Opinion: Don't add pages to your website if you're not going to update them

Today I wanted to call out a common mistake that I see at websites all over the country. Don’t add pages to your website if you’re not going to update them.

I’m particularly talking about pages with names like “News”, “Articles”, “Blog Posts”, etc. They’re often added when someone first builds a website and is full of hope for how it will be used.

And then it isn’t.

Old News

I’ve lost count of how many sites I visit where there’s a News section and when I visit it, there are two or three entries, often years apart. Or worse, there are a few entries from five years ago when the website was first created.

[caption id=“attachment_6659” align=“alignnone” width=“489”] Awesome image by Holger Link[/caption]

This makes your company look worse than if you didn’t have those pages at all, so remove them.

Old Social Media and Blog Posts

I see a similar issue at companies that I consult at. I watched tools like Yammer being introduced, and the CEOs obliging someone, by making a post or two. And then the CEO is never heard from again.

It’s the same if your website has a link to the CEO’s blog. If it does, there had better be a bunch of pretty current content, or you should remove it.

The worst version of links to blog posts, is when the only posts are ones that apologise for not posting lately, and promising to post more regularly. And then that last post was two years ago and there’s been nothing since.

It’s simple: don’t have these deadwood links in your sites. It’s not the front door that you want to show to the world.

2020-05-01