Often, when I’m talking at a workshop or conference I tell people that search engines love new, updated content and that you should be updating your website on a regular basis to a) ensure that search engines frequently come back to your website to get new content and b) give your visitors new and interesting info each time they go to your website.

This being said how often should you update your website? This is a really difficult question to answer because it will change for each and every website, but I will give you a few pointers as to when you should update your website.

Look at the other websites in your industry
If you take a look at the other websites in your industry this should give you a good indication of how often to update your website. If for example you have a news website, then obviously the rest of the industry is going to be updating their websites on a daily, perhaps even hourly basis.

Does your update add value to your site?
When I talk about updating your website I don’t mean changing a few words and putting a couple of links in a page. I’m talking about adding content to your website that is relevant and useful to your customers. Any product – if you think hard enough, can have a lot of content written about it. The hardest bit is making that content helpful to your customers. If you’re writing content for the sake of it, this will show. If you’re writing content because you want your users to have a better experience on your website, you’re halfway to getting good rankings.

How much content should you write?
This also depends on your product and your industry, but if you can strive for one editorial-style article a month, this is achievable and won’t take up too much of your resources. Once a week would be better but sometimes it’s hard to dedicate that amount of time to writing content for your website.

How long should you spend on writing content?
For a small business website, allow about one to two hours per week. That’s usually enough time to think about the content you're going to write and produce an article. Sometimes it may take you a little longer if it’s a more in-depth article or you have to do some research on your subject.

What should you write about?
Like I mentioned before, if you think about something enough you will be able to write something that’s useful. Lets say you sell bricks. Pretty boring product… not much you can write about hey? Well, you could write about “how to clean the bricks on your house” or “how to avoid getting mould in wet areas”. These are the things that will help your customers get more out of your bricks.