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Dan Furman
03-06-2009, 01:35 PM
Most web designers offer "upkeep", and with good reason - there is a definite need for adding pages, changing pics, etc. A good website is never really finished.

It goes the same with your copy. A good website always adds / removes / changes copy. I'm writing this because many people don't seem to look at it that way - many of my clients are still using copy I wrote them 4 years ago... well, the economy is a lot different now... maybe the messaging needs to be changed (which, of course, I'll ask them).

I know for my own site, the copy I had worked great for the last two years (which was the last time I did any real re-writing).... but like almost everyone else, I'm definitely slower now. And I noticed that my website is sooooo 2007 :)

I'm right now rewriting things - going to change to a more "ROI" / value focus than I had in the past. Why? Because I feel that's going to be the key message for the foreseeable future.

No real point to this except to mention that if web sales are slower/different, you may want to look at your web copy - is it saying the things that people right now want to hear?

vangogh
03-06-2009, 03:21 PM
Good point Dan. I look at my site as a living, breathing, growing thing. Every aspect of it gets updated periodically, including the copy. If a page isn't working like I want, one of the first things I'll do is look at the copy and think about how I can make it better. What you see on my site now (the sales pages, not the blog) is maybe the 3rd generation of the original copy I wrote and it won't be the last generation.

KristineS
03-06-2009, 03:34 PM
I have to agree, sites should be updated on a regular basis. I've got a total revamp for one of our sites on my list right now, since some things have changed, and copy that I wrote when the company was brand new isn't such a good fit anymore.

Sites that don't change with the times don't produce as well. I'm always finding out new things about our market and our customers, and I think our sites should reflect that.

vangogh
03-06-2009, 03:49 PM
"It is not the strongest of the species that survives, nor the most intelligent that survives. It is the one that is the most adaptable to change."

Charles Darwin

Change is important. Adapting to the changing climate separates good business from bad.

cbscreative
03-07-2009, 03:05 PM
I most definitely agree. The copy on my site is always in transition. Sometimes, it's simple changes to a sentence or two or three. Other times, I change paragraphs, add or delete, or even rewrite the entire page.

In recent months, I changed several pages. A lot of the writing used to be more formal than it is now. I've lightened up from "business" to a more casual tone so it's closer to the way I interact with clients. Some of the members here got to witness part of the transition when I put a new page up for review here.

Business Attorney
03-08-2009, 01:26 AM
I agree that the copy should be updated but I plead guilty to letting things slide for too long. Part of it is the size of the undertaking. I don't have that many pages on my Illinois Business Attorney site (maybe 10 pages of real content, excluding navigation and resources pages) but my LLC site has about 70 pages of detailed content. I also did my law firm's site (about 25 pages) and I have various hobby sites I have put up over the years with dozens more pages.

I do update content, but it is mostly on a one-off basis. I do have a few key pages that I tweak a lot more often than others.

vangogh
03-08-2009, 01:32 AM
One thing about your LLC site is most of those pages are informational articles. I'm not sure those need to be updated the same way a sales page would need it. I probably have about 400 blog posts and I don't plan on going back through all of them making updates even though some could certainly stand some improvement.

On the other I do have some posts that pull in traffic and improving them would likely lead to more traffic and more leads. So while I won't update all 400 or so posts I may very well take a dozen of them and either improve them or perhaps write a new version as a new post.

cbscreative
03-08-2009, 09:00 PM
Yeah, that definitely raises the point about the nature of the site or page. A sales page, and in many cases informational pages, need regular updating. But that's not always the case. I'd still say the main point here is very good because many pages that should be updated suffer from neglect.

Dan Furman
03-09-2009, 11:59 AM
Yeah, that definitely raises the point about the nature of the site or page. A sales page, and in many cases informational pages, need regular updating. But that's not always the case. I'd still say the main point here is very good because many pages that should be updated suffer from neglect.


Yea, informational pages really don't need much (if any) updating. I write an article, and it stays that way forever, generally.

I'm more talking about landing pages / selling pages. Home|About|Services|FAQ| Etc etc - that stuff.