Over the years I’ve help a lot of small business owners get their web presence started. One of the biggest mistakes those business owners have been to setup a website with too much of a focus on “timely” content.
When writing the content for a website, and more specifically a retail business, it’s important to write generically enough that your site doesn’t look old and outdated in a few months. Using phrases like “We’ve been a leader in water filtration and purification for the past 2 years” means that you HAVE to go back and change that one phrase every years – otherwise you’re taking full credit for the time that you’ve been in business. It would be better to say “We’ve been a leader in water filtration and purification since 2008” – see what a difference it makes if you’re reading that as a customer… or potential customer?
Another BIG mistake is insisting on having a blog! I have literally BEGGED clients to NOT do a blog. I explain that a blog REQUIRES active participation and marketing expertise. I show them other business’s blogs that have been updated in 2 years or more. 95% of the time they swear they’ll keep it updated and be active. 99% of the time, they are gung-ho for the first 3 months, then a year goes by with nothing posted. It makes me shudder when I go back to look at those old client sites.
Invariably they realize after a few years that they need to update things and they hire some company for thousands of dollars to do a new web presence – and it usually does NOT include a blog and the writing is done by professionals (who charge A LOT more than I ever did.)
These days Facebook would probably suffice for most of those clients as they don’t have much they need to talk about and it’s easy to make changes to hours, directions and get people to connect.
If you’re a small business and you want a good website, first, write good content; second, designate one or two employees to be in charge of the site content and make sure they keep it updated. Your employees have a good idea what your customers talk and ask about every day – why not give them something else to be committed to and be excited about… and if you really want a good blog, let several employees write posts (yes, you can review them before they go live.)