The first rule about the web is – always keep your content fresh. The second rule about the web is – never forget the first rule. It is as simple as that. Whenever your website starts to lag behind with the updates, you run the risk of getting overlooked and neglected by the users and search engines. Let’s go over a few simple tips on how to keep your website fresh and updated.

Search Engines and Rankings

Search engines are designed to filter and find exactly what we you are looking for on the web. In order to do this and always find the right thing, search engines need a way to identify what is considered the ‘good stuff’, but also what is not.

Frequency Identifier is used for determining how often a website is updated. If this tool recognizes that your page is updated frequently, the search engine then sees it as a consistent source of new and relevant information, awarding it with the precious points which help move its listing up in the search results. Higher ranking, means more traffic, however, if the website’s content is old and it is never updated, the search engine moves it down in rankings.

On the other hand, you must think of the visitors as well. We must give our visitors the reason to come back to our website and increase the chance of converting. If a search engine see your website as outdated, there is a good chance your potential customers will too.

If a visitor comes to your website today and then comes back next month only to see that the content hasn’t changed or that the page hasn’t been updated at all, they will think your business is not growing, you are not innovating and the customers will start to leave, one by one. Even the simplest changes like posting news and announcements will show your progress, innovation and fresh content.

Keeping WordPress Up to Date

The most obvious reason to keep your WordPress updated is, of course, all the latest and greatest features and upgrades to the software. But what about your plugins? Your latest plugins are modified to work with the most current releases of WordPress, and if you start to lag behind with your WordPress updates, you may not able to use it to its full capability and run the latest releases of all the plugins.

While some of you might ask – What if I’m satisfied with the way the site currently functions and don’t need the new features in the latest version? – We have only one word for you – Security.

Hackers aim for the most popular pages, and since WordPress is currently the most popular Content Management System available, keeping it updated is paramount as it is quite an interesting a target for hackers.

Since WordPress covers an enormous user base and active development community, it issues new versions of the software as soon as a security flaw is detected. The researches have shown that the majority of hacked WordPress websites are due to not keeping up with installing the latest release. Always be on the safe side, that’s our motto.