Updating content regularly

Freshness is not a score

Changing a date or reordering a paragraph does not improve a page. Search engines assess whether a page answers what somebody asked, and a cosmetic edit changes nothing about that.

Where freshness genuinely matters is where the subject moves. Prices, availability, regulations and anything seasonal are stale the moment they are wrong, and that is a real problem.

For a page explaining how something works, the useful update is a better explanation, not a newer date. Most pages on a small business site are in that category.

That reframes the whole exercise. The question is never how recently a page was touched, it is whether somebody arriving at it today gets what they came for.

What is worth updating

Anything a customer could act on and get wrong: hours, prices, coverage areas, what you do and do not take on. Those carry a direct cost when they are out of date.

Then anything you now explain repeatedly on the phone. A question asked three times is a page that needs a paragraph, and that is the highest-return writing available.

Our page on answering questions covers the pattern. Real questions from real customers make better pages than anything derived from a keyword list.

What to leave alone

A page that answers its question well. Rewriting it because six months passed risks making it worse, and a page that ranks and converts has earned being left where it is.

Also leave the addresses alone. Changing a page's address to a better one costs every link pointing at it unless the old address is redirected, which is covered on our page on redirects.

And resist consolidating pages that each answer a distinct question. A merged page usually answers both worse than two pages answered each.

The exception is a page that was thin to begin with and has nothing distinct to say. Folding that into a stronger page is a genuinely useful improvement rather than a cosmetic one.

What a review should look for

The list below is what to check on any page during a review. Most pages pass it entirely, which is the correct outcome and the reason reviews are quick.

• Facts a customer could act on and get wrong
• Prices, hours and coverage
• Anything describing a service you stopped offering
• People and premises shown in photographs
• Links to other businesses that may have moved
• Questions you now answer on the phone
• Claims that were true then and are not now

A schedule that survives contact with a business

Quarterly for anything with a price or an hour on it. Yearly for everything else. That is enough for almost every small business and it is short enough to actually happen.

Tie it to something you already do. A review attached to a quarter end or an existing routine survives; one that depends on remembering does not.

Keep the review itself short. A pass that takes a morning gets done every quarter, and one that takes a week gets done once and then quietly abandoned.

Our page on maintenance covers the surrounding checks. Content review is the part that needs your knowledge rather than a tool.

Adding beats editing

A new page answering a question nobody has answered is worth more than a dozen refreshed paragraphs. That is where attention should go once the existing pages are accurate.

The question is where those pages come from. Real enquiries, real objections and the things customers get wrong are a better source than anything invented.

Our page on how many pages covers the limit. More pages help only while each one has something distinct to say.

Record what changed

Keep a short note of substantial edits. When something in the traffic or enquiries shifts, the first useful question is what changed, and nobody remembers six months later.

It also prevents relitigating decisions. A note saying why a page is worded a particular way survives the person who worded it.

This costs a line per change. Our page on backups and versions covers the mechanical side, which is separate and also worth having.