Have you ever heard this from a web developer?
- “You need a news page so you can keep your content fresh. Google and users love fresh content!”
- “You need a blog, because Google loves blogs and you’ll look professional to users too!”
- “You need to get on Twitter, Facebook and Linked-In, because social media is hot right now!”
Think twice before you give your web developer the green light to build these modules for you.
Because they can make you look bad, and damage your brand
Why having a news page, blog, and Twitter/Facebook/Linked-In profiles can make you look bad:
- You’ll never get around to updating them, because you’re too busy running your business
- The older your latest news/blog post gets, the more it looks like your website has been abandoned
- The older your latest Twitter message or Facebook update or Linked-In update gets, the more it looks like you don’t care
- If you look careless with your news, visitors will suspect that your other content is equally out of date
Here’s an example of what I’m talking about. When I see the 2007 date I immediately lose confidence in the brand. Is it the same for you?
Sheldon,
Your advice is absolutely right. While it’s easy to add tweets regularly which can come up on a website it’s not always that easy to add a meaningful post on a blog. How many times do you see blog posts that are say nothing and are just put up to be ‘new’. Far better to have regular postings even if they are every couple of weeks. News items are just the same although I guess PR experts would say that carefully managing what you say and when you say it is essential. But, it all takes time which needs to be balanced with getting some revenue in.
Paul
True! Thanks for that Paul.