Our previous post, #1 – Tell Your Story Quickly, showed how to present what your company does as rapidly and effectively as possible. Now, we describe the kind of content you need to keep your site up-to-date – a process that simultaneously makes your company look dynamic, tells your story and makes search engines happy.
#2 UPDATE REGULARLY
Regularly update your website and you will convey two things to viewers: First, they will feel that your company is dynamic; if your site is dynamic it means your company is, too. Conversely, if nothing is happening on your site, maybe nothing is happening in your company.
Second, the most effective way of telling your company’s story is to post “news” items or stories about your company’s successes.
It turns out that Google also rewards websites that have fresh and keyword-rich content. This is particularly important for newer or smaller websites. Adding content on a regular basis gets you noticed by Google, and as you build up a catalog of content in your website, you are naturally adding depth.
Here’s a tip: Don’t get discouraged if something profound doesn’t happen every day at your company. The content that appears on your homepage doesn’t need to be earth-shattering. The point is to keep the homepage fresh, so try to add something at least once a month. And, at the end of this article, we show an alternative to “news.”
Technique A – Brag About Yourself – Media Venture Partners
The web is no place to be bashful. Use your website to show how effective your company, products or services really are. This kind of content is the typical company news or “What’s New” stuff.
An example is San Francisco private equity firm Media Venture Partners (http://www.mediaventurepartners.com). In the left column (1.), they feature a little block titled “Our Successes”. The content links to a gigantic list of deals the company has completed – and very often the value of the deals. Talk about “walking the walk!”
Technique B – Brag About Your Customers or Clients – Cardinal Venture Capital
Silicon Valley’s Cardinal Venture Capital (http://www.cardinalvc.com) keeps its homepage and news section fresh with news about its portfolio companies (1.). Once again, this not only shows what they do and the type of investment they make, it shows that their investments are successful.
Keeping a “news” or “what’s new” section up-to-date is the most effective way to tell your company’s story because it gives real-world, solid examples of your successes. However, since you can’t always generate “news,” there is an alternative.
Technique C – Look Like A Genius – Garcia Interactive
If things are a little quiet around the office and nothing “newsworthy” is happening, another way to add content to your site is to write blog post, article, white paper or “thought-piece” about a topic that is of interest to your market.
Many companies utilize this technique because it accomplishes some things a news item can’t. First, an article can be used to position your company or an individual in your company as an expert in your industry. Timely or in-depth analysis shows that your team is on top of the issues and is confident enough to share their thoughts with the world.
Also, an article can be used as a way of promoting a particular area of expertise that may be extremely popular or in great demand. For example, at the beginning of April every year, you will see a plethora of tax-related articles written by accountants.
Mario Garcia, the world-class designer and chief of Garcia Interactive (http://www.garciainteractive.com), uses blog posts (1.) to keep his site alive and show that he has deep understanding of his industry. This type of blog post accomplishes many things:
– Positions Mario as a thought leader in his industry.
– Gives him a reason to email and post a link to his Twitter and Facebook accounts.
– Adds SEO juice to his site by keeping the site fresh and adding indexable content with important keywords.
Conclusion
Regularly updating your website accomplishes three goals. First, it keeps your site looking dynamic, which implies that your company is also dynamic.
Second, the content that gets added to your site shows people exactly what your company does and why they should work with you rather than your competition.
Finally, for smaller and younger websites, Google rewards fresh and deep content.
All the posts in this series:
4 Things Your New Marketing Site Must Do: #1 – Tell Your Story Quickly (http://www.workbox.com/4-things-1-tell-story-quickly/)
4 Things Your New Marketing Site Must Do: #2 – Update Regularly (http://www.workbox.com/4-things-your-new-marketing-site-must-do-2-update-regularly/)
4 Things Your New Marketing Site Must Do: #3 – Collect Contact Information (http://www.workbox.com/4-things-3-collect-contacts/)
4 Things Your New Marketing Site Must Do: #4 – Measure Results (http://www.workbox.com/4-things-4-marketing-measure-results/)
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