After you press publish and announce the launch of your website, you might think your work is done. While I’m a huge advocate for celebrating your website launch and appreciating all of your hard work, it’s not the finish line.
This kind of thinking can lead to a “set it and forget it” mentality when it comes to website marketing. Many entrepreneurs figure if they put the work into building their website once, it can just sit and collect leads for them, which is partially true.
You want to build a website that runs on autopilot and doesn’t need to be tweaked every few weeks, but it still needs to be updated over time. Even the most strategic, high-performing websites benefit from some TLC.
If you build a set it and forget it website, you could be missing out on opportunities to:
- Increase brand awareness and create a more visible brand
- Attract more website visitors who fit your ideal client profile
- Qualify more leads for your products or services
Let’s talk more about why you don’t want to push your website to the back burner.
Why you don’t want to create a set it and forget it website
If you put your website into set it and forget it mode, your brand might not reach its true potential. Since your website is the marketing hub of your brand, it’s important to improve your user experience over time.
Instead of treating your website like a one-and-done project, think about the benefits of creating a website that evolves with your audience’s needs. This means your business will need to stay proactive, but the payoff is worth it.
If you aren’t convinced, here are a few more reasons why you may need to put some extra elbow grease into your website and ditch the set it and forget it mentality.
It leaves little room for ongoing optimization
If you don’t have a plan for regularly updating your website, trust me—it won’t happen on its own. That’s why it’s important to revisit your website strategy and check your website analytics.
Reviewing your strategy will help you determine which objectives you’re meeting, which goals you haven’t reached yet, and what’s not working. You can compare your notes with your website metrics, giving you real customer data as additional proof.
When you regularly collect data and feedback from your clients or customers, you have a greater opportunity to make strategic tweaks to your website. This knowledge is invaluable because it’s taken from real people in your audience.
For example, if you knew 80% of your audience was interested in one of your signature offers, you’d likely want to lead with it on your Services page. Instead of including it at the bottom of the page, you could reorganize and simplify your offers by putting them front and center.
Use critical thinking to decipher which feedback and data are relevant to your business and how they can be used to make ongoing improvements to your website. The more you optimize your website over time, the more you’ll see your website conversions increase!
It creates less opportunity for driving new leads
Many entrepreneurs rely on driving organic traffic to their websites to grow their lead generation. If you don’t keep an eye on how your website is performing, you may fall into a slow season of.
The good news is that every business encounters slow seasons. You’ll want to strategically use this slower time to make tweaks to your website. That way, when more traffic comes to your site, you’ll be ready to serve new visitors with a streamlined user experience.
It’s also a good time to revisit your signature offers and business model. If you add new streams of income or make significant changes to your current offers, you’ll want this to be reflected on your website as soon as possible.
Once your website is updated, you can put more time into revitalizing your social media accounts, email marketing, and any other active marketing channels you use to drive traffic to your site. You’ll get back to collecting more leads in no time!
It leads to outdated website information
If your website content feels a little stale or the design aesthetic feels outdated, it might be time to update your website. Before we work together, it’s common for my clients to talk about how outdated their website experience feels. We’ve all been there, but you don’t have to stay there.
Instead, make a plan to regularly update your website content. I usually recommend doing this every three to six months or whenever you make significant changes to your offers.
Remember, your website is the most public-facing information hub of your business. It’s the first place people will go to learn more about what you do and sell, so it’s important for it to accurately represent your brand.
Most of the time, you’ll be able to make a few simple edits to your website content and design without needing an overhaul. This is a good thing because it means you don’t have to invest more time and money into redesigning your website every time you need to make an update.
It doesn’t allow for fresh blog content
Without new blog content, you may see a decrease in your search engine rankings. Google likes to prioritize websites that consistently publish valuable content.
No matter if your content is focused on educating, entertaining, or simply inspiring your audience, you’ll be able to increase your SEO if you regularly post blog content.
If you’re strapped for time, you can also strategically update your old blog content with fresh information or repurpose past content into a new blog post. Many bloggers use this strategy so they can keep using the content that’s working while making tweaks over time.
Blogging can seem like a big commitment, but it also has a big payoff in the traffic it drives to your site. While creating weekly blog content is ideal, publishing new posts at least once a month is a great place to start.
A better way to update your Showit website
It’s always easier to optimize your website when you go in with a plan.
If you aren’t sure where to begin, I’ll help you with my guide on How to Optimize Your Website Over Time. Inside, you’ll find a list of tasks along with how often you need to complete them to keep your website looking fresh.
What are you waiting for? Let’s start updating!
