The benefits of updating your site regularly

Keeping your website up to date is a task that often gets put to the side and forgotten about – especially when you’re busy with other things. But whether you’re a small business looking to target local customers or self-employed and trying to reach potential clients, updating your website should be top of your list of regular maintenance tasks to keep your online presence on track.

What are the benefits of updating your website? Some of the reasons you’ll want to keep your website as current as possible include:

• Ensuring your website’s security is up to scratch
• Keeping your content new and fresh for search engines and customers
• Making sure you meet current website design standards
• Using SEO best practice for better optimisation
• Fixing broken extensions and other technical elements

With those benefits in mind, we’ve listed all you need to know about why updating your website is so important, what the benefits are of continued updates, and why you should get started on those updates as soon as you possibly can:

Better Website Security

Whether you offer a complete online shopping experience or you just ask for visitor’s email addresses for your newsletter, having good security is a must not only to protect your customers but to protect yourself, too. Vulnerabilities in older, infrequently updated websites can make them open to hackers. This is especially true when it comes to platforms like WordPress, where new releases and updates come out every couple of months that need to be installed.

You may think security isn’t as important for your website as it might be for, say, a government or healthcare platform. But you want to protect your customers, and you want to be able to meet the highest safety standards if you want to maintain an image as a reliable and reputable brand. Make sure everything is up-to-date behind the scenes, and you won’t have to worry about security breaches or hacking.

NB: When your website is on Limecube, you don't need to worry about such updates, as we take care of that for you.

Fresh, Relevant Content

Content is key to climbing those search rankings and bringing in new customers – but there’s more to it than just writing something and letting it sit for years to come. Platforms like Google want the content they use to rank your website to be engaging, relevant, and fresh. Old content, whether it’s blog posts (unless they are evergreen, with strong SEO behind them) or your website copy, won’t achieve anywhere near the same effect. So it’s well worth switching things up.

From a potential customer perspective, a website that looks ‘dead’ also isn’t attracting the right perception. If your footer still says copyright back in 2015 or your blog was last updated in January of 2018 it doesn’t make your platform look like it’s active, thriving and in the market for new customers. Updating your website with new content, content that’s relevant to your audience now, and even content related to current world events are all good places to start.

Meeting Website Design Standards

What might have looked great for your website design ten years ago is likely outdated, old-fashioned, and out of the loop in comparison to other competitors in your niche. Updating your website design or branding may seem like a big task, but it’s well-worth making small tweaks and updates over time instead of needing a whole new overhaul in the near future. By keeping your website design relevant to your industry, on-brand and functional for your audience, you’re far more likely to be seen as a brand that’s got it together.

One big way that websites can update to the modern-day is with a reactive, mobile-friendly design. If your platform hasn’t been updated to suit current mobile standards, then you might be missing out on customers to your competitors. User experience and user interface are also key points to consider, and you want to ensure your platform looks good while still being as easy to use as possible – which may require an update or two.

Keeping Your Website Technically On-Track

The technical, background side of website management is just as essential to keep track of as what your potential customers see. Without all the working parts in your website updated to their current versions, not only are you open to vulnerabilities, but parts of your website might straight-up not work. By making sure your add-ons, extensions and apps are updated, you can prevent these headaches from happening in the first place.

If you use WordPress, keeping track of extensions and updates is an easy task. All you’ll need to do is log in every now and then to check that everything is working as it should. With extensions offering anything from contact forms to complex sales funnels for your business, it’s important to ensure everything is working as it should.

NB: When your website is on Limecube, you don't need to worry about such updates, as we take care of these technical updates for you.

Hitting all the right SEO notes

We mentioned content above, but when it comes to Google and similar search engines, frequent updates and search engine optimisation are the perfect pair. Not only can you create fresh and exciting content for your audience, but you can look at updating the content that’s already there to make it more suitable for your audience.

Perhaps the branding of a product or service has changed, but you haven’t updated it on your website. That’s an easy fix. Or maybe you’ve written a great 2,000-word how-to guide on your blog a few years ago, and you want to rework it a bit to add more keywords and make it more relevant to the here and now. Updating your website is more than just doing something entirely new, and when it comes to SEO updating what you already have can make a huge difference.

How can I make sure my website is updated?

Making updates a regular part of your day-to-day work is the best way to ensure your platform stays as current as possible. Just like any other admin task. Or, if you’re finding that time is slipping by and you can’t keep up with your updates schedule, bringing in professional help can ensure you’re always on-track and your website is safe, secure, and optimised effectively. However you do it, updating your website should be firmly on your ‘to do’ list.