I’m constantly amused by the number of  web design and developer sites I go to, where wearing their expert status hat, they pontificate to us mere mortals that you need to have original content on your website. And that’s as far as their advice goes. Period!

Apart from copying content from one website to yours, I’m really at a loss as to what these guys mean by “original content”, they don’t explain what they mean. If you compare their websites directly you’ll quickly conclude (and at the same time become bored out of your tree) that there is nothing terribly original in any of their content. It’s the same-old telling us how marvelous they are.

So, what is original content?

To find out what “original content” was, I had a look at Google’s advice to webmasters and site owners. It’s pretty clear that what they mean is “authentic content”. That is, it’s your content and not copied and pasted from some other site.

I think website content must be defined who you are writing for and their needs. It may be that you’re not offering anything different to your other online competitors.  But, because you are marketing to a distinct audience, the difference will be reflected in the content, and hence it should be authentic and unique.

You need to keep your content “fresh”

We often hear web designers and developers say that you’ve got to keep your content fresh. If you don’t, not only will Google punish you, but so will everyone else by not visiting your site. I think we need to examine that notion in a but more detail.

For me, this notion of “fresh” is a load of rubbish. If your site is to generate leads or make sales, the only time you want to change your content is to improve its rate of conversion. If the content on your site is pulling in the punters, why would you want to change  it? All that you’re is the ability for that particular page to generate traffic and convert lookers into buyers.

To change what working is just sheer lunacy.

Not being one to eat my words, I do think there is a place for fresh or new content on a website. So, it probably is a good idea to designate pages or sections of your website where you are constantly updating content with new articles or news releases. But, it’s important to make the distinction between these pages and the pages that are designed to pull the punters.

There are any number of websites that haven’t changed their content for years. To my knowledge thay have not been penalised by the search engines and appear high in rankings. This can only happen because they are wll optimised and pull in the punters for their owners.

I do think it’s important to challenge the notion that visitiors won’t return to your site if there is nothing new there. May be, may be not. Let’s look at visitor behaviour (or rather our behaviour) on websites.

Why I visit a website is because I want something. In many cases I’ll hardly revisit that website again, or only because it has got something that I want. The fact that it has or hasn’t got new content is probably not going to matter that much, as long as my first experience was good. As a general rule, I’m not going to be going back to the site in the hope of finding “fresh” content. I don’t know about you, I’ve got better things to do with my life.

Now there are exceptions. What I have been talking about has been about websites whose sole focus is to generate leads or make sales. Other sites, like informational sites, there is definately the need for the continual and regular update of material.