Keeping your LocalSite up-to-date is both important for your customers to stay informed about your business, but it also helps Google learn more about your business as well!
Google loves to see new fresh content being added to a website and content being updated on a regular basis is a positive signal for Google crawlers and this can help boost your SERP (Search Engine Results Page) overtime. This doesn't mean you need to be in your LocalSite daily making updates, but some kind of update happening on a monthly basis is the ideal state.
You can update things like promotions, special announcements, events, service descriptions, community engagement, etc.
Some Precautions
Keep in mind that the content written for your LocalSite has been specifically written for our LocalSEO strategy to help boost your website's ranking on SERP overtime. This means that you are encouraged to add new content to various places, but we don't recommend deleting or removing any content supplied by OneLocal.
If you are choosing to make updates to content on your website, this does come along with risks that your edits may actually negative impact your rankings on Google. This is why we recommend exercising caution when making updates to text on your LocalSite as this is one of the major factors for SEO. If you are ever unsure about changes you are making we would recommend connecting with your Marketing Specialist to discuss the change or even have our team take care of the update for you. This way you ensure changes are being handled by website and SEO specialists. Just log a comment on your LocalSite detailing the change you would like made, inform your Marketing Specialist of the request and OneLocal will take care of the rest!
If you need a refresher on adding comments to your website to request changes, you can read more about that by clicking here.
What Can You Update?
Text Formatting - You can update the formatting of your text by adding bolding, italics, or underlining.
Text Alignment - Align text to the left, right, center, or justified. If you are adjusting the alignment, be sure to review how the text looks on all device types. You can switch between Desktop, Tablet, and Smartphone by clicking the buttons in the top left corner of the editor.
Bulleted Lists - website visitors are looking to find information quickly on your website. This is why we break up the pages based on topics and we include helpful headings throughout the website so website visitors can find the relevant information quickly. Another great way to help visitors find content and make it easily skimmable is by using bulleted lists, especially if you have a few points to make! Don't forget to review the changes across all device types.
Numbered Lists - these are also great for helping visitors find what they are looking for quickly, and you can prioritize based on the order they appear in! Again, don't forget to review all device types before Republishing.
Internal Links - easy navigation around your website is not only important for website visitors, but also for Google and other search engines. If you are talking about a topic that has more information on another page of your site (homepage, service page, about us page, blog, etc) be sure to link the relevant text to the relevant page. Make sure you are only linking the relevant words for the highest SEO value. Also, be sure to not overdo it with multiple links in the same section of text.
What Shouldn't You Update?
Headings - Headings are all of the titles used throughout the pages of your website. The pages of your localSite will have an H1 (Heading 1) at the top of the page and multiple H2s, H3s, etc. Although you can make updates to Headings in the editor, we recommend not making any changes to H1s and only making changes to other headings on the page if absolutely necessary. You should log a comment to track any changes made to Headings as these often contain important keywords and hold much SEO weight.
Entire Text Sections - Each section of text on your website was chosen and placed specifically based on the SEO and content strategy of your LocalSite. It's important that updates you make to the website are in addition to what is already there and not replacing/removing entire sections. This could negatively impact your LocalSite's ranking and reduce the overall traffic and conversions. If you are needing to make large changes to a section or add a new section, please connect with your Marketing Specialist for this kind of update.
Font Colour - The colours of your LocalSite are specifically chosen to represent the branding of your business and ensure enough contrast between the font and the background of the website for accessibility purposes. We also aim to have the colour scheme consistent across all pages of your LocalSite. If you are rebranding and require an update to the colour scheme, please connect with your Marketing Specialist to request the change. Although you can update the colour of the text, you won't be able to update the background colours.
Font Type - The font type has been chosen to match the branding of your website and we aim for consistency across headings and text on each page of your LocalSite. If you would like a new font to be used we recommend requesting the change so OneLocal can ensure the entire LocalSite is updated with the new font choice.
Font Size - Again this comes back to consistency, although you can make this change, we recommend connecting with your Marketing Specialist to ensure the entire site is updated.
Please Remember
Updates to text on your LocalSite may impact your rankings over time. To ensure changes to the text are marked we recommend that you log a comment for each text update you make on the LocalSite so this can be tracked.
Also, don't forget to "Republish" your LocalSite once the changes are complete so that your website visitors are able to see them. Your changes will not be available online until you have Republished your LocalSite.
Happy Editing!