How often should I update my website?

By Kai M, Deliberate Design.

The short answer: when something changes. Prices, hours, a new service, a new phone number, a photo of a job you are proud of. There is no rule that says a website must be updated weekly, and a site that is correct is better than one that is busy.

What needs updating

• Prices, the day they change. Nothing loses trust faster than an old price
• Opening hours, including Christmas
• Services you have added or stopped
• The team, if it is on the site
• Photos, a few times a year, so the site looks like the business does now
• Reviews, when you get a good one

What Google notices

Less than people think. Google rewards pages that are accurate and useful, not pages that change for the sake of it. A page updated with real changes a few times a year is fine. A blog with one post from 2021 does more harm than no blog, because it tells visitors nobody is home.

The yearly ten minutes

1. Read the whole site as a customer. Anything wrong?
2. Click every link and send yourself the contact form
3. Check it on your phone
4. Check the padlock and the domain expiry
5. Swap two photos

Making it easy

The reason small business sites go stale is that changing them is a job for someone else. On ours you have a login and change the words and photos yourself, or ask us and it is included in the monthly fee.