will order from you at the first sight.
If you update and share your new contents regularly, it’s more possible that they will reach these 9+ occasions sooner than later.
6. Google likes fresh content
Yes, if there are 2 articles with the same value, Google will more likely rank the newer article higher in the search results list. It means more possible visitors for your website.
7. Up-to-date content = less work for your support team
You’ll get less amount of emails and phone calls about the most obvious topics, like:
- where is it?
- when is it?
- what do I have to bring?
- etc.
if you put all the relevant information on the website and keep it up-to-date. It will allow your team to focus more on sales and giving great service – instead of answering the same questions every hour.
Of course, visitors will ask you these questions even if you have the best FAQ page on Earth, but they will ask them less often. And it means more free time / capacity for you!
Conclusion
These are just 7 examples why content is the king in online marketing. You’ll not just raise the level of trust towards your business if you post new content and update your existing pages regularly – you’ll also more probably have more site visitors.
In 2011 I was a member of a team who managed a guesthouse and our only marketing source was online content marketing & SEO. Our building was almost always full of guests, however, it wasn’t the best place in town. So I can assure you, the principles I wrote about above do work – I’ve seen it myself…
