Many businesses and organizations in Malawi rarely update their websites with latest information. A typical Malawian website still contains the same information that it had when it was developed five years ago, including former members of staff that left the company, retired or are even no more.
So many Malawian businesses treat their websites like a brochure, a static piece of marketing and communication material that never changes. For some, it is enough that they have a website – the work ends once the website is online.
However, designing the website is just the first step. Continually updating it and ensuring that it has latest information and content is really the main job.
There are several reasons why it is important for businesses and organizations in Malawi to update their websites. Here are some:
To rank highly on Google
Everyone wants their website to rank highly on google, among the first top 10 search results. However, not many realize that if you never update your website, your search engine ranking will drop.
Search engines like Google use automated software to crawl the web looking for website pages that are new or updated. These pages are stored and served later when someone performs a search.
The frequency of Google crawling your website depends on how often you update it. For websites that are constantly adding and updating content, Google will also crawl them more often. However, if your website contains the same old content, Google will not frequently crawl it and hence affect your search engine ranking.
For loyal, repeat visitors
Do you want people that visit your website to come again? Then give them a reason to return by keeping your website up to date. Otherwise, why would someone visit your website only to come and find the same old content that they have seen before?
Not only will fresh content cause people to return to your website, it will also cause them to stay longer. They will not just come and go but will linger a little longer as they will be engaged by your content.
The more people keep coming back to your website and staying longer, the more likely they are to buy your products or services. It is an old marketing rule that it takes at least 7 times for a prospect to see your advert or message before they finally become a customer.
It will therefore take more than one interaction with users before they take an action on your website. Having an up to date website will increase the chances of converting these website visitors into your customers.
To enhance your organization’s image, brand and reputation
Your website is the online home for your organization. It is the custodian of your brand, image and reputation online.
It is also the first place where someone would go to when they are looking for more information about your organization, services and products; or they may just land there by random chance while searching for something else online.
Imagine what they would think of your organization, to find that your website was updated five years ago – what would they think of your brand? Would they take you seriously? Some may even conclude that you closed business and no longer exist.
By having an out of date website, you are failing to project the best identify of your organization to the world through the internet. At a time when most businesses pride themselves of being innovative, it may communicate that your organization is behind the times.
An out dated website may cause people to lose trust in your organization; which eventually would cause you to lose business and other opportunities such as funding and partnerships.
What content can you update on your website?
Generally, all the information on your website needs updating from time to time. As things change in your company, it should reflect on your website – new members of staff, new services, products or even updates to your existing services or products.
You should also include your organization news, events, announcements and press releases. Any communication and marketing campaigns that your organization is undertaking offline should also be found online, on your website.
Your website should be a one-stop shop of information for your organization. You should establish it as an authoritative and reliable source of information where all your stakeholders, customers and prospects can visit and find any information that they are looking for.
How to easily update the content on your website?
Using a Content Management System
To easily make content updates to your website, you need a Content Management System (CMS). A CMS allows you to easily update your website without needing to have technical knowledge of coding or website designing.
A CMS would enable you or your communications and marketing team to update the content of your website without needing the help of a technical person such as a web designer or developer. This would be very helpful as most organizations and businesses take time or fail to make frequent updates to their websites due to the lack of support from a website designer or the IT department.
You can have your website developed using open source Content Management System software such as WordPress, Drupal, or Joomla. You can also engage a web developer to develop a custom Content Management System for your organization’s website. However, support for such a custom CMS is usually limited to the developer. You may not have sufficient technical support if the developer is not available, goes out of business, or when you decide to switch to another web developer. In that event, you may be forced to change your website altogether.
On the other hand, support for Content Management Systems such as WordPress is readily available as it is open to the market and many web designers in Malawi can provide support.
Having a dedicated content team
Apart from the technology, you need to have a dedicated team that will be developing content that you can be updating your website from time to time. This team can be in-house, or you can engage a digital marketing agency in Malawi that specializes in content development and marketing. We will discuss further on content marketing and content strategies in another blog article.
How can we help?
We are a digital marketing agency in Malawi. We help organization launch and establish their presence online.
If your organization has a static website, we can help you developing a CMS based website that you or your members of staff can easily manage and update with minimal support from us.
We also offer website management services. We can help in developing content for your website and in updating it so that it stays fresh all the time.
Get in touch in touch so we can work together in establishing your online presence.