There are stacks of businesses out there who don't bother. They invest time, effort and (usually) money in building a site. They might even pay someone to weave some SEO magic over it. Then they let it sit for months without adding a single new word.
As a result less and less people visit the site. Successful sites aren't static, they're active.
This blog is a case in point. It hasn't been updated for about three weeks. As a result the level of incoming traffic has dropped off. The same thing happened when it was neglected over the summer. No new content means visitor numbers decline.
Any business that wants its web site to play a key role in marketing or sales needs to make the effort to keep the content fresh. Adding a new page every now and again, or simply posting new blog entries, will make a difference.
It may not seem entirely logical. After all, if you have a site that's packed with information about, say, dog biscuits, then it'll keep attracting visitors searching for information about dog biscuits, won't it? Well, yes, it will. But if the content isn't changed or added to, the number of visitors will fall.
There is a continuous stream of competing new sites and pages being added daily. Search engines often have a preference for newer sites. And there's simply the effect of time - if it's old, it's generally less interesting.
So the message for me and for you is simple. If I want this blog to attract more visitors and if you want your web site to get more hits, we need to keep adding new content. It's very simple.
