You've set up your website, you post fairly regularly on social media, and you have a scheduled email sequence going out to clients or warm leads. Great. You're all done then, right?
WRONG! Your content needs to be reviewed regularly because:
there can be changes in your industry
there can be changes within your target market
your business set-up can change over time
you might bring out new or adapted service/product offerings
online content can fall foul of broken links or out of date images
printed content can fade/get out of date pretty quickly
and the biggy - search engines reward websites that are updated regularly
Thankfully, it is fairly simple and doesn't need to take too much time. So let's look at the type of content you should be reviewing regularly.
Copy reviews for all business types
It is a truth universally acknowledged that as soon as you publish your website, or do a print run of brochures, something will already be out of date. Either your industry will go through a major (unexpected) change. Or you will change your business offerings. Or your target audience will change.
Both print and online content needs to be refreshed every now and again.
1. Website copy
With your website copy, consider all the content, including the Home page, your Contact page, all blog content, and the SEO elements.
Here's my quick checklist:
check your links: look for broken links or links that are no longer relevant
review all the images on your site - check for out of date or inappropriate images (what was unique or funny 5 years ago might not be now)
look critically for copy that it too wordy or a bit stale
refresh your CTA's (calls to action) - research shows you can significantly improve conversion rates by making ongoing tweaks over time
re-read all your blogs (or at least the most recent ones) and see if they could benefit from a quick re-fresh.. maybe something in there is now out of date? Or you can add something to it? This is great because then you can re-share your blogs - and don't we all love a bit of content repurposing!
and don't neglect the SEO behind the scenes, check for meta descriptions and image alt tags etc
2. Social media content
You might be really happy with the images you use and the tone of your copy. But even the big guns adapt their logo's or image over time, and you can refresh your online image too.
You might keep the same colours, but refresh the way they are used, the order of the dominant colour, or the placement of your logo on the graphic.
3. Day to day communications
Review your out of office emails, your email signature, any automated messages, and your proposals or templates.
Using the same philosophy as above, look for outdated content, stale content, or out of date content.
4. Staff profiles/Case studies
This is a big one! So many organisations still have staff bio's on their website with staff who are no longer in the organisation, or have since changed their job title. Even if they are up to date, check for any content that now seems stale or out of date.
With case studies, you might want to review them and add or amend the content to show new learnings or updated progress.
5. Printed marketing collateral
Do you have flyers, bricures, business cards, or signage? Take a critical look and check for out of date content as well as images that might need an update. Get it right now, before the next print run!
Ready to update your content? Please feel free to get in touch and ask for a quote. As a copywriter, I also offer editing services and can help audit your content and refresh it as necessary. Get in TOUCH.