The days of developing a small business website, throwing it up on a server and forgetting about it are long gone. Today’s websites need to be living and breathing creatures that require care and attention. Forget or neglect them, and they can quickly become as useless as that portable rotating grill you from that infomercial.

So then why don’t more small business owners take an active role in keeping their websites current? From the business owner’s point of view, there are multiple reasons:

1. Blogging – they don’t feel like they have anything interesting to say
2. They simply don’t have the time
3. They don’t understand the importance of fresh content
4. They don’t care

1. Blogging – they don’t feel like they have anything interesting to say – What’s interesting is in the eye of the beholder. While most may not find fertilizers or building standards interesting, your customers do. What may be a news blip on the radar for the the average person is extremely important to your customers and followers of your industry.

While blogs can mean great rewards for search engine optimization and content, they aren’t for everyone. They require a certain amount of dedication that not every company can set aside.

2. They simply don’t have the time – A lot of small business owners already feel overwhelmed with the day-to-day tasks of personnel management, client relations, ongoing projects, budgeting… the list goes on. Telling them they have to find some extra time to write a blog article, post something on Facebook or add a new portfolio piece quickly becomes that task that gets the “I’ll do it tomorrow” treatment.

If you have to, find someone else in your office or hire an agency or PR firm to take care of the posts, new photos, Tweets or Facebook updates. It’s not the best solution, but it’s most likely better than letting you content go stale.

3. They don’t understand the importance of updating content – This reason really falls on the web developer and/or agency. We can’t expect the business owner that sells muffins or car accessories to understand the importance of blogging or website updates. It falls on us to educate our clients so that they understand a dynamic website is a better website.

4. They don’t care - Yes they are out there and unfortunately there’s not much that can be done about this.  For them it’s not an issue of cost or time. They simply don’t care.

So for you small business owners, understand that your websites need attention, fresh content and nurturing. Your bottom line just may thank you for it.