The search engines like to see fresh content on your site. The reasoning is that if you’re constantly updating your website, you are more likely to be relevant to people searching for what you offer.

On the other hand, a site that never adds new content may have been abandoned by its owner, so why bother giving it a high ranking?

For large companies that continually churn out corporate communications and have a team of writers, this may not be a problem. They always have something new to say, even if it’s an excerpt of a news article about their company from another source.

You may not have these kinds of resources to tap into. So what’s the best way to keep your website content fresh if you don’t have a full marketing team? Here are a few ideas.

Articles

You, and a lot of others in your company, have some expertise in your industry. Pick a few subjects and write articles about them. They don’t have to be long pieces -- 300-600 words is reasonable, and something you should be able to write in less than an hour, if you know your subject well.

Of course, these should be articles relating to your products, services, or industry. That is, they should naturally include some of the keywords people will be searching on, but don’t go overboard trying to stuff them with keywords or phrases.

Keep in mind that if your articles are very informative, other website owners might include a link to them. A nice bonus when it happens.

Press Releases

I’ve seen companies that crank out press releases nearly every day, and websites where the most recent press release was six months ago.

Unless you’re a big corporation with a lot of products and a PR department dedicated to producing corporate communications, you probably won’t have frequent press releases. Still, as long as there’s something -- anything -- going on at your company, you have fodder for press releases.

Have you updated a product line, changed the terms of your service, moved to a new building, expanded your market, donated to a charity? Write a press release.

You might say, Who cares? And you’re right. Most editors aren’t going to get excited about the fact that you’ve just reached your goal of recycling 70% of your office paper. But the point isn’t to get the story picked up by the media, it’s to update your website content so Google is happy. You’re aiming for search engine optimization, not media attention.

Blogs

I like blogs because they’re a lot less formal than articles or press releases. You can sit down and knock out as short a piece as you like -- just say what’s on your mind that day, as long as it’s relevant to your audience.

For SEO purposes of course, you’ll want to include a keyword or two. But again, don’t force it. As long as you’re talking about your products or services, those keywords should come up naturally in anything you write.

Writing a blog post can be as easy as just writing a couple paragraphs on some tip you want to pass along. Or it can be an in-depth discussion about what’s going on in your industry. If you’re just writing a few hundred words, you should be able to update your blog a couple times a week.

One thing to keep in mind is to have your blog on your company website, not hosted by a blog site. Remember, the goal is to keep your content fresh, so you want the blog to live in your website domain.

And if you start a blog, be sure to write a press release about it and post that on your site.

Now, how often should you update your site with new content?

Once a day would be fantastic, but often unrealistic. Three times a week is optimal, though difficult for smaller companies with limited resources. Once a week is the minimal you should shoot for, even if you don’t quite reach that goal. Once a month ... well, you can and should do better than that.