To my Small Business Owner friends, clients, prospective clients and people that are just bored. This is so important. Please read and seriously think about how you can make this happen.

A combination of good search engine optimization and website content can transform your website into a sales tool. Combining the website content necessary to increase return visits and the SEO to get the initial visitor goes hand-in-hand. Combine that with a visually pleasing and fast loading website, and your website will achieve the results you desire.

“I don’t have the time to up-date my website every day”, is the comment I hear from customers on a daily basis.

The small business owner has many items on their agenda. I get it. I wear many different hats as well. From the A/R to the A/P to the Chief Operations Garbage Man…. I do it all as well. But…. adding new content or providing the content to your website management firm should be at the top of your list. The potential for new customer acquisitions and repeat customers from an updated website with good content is priceless.

Would you operate your retail location and never have:

1) “New” specials in your store?
2) Add new products to the shelf?
3) Speak to the customers that come into your store?

Of course you would. If you didn’t, you wouldn’t have any customers after a few months. The same is true for your website.

Most small business are very comfortable with hiring in-store help, but are reluctant to pay for quality website updates and content. If you truly want to succeed in the online world you’ll need to make the financial effort necessary to do so.

How much should you update your website each day? A minimum of 200 new words a day on your website will do amazing things to your website traffic and content. The viewers will appreciate it, and will come back more often. Search engines will reward you for the updated content and will move your website higher in the rankings for multiple keyword/phrases.

Some options on how it could be easier for you to add content to your website are:

1) Take 15 – 20 minutes each day to sit down in a quiet area to write something relevant to go on the website. If you upload it yourself… great. If not send it to your website developer or SEO. I’m sure they would be very happy to upload your website each day. They should understand the importance of content and changes to your website on a daily basis.

2) Find a website that provides free info for your industry. Add that content to the website. Make sure you add the appropriate bylines and links to the articles author.

3) Have one of your trusted employees (or rotate the writing with your employees) write out the articles. It can be something they do as part of their daily routine. Most employees will enjoy it. It will also allow them to take more ownership of the website and business.

4) Free newsfeeds are available for most industries. It won’t always provide the most relevant information, but it will allow a viewer to read “new” information if they come back to your website and won’t take much time for you except for the initial set-up.

This is all basic stuff, but it’s the meat and potatoes of your website. Content is King…. 15 – 20 minutes a day and you will be moving in the right direction.