The Internet Is Constantly Evolving – So Should Your Website

In the world of B2B marketing, things can move slowly. Deals between two businesses take multiple people on each side, vetting, negotiating, and more to finalize basically anything. This leads to business deals taking anywhere from 3 months to over a year to finish. 

With so much business moving at a tortoise’s pace, it can lead to the rest of your business adopting a similar approach. While that can be okay for replacing the free drinks in the break room, one area that shouldn’t move slowly is your website. The internet is constantly shifting, evolving, and moving. To keep those slow-flowing B2B deals in your pipeline, your website needs to keep up with the ever-changing internet. Here are three major ways that regular website updates and maintenance can make your website one of your company’s most important assets. 

Stay Ahead of the SEO Game

The most demanding aspect of your website, in terms of updates, is search engine optimization (SEO). 

Effective SEO, the art of keeping a website atop the search engine results page, requires consistent changes, content additions, and a fast, responsive website. Sounds like a lot of work — so why bother with SEO? Effective SEO is critical for companies that want to leverage their website to attract more business. It means more people coming to your website, learning about your company, and viewing your company as a problem-solver. 

According to Forbes, 93% of all internet traffic is driven by Google. This is why Google’s word is gospel when it comes to SEO. A lot of how Google’s search engine works is not known by the public, but we can use the guidelines they provide to develop best practices. 

In Google’s Search Engine Optimization Starter Guide, one of the key points is to keep content up-to-date, meaning that Google will prioritize content that is “fresh”. Think of your own experience using Google, it rarely provides results with a ton of very old content. Outside of its starter guide, Google has also announced changes to its algorithm that would prioritize content freshness. 

Overall, by regularly creating content you’re building more opportunities for Google to recommend your website to its billions of visitors, which means more customers. 

Improve Website Security

While a thriving, robust website can lead to more customers, a stagnant website can attract the wrong kind of visitors. Hackers, phishers, and other villains of the internet aren’t going to pick on the websites with the most up-to-date website security — they’re going after the websites with vulnerabilities. 

That’s why website security is another important reason you should be maintaining your website. Here are some common, regular best practices to keep your website humming: 

• All passwords should be continuously changed and updated
• Website plugins for Content Management Systems like WordPress (which powers 43% of all websites) require constant updates to maintain security integrity
• Run regular scheduled backups of your website, in the case of a cyber-attack or downtime, you’ll have a recent version of your website

Truly great website security requires a dedicated team, expertise, and regularly scheduled maintenance. 

Better Brand Perception

Is there anything more frustrating than visiting a company’s website and it’s slow, freezes, or doesn’t work as intended? Whenever that happens, you think a little bit worse of the company’s website you’re visiting, right? I mean, if they don’t take care of their website, how well are they going to take care of their customers? 

Staying on top of new technology and new website functionality means a faster, more responsive website. Plus, it means users are more likely to stay on your website longer, feel better overall, and more likely to become customers. A fast, modern website conveys the feeling that a company is serious about every detail of its business. 

Work With Hivehouse For a Better Website and Business

Serious about your business? Then you need to be serious about your website, it leads to more customers, better brand perception, and less vulnerability to things like crashes or worse, cyberattacks. At Hivehouse Digital, we can handle nearly every aspect of website development from design, copy, and development, to support — specifically for B2B industries. Schedule a free consultation today to see where we can help your business grow.