How often should I update my website content?
Change facts the day they change: hours, holiday closures, services, staff and phone numbers. Read your main pages as a customer would every few months. Add a new useful page when you have something real to say, which for many small businesses is once or twice a month. Changing dates or words just to look fresh doesn't help.
The short version
- Facts first: fix hours, services, staff and contact details the day they change.
- Add one useful page or project when you have something real to share.
- Read your main pages every quarter as if you were a new customer.
- Refresh photos and the overall story once a year.
- Changing a date without changing the content isn’t an update.
What should I update, and when?
| When | What to check or change |
|---|---|
| Same day | Hours, holiday closures, phone, address, services added or dropped, staff who left |
| Monthly | One new answer page, project or useful post, if you have one |
| Quarterly | Read the home page and main service pages. Is everything still true? Do the forms still arrive? |
| Yearly | Photos, team page, the “about” story, and anything that mentions a year |
Keep a short list of the facts that change most at your business. For a restaurant, that’s menus and hours. For a contractor, it’s service areas and project photos. That list is your checklist.
Why does it matter?
Wrong details cost you directly. A customer who drives over during hours you changed months ago won’t come back. A phone number that rings an old employee loses the lead.
For search, accuracy beats activity. Google’s guidance on helpful content asks: “Are you changing the date of pages to make them seem fresh when the content has not substantially changed?” That’s listed as a warning sign, not a tactic. Real updates that make a page more useful are what count.
What are the common mistakes?
- Updating Google but not the website, or the other way around. Both should match. See why your details should match.
- Holiday hours posted after the holiday.
- A team page with people who left. See how to add or remove a staff member.
- “Copyright 2019” in the footer. Small, but visitors notice.
- Rewriting pages that work just to have something new. If a page brings calls, improve it carefully.
- No one in charge. Name the person who owns each type of update.
What if I don’t have time?
Batch it. Keep a running note of changes through the month and send them in one go. Or hand the list to whoever looks after your site.
If you edit the site yourself, see how to edit your website text. For bigger changes, a staging site lets you check them before visitors see anything.
How much does it cost, and how long does it take?
A simple text change takes minutes if you know where it lives. A new answer or project page takes an hour or more to write and check. On your own site there’s no fee to publish.
How does E-3 handle this?
Our support history runs to about 6,100 tickets since 2019, plus 966 requests so far in 2026. Website edits top that list, and they’re part of our website care. You tell us what changed in plain English. A person at E-3 makes the change, and bigger changes are tested on a staging copy first. Replies usually come within one business day.
Related questions
Rather talk it through?
Call our team, or send a note and we’ll reply within one business day. No pressure and no jargon.