A customer drives over and you're closed. A caller asks about a price you changed two years ago. That's what an old page can do. The fix isn't tinkering every week. It's a schedule: some things the day they change, some things monthly, and one check a year.
Hours, prices, services you've added or dropped, your phone number, staff changes customers would notice. Update these the day they change, everywhere at once: your website, your Google profile and your listings. Google asks businesses to list their regular customer-facing hours and lets you set special hours for holidays (Google Business Profile guidelines). Wrong facts send a customer to a closed shop or quote a caller an old price. My take: AI assistants can repeat whatever your pages say, right or wrong, so an old fact can keep spreading. This takes minutes. It just needs to be someone's actual job.
Fresh photos of recent work, your newest reviews or testimonials, this season's availability. These show a visitor the business is open and busy. My take: a site whose newest project is three years old makes people wonder if you're still around. This isn't blogging. It's ten minutes of “here's what we did recently.” If customers pick you by looking at your work, recent photos are the proof they came to see.
Once a year, read your own site like a stranger would. Does the homepage still say what you actually sell? Does it load fast on a phone? Do the links work? Is every claim still true: the team photo, the “family owned since,” the service area? Does anything look broken on a small screen? My take: one honest hour a year catches most of the slow decay before your customers do. And don't fake freshness. Google's guide to helpful content lists this as a warning sign: “changing the date of pages to make them seem fresh when the content has not substantially changed” (Google Search Central). Update when something real changes, and make the site tell the truth.
Google says its automated ranking systems are designed to prioritize helpful, reliable information (Google Search Central). So update when facts change, and add a page when you can answer a new customer question. My take: skip the weekly tweak that changes nothing a searcher cares about.
Read it like a stranger on a phone. Look for wrong hours or prices, a newest photo that's years old, services you no longer offer, slow loading, anything that makes you wince. My take: if a first-time visitor would wonder whether you're still open, the site is costing you.
Updating means keeping your facts, photos and pages true. It's ongoing and cheap. A redesign rebuilds the structure and the look. It happens rarely and costs more. My take: skipped updates make a site go stale faster than old design does. Keep the facts true and you'll need a redesign less often.
One named person: you, someone on staff, or whoever you pay to maintain the site. Give them the job in writing: facts the same day, photos monthly, the yearly check on the calendar. “Whoever remembers” is how a site ends up showing 2022 prices in 2026.
Not sure if customers searching in your town can find your business? Email alejandro@ojedaworks.com and I'll check for free.
Related: Website maintenance cost · Website redesign cost · Why is my website not getting traffic?