70% of businesses updating website weekly, says survey

According to the results of survey released today, 70% of Irish businesses update the content of their websites weekly, illustrating the growing importance of website content management (WCM).

The Webtrade research was carried out by PAN Research among 20 Irish businesses and public sector bodies, ranging in size from SMEs to large organisations.

It was found that 65% of the respondents rated their websites as either “important” or “very important” to their individual businesses.

“The website has become a very important marketing tool and information resource for organisations,” says Patrick Bates, managing director of web design and content management company Webtrade.

“Keeping website content relevant and up-to-date creates a reason for existing customers to return to the website and for new customers provides a fresh view of what your organisation does.”

Web marketing poses a challenge for many Irish businesses, and companies are now considering tools such as search engine optimisation (SEO) and search engine advertising (SEA).

SEO can improve the volume and quality of traffic to a website, but 40% of respondents were not aware of the benefits of SEO.

“For a lot of companies, being found on search engines like Google and Yahoo! is vitally important to the return on investment of their website,” said Bates.

“Search engine advertising can be an expensive option, so it is vital that companies use a content management system that allows them to optimise every page on their website to improve their natural ranking as much as possible.”