One of the things I’m most often asked by customer is …. why is my website not getting much traffic? Or, worse, why does my website not seem to get any traffic.

There are lots of possible reasons. But on taking a closer look at their website I can often see a reason why there website is proving to be a disappointment. And that’s because they don’t publish much (or even any) news to their website.

Here are some reasons why you should add news to your website:

It is much more effective than out-and-out sales content. By and large people don’t want to read ads. anymore. Most people are searching for – and actually want to read – useful and interesting information. News is one way of supplying this demand.

So news is a great way of getting your message out. You can of course slip your advertising message discreetly into your news.

News is good for SEO or search engine optimisation. Most SEO experts believe that news makes your site more search engine friendly. Plus, it gives you a chance to publish material that uses the words and phrases which potential customers are actively searching for that week.

News keeps your visitors coming back. It’s pretty much impossible to build a relationship (or make a sale) to someone who visits your site just once.

Posting current and interesting news is a simple way to encourage people to come back, so find out what’s new.

News makes you look authoritative. If you’re posting news your visitors will make the reasonable assumption that you know what you’re talking about.

People are more likely to buy things from people who they believe are knowledgeable or even expert about their subject.

News makes your site look alive. It makes it look current. There’s absolutely nothing worse than landing on a site that doesn’t look like it’s been updated for years. You can be pretty much sure potential customers will never buy from a site like that.

Posting occasional news is a fairly simple way of showing that you’re actually still in business and not only that you’re open for business.

Quite simply, if you don’t publish news to your website you’re almost certainly missing out on both traffic and probably sales too.

It isn’t necessarily difficult to create, write and publish news stories to your website. There are ways you don’t even have to write them yourself. In future articles I’ll look at how to create, write and publish news stories.

Mark Hempshell is a copywriter and content marketer. You can find more useful articles on copywriting and content marketing here: www.markhempshell.com