So you've managed to make it through Part One, that's great. You should now know all about the importance of fresh content and have a schedule for keeping your general pages up to date. Now it's time to focus on 'Articles' (news items, events, blog posts and promotions).

Your website should have a section that is designed to be updated regularly. These are generally news pages or blogs and this content is usually featured elsewhere on the site. It's easy, and more common than you might think, to let these sections become neglected over time. Unfortunately with the new focus on fresh content, letting these sections slip means your whole website will suffer.

Publishing new articles regularly can really benefit your website and business by:

• Providing new information about your business for existing or potential customers/clients
• Providing a platform to develop or promote the image/brand of your business
• Giving you something to link to in social media (you have something to share to bring people back to your website)
• Similar to above, articles attract inbound links to your website
• Contributing to the credibility of your business, people can easily see you still exist and are busy/active in your business, community or industry
• Promoting new news, products, events and services online leads to more engagement online, real world attendance and conversions

With all those benefits why pass up such a great opportunity for your business? Besides, your website is an asset you are probably paying for so you need to make it work for your business.

Updating your articles regularly is hard and does take some commitment, so here are some tips to make it easier for you. Note, I am aware that businesses vary so not all of these may apply to yours specifically, but hopefully you will find at least one useful pointer to help you on your way. They may also seem simple and obvious, but if you're stuck, they may trigger something to help you get writing.

Let's start with a bullet-point list (easy to read and digest, yay) of where you can find information to write articles about:

• What's happening in your business?
  This seems obvious but this is the best place to start. Are there any new developments coming up, new products or services, you or the team involved can write about.
• Any great photo opportunities?
  Photos are a great starting point for writing articles and people love them. For example you might have had an interesting (in a good/unique way) customer request or experience, so if possible get a shot of it and write about it.
• What's happening on your website?
  Are there any new features your web developers have been hacking away at to make life easier for your visitors or clients?
• What's happening in your community, city, region, country or planet that's relevant to your business?
  Depending on your industry or image there may be other news or events you can comment on. This is even better if your business is in some way involved, for example as a sponsor.
• Any annual events, promotions, trade shows that your business has coming up?
  Why not give them a bit of "hype" leading up to and during the occasion, giving information on what, when, who and why, also consider a "debrief" article to let everyone know how it went.
• Any changes in your businesses industry?
  You can develop your business (or yourself) as an authoritative figure on the topic and in your industry.
• Any annual holidays on the horizon?
  Give your customers a reason to use your business, service or products over the holidays - or just wish everyone happy safe holidays.
• Are there any other websites your can get new content ideas from?
  For example with industry news there may already be a dedicated website - you can take their content and make it your own.
  Note: It's important that if you're generating news items from content already online (e.g. local news agencies) that you don't copy the content directly onto your website. Content on your website needs to be unique and search engines will penalise you for copying other websites’ content. So you need to put your own spin on it.

Any of those help? Hopefully, now you have a list to check when you're stuck and can't keep up with the following schedule.

Tips for creating a schedule to keep Articles up to date

Due to the nature of articles, sometimes there may just seem to be nothing going on! The article sections of your site should however be updated at least fortnightly and preferably weekly.

Here are some things to consider when developing your schedule:

• It's important to not put too much pressure on yourself when writing articles, so if you can schedule in a specific time that's great. But, it's unlikely you will always be able to produce an article in that time, so try to be flexible.
• Writing isn't easy, so don't feel you have to write a whole article at once. If you have a great idea login to your Content Management System (CMS) and create a new article but don't publish it onto the site (this should be possible). Start by writing the title only, then add bullet points over the week. Then when you have time you can flesh it out into a full article.
• Set a time to discuss ideas for articles with other members in your business and make them aware of the importance of keeping your website up to date. Hopefully they will end up feeding you with great ideas!
• Make calendar reminders leading up to any annual events or promotions so you don't forget to write about them.
• If you can, assign the task to more than one person and give them a week in which they have to post an article onto the website. This works particularly well for blogs. For example if you have four people blogging, you technically get four weeks to write your blog - that is until it's your week to post it.
• As mentioned previously get into the habit of always keeping an ear out for any information that could be added to your website. If you don't have time to make the changes immediately, keep notes and flesh them out when you have the time scheduled in (as above)
• It's also important to allow time as part of your schedule for sharing your article on your social media pages, even if this is initially done by your website automatically you should still take a moment to engage with any comments or questions from your fans.
  See our helpful Knowledge Base article on posting to your Facebook page.

So there you have it. Please let me know if you have any questions, comments or awesome tips that you find helpful. Next time in Part Three I'll be talking about what to do if you're still not able to keep your website up to date.