It never ceases to amaze me that companies spend a fortune on developing their web site and SEO/PPC and then forget to do one of the fundamentals of being on the web.  That is to be of the moment.

The web really is quite a unique tool for marketing.  It gives you a free PR, Advertising, Sales and information platform that is available 24 hours a day 7 days a week and 365 days a year.  It can be seen anywhere in the world and nowadays on all sorts of devices.

So why then when you have your nice shiny new website do you forget to invest just a little time to make certain that the content is kept up to date and that you are seen to be giving it the attention you should.

It’s a bit like having a nice high street shop window with a summer holiday theme still in place in December.
Some of the arguments you get is that ‘ nothing really much has changed’ or ‘ I don’t want to be inventing things to say just for the sake of it ’.  Frankly these arguments, as well as the other ones you hear, are poor excuses.  All businesses should be able to show that things are happening. It  proves you have a pulse!

So here are 5 tips for what you can do.

1. Review your content each month and update at least one item.  You’ll be surprised how easy this actually is.  It is also a very good discipline for making certain information on your products and services are up todate.
2. Add a new news item at least once a week.  If nothing is happening in your business add a link to a relevant item on another site.  Better still make a comment on the item as well.
3. If you do not already have a blog get one.  Blogs are read often as much as the front page content.  Simply because they have the luxury of not being considered to be a corporate tool..more a place for random thoughts.
4. You may not be into Twitter but try it anyway.  For businesses it is increasingly becoming a way to market to people.  It is not about telling people you just got on a bus!  Announce new products,  Offer sale items. Ask for feedback (be bold)
5. If you have to have information about your staff (almost mandatory for public companies to at least show board structure) then make certain it is up to date.  I went to a website of a large corporation the other day and saw that the CEO shown was one that had left a year ago.  Not good.

One of the reasons why we build client websites using a content management system is so we can give them the tools to make these changes quickly themselves and at zero cost.  In other words take away another excuse for not keeping things fresh.

Now the title of this article is “Practice what you preach”.  What prompted me writing this was the fact that  I had a look at the website of the Chartered Institute of Marketing today (www.cim.co.uk) and saw that the last news item was June 2010.  Need I say more!

Trevor