How often should you actually update your website?

I get asked this a lot, usually by someone who built their website three or four years ago, hasn't touched it since, and has a nagging feeling they should. Well, the answer is there's no single number. Some parts of a website need attention every month. Others can sit untouched for years and still do their job. The trick is knowing which is which.

Weekly or fortnightly: your blog

If you're publishing new content, that's the part of your website working hardest for search engines. Google notices when a site is actively adding relevant, useful pages, and a blog is the easiest way to do that without touching the core site structure. This doesn't mean daily posting. Fortnightly, done consistently, beats weekly for a month and then nothing.

Every few months: prices, services and case studies

Anything that describes what you currently offer and what it costs should be checked every quarter at minimum. It's surprisingly common to find a services page describing something a business stopped offering two years ago, or a case study for a client relationship that ended. Out of date detail like this is one of the quickest ways to lose trust with someone who's checking you out before getting in touch.

Once or twice a year: the whole site, properly

This is the bigger job. Go through every page and ask whether it still reflects the business as it is now, not as it was when the site was built. Check that meta descriptions still make sense, that internal links point where they should, and that nothing looks visibly dated, whether that's a photo, a testimonial, or a turn of phrase that was fashionable five years ago and isn't now.

As soon as something changes: contact details and anything factual

Phone numbers, addresses, opening hours, team members who've left. These need fixing the moment they change, not at the next scheduled review. A wrong phone number sitting on a website for six months costs you enquiries you'll never know you missed.

The bit people skip: checking what's actually working

Most businesses update their website based on what they feel like changing rather than what the data says needs changing. Even a basic look at which pages get visited and which don't, once or twice a year, tells you far more than instinct does about where your effort is best spent.

If your website hasn't had any attention in over a year, that's not a reason to panic and rebuild the whole thing. Start with the quarterly checks, the prices, the services, the case studies, and work outward from there. A website that's mostly right and gradually improving does more for you than one that's perfect but three years out of date.