Updated Content – Landing Page Day 8

Yesterday I talked about what standard links you should include on your landing page. Today’s topic is about making sure your content is up to date, and letting your visitor know that as well.

True Story

Just a few weeks ago, I was researching a small niche by scoping out the competition’s sites. I opted-in to one of them to see their sales process and was reading along when all of a sudden the sales page started talking about something that happened back in 2004-2005. I stopped. I started to think if this was one of those ‘abandoned’ websites.

If you were a prospective buyer, you would immediately begin to think, is this content outdated? Maybe I should go buy something more up to date? No one wants to buy something outdated, everyone wants the new and improved product!

The concept here is to let your visitor know as soon as they land that what you have to offer product/service/information is up to date and current. This is just something else in their subconscious that they won’t have to worry about when its time to take action.

So what can you do?

There are basically 2 ways to get this effect: One is a simple script to include the current date. You can use the javascript below to capture this.

 <script LANGUAGE="Javascript"> <!--
var d=new Date()
var weekday=new Array(7)
weekday[0]="Sunday"
weekday[1]="Monday"
weekday[2]="Tuesday"
weekday[3]="Wednesday"
weekday[4]="Thursday"
weekday[5]="Friday"
weekday[6]="Saturday"
var monthNames = new Array( "January"
,"February","March","April","May","June",
"July","August","September","October",
"November","December");
var now = new Date();
document.write(weekday[d.getDay()] +
", " + monthNames[now.getMonth()] +
" " + now.getDate() + ", " + "2008");
// --></script>

This script will get you this –>




Another way is simply to include at the very top of your site, a small banner that says Updated June 2008 or New June 2008 and then at the first of every month you can just change the month to keep it current.

I’m sure there’s other ways like including current events or news items. Would love to hear other ways of doing this?

Ok, well this is day 8, just 2 more days and we’re done! On Monday I’m gonna write about how some simple images can really build your visitors trust, so don’t miss it! Have a good weekend …