5 Ways to Update “Aging” Sites
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It’s no news that the major search engines will often give sites with constantly refreshed content an edge — hence the popularily of blogs for marketing. In a very real sense, “relevance” has a lot to do with timeliness. A recently updated site certainly appears more up-to-date than a page built at the turn of the millenium.
But refreshed content isn’t just for the search engines. Visitors like it, too. Updates provide surfers with a reason to bookmark your site. That encourages repeat visits and more click throughs.
So during Q4, why not make a plan for adding or changing a few things to any sites that you haven’t updated for a while? Here are some ideas that are relatively quick and easy:
1 - Add an RSS feed. Blogs automatically include an RSS feed, but you can add RSS to any site by adding some simple code. A service like RSSPECT makes it simple. Be sure to encourage visitors to sign up for your feed.
2 - Add more content. Simply write 10-20 good articles, or outsource them to a freelancer. Do some SEO duty at the same time by researching keywords to use in your articles. The Google Keyword Tool is a great place to do this research (be sure to check the “Synonyms” box to get ideas for long tail keywords.
3 - Modify colors or layouts. You don’t need to do a complete website overhaul. Just changing the page or table backgrounds, adding a few well-placed graphics, or modifying the color of headline fonts can give your website a fresh look. It’s easy to experiment with color or font changes if your site uses an external stylesheet. If you’re not familiar with stylesheets, this CSS tutorial can help.
4 - Add or update products. If you have some mini-sites that run more or less on autopilot, consider using them to test some new product offerings. If these sites promore physical products, consider adding some complementary information products from ClickBank.
5 - Add an opt-in box and build a list. Even sites that target very small niches can increase profitabliity with an opt-in list. In fact, small lists can actually be extremely responsive. If you have a blog, Aweber allows you to email your list automatically when you add posts, as well as build lists on conventional websites.
Next… Try a new niche!
Other posts in this series:
Q4 Affiliate Marketing Checklist
6 Ways to Put Dormant Domains to Use
Which Offers to Keep, Which to Dump?
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