Business Owners: Five Ways to Refresh Your Website Without a Blog

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If you’re a business owner, you need to focus on running your business, not maintaining a website! It can be a challenge to publish blog posts on a regular basis, for example, but there are ways besides blogging to keep your website fresh for visitors and potential customers.

Display a personalized note at the top of your sidebar

If you don’t have time to blog, make tiny tweaks to your homepage periodically to keep it fresh. One way is to display a note in a Text or Custom HTML Widget, placed prominently in your sidebar. Add these widgets by going to My Sites → Customize → Widgets.

Update this text weekly or monthly, depending on what’s going on — promote your upcoming flash fiction workshop, announce the 15% discount on your jewelry, or display a motivational quote on your nutrition site, which you refresh several times a month.

A simple Text Widget, as shown in the sidebar of the Qua theme.

Change your front-page welcome message

Some themes support a custom homepage message or “call to action” (CTA). These messages can help to introduce your company, brand, products, and services.

Not all themes have this feature built into their designs, so review your theme’s features to see if it supports this type of message.

To keep your front page fresh, update this messaging regularly. Announce company news. Promote a pop-up event or new items for the fall season. Or spread the word about a special offer that expires in one week. You can change this message in a section of your Customizer (My Sites → Customize), depending on your theme.

If you don’t have a theme with a dedicated CTA area but have a static front page, add text somewhere in the body of the page for this type of temporary, seasonal messaging. At Art in Motion, for example, Detroit ceramic studio owner Kay welcomes visitors with bold text near the top of her site. This is a can’t-miss location — ideal for news and updates.

Show off your client and customer testimonials

Some themes have a built-in testimonial feature that lets you display customer praise for your services or products on your front page. Oftentimes, these themes display testimonials in a rotating showcase, so people will see different reviews and recommendations on each visit. See how this works on the website of Peter Bachak’s design studio, Osmosis, which works with clients on Australia’s east coast.

Osmosis uses the premium theme Venture. Explore other themes that take advantage of testimonials.

If you don’t want to use this testimonial feature, another option is to display a quote from a customer, or a snippet from one of your Yelp or Google reviews, in a Text or Custom HTML Widget — and swap them out each month.

Embed your company’s Instagram feed

If your brand or business posts to Instagram frequently, you can activate an Instagram Widget to show off recent photos in your sidebar. Once you connect your WordPress.com site to your Instagram account, the feed in your sidebar will automatically update each time a new image is posted. It’s a simple way to visually refresh your homepage without actually tweaking it.

Check out the Instagram Widget in action at The Daily Grind, the company blog of La Colombe Coffee Roasters:

Promote your upcoming events

A final way to keep your site fresh is by displaying a list of upcoming events using the Upcoming Events Widget. Using an iCalendar link, the widget displays an embedded list of future events: a special sale at your store, a book signing, a gallery opening, and more. Similar to the Instagram Widget, it automatically refreshes your sidebar — while keeping site visitors and potential customers up to date.

Here’s an example on the sidebar of Jerry Mahoney’s website for his new series of books for young readers:

Ready to get your business online? Access a suite of features, including your own domain name, custom plugins and themes, Google Analytics, and more with WordPress.com Business.

47 Comments

  2. Helpful, informative, professional tutorial. Well-explained, well-delineated. The easy-to-follow text hits the mark.

    Random question: how long did it take the photographer to stage the feature photo? It’s so balanced; it looks like a still life. We all know that’s not usually how the creative process presents itself in RL. The aim of this photo is to provide visual appeal and to pique the readers’ interest/curiosity to read on and potentially emulate the chicness portrayed, no?

    Honestly, this type of marketing has the opposite affect on me. Where are the messy, candid shots? It’s all so slick and stylized — it ends up looking fake. I, however, am clearly not your target audience. I’m neither a business owner nor a salesperson, so I’m confused as to why this post found its way into the “discover” section of my reader. No doubt, this post would better resonate with the types of bloggers this post specifically addresses: business owners.

    Commendations on a job well-done. 🙂

    Liked by 10 people

  3. Random question: how long did it take the photographer to stage the feature photo?

    Hi Jane! Thanks for reading the post. I don’t know the answer to your question — this CC image was pulled from Pexels (https://www.pexels.com/photo/box-business-celebrate-celebration-296878/), and they don’t provide these sorts of details from the photographer. But yes, I’m sure it required some staging 🙂 I was hoping to use a featured image from one of the sites I’d featured, but didn’t find anything fitting on their sites. That said, I’m also hoping to rely less on stock images, because I agree: they look a bit too perfect and slick.

    I’m neither a business owner nor a salesperson, so I’m confused as to why this post found its way into the “discover” section of my reader. No doubt, this post would better resonate with the types of bloggers this post specifically addresses: business owners.

    There are so many different kinds of people using WordPress.com, all with different goals. Some are bloggers. Others are professional authors, artists, photographers, and more. Others are people running websites and blogs for their companies, nonprofits, and brands — including small business owners. We hope to publish a balance of material for everyone, so it’s possible that not all posts you read on Discover will be immediately relevant to you. Hope you understand, and glad that it was still informative for you in some way.

    Thanks again for the thoughtful comment!

    Liked by 8 people

    1. Cheri, I appreciate your thorough response to my query.

      I was under the impression that Discover is configured using algorithms based on each blogger’s publicly-displayed interests, keywords used in blog posts, and miscellaneous relevant data collection; hence, my confusion. 🙂

      Thank you once again!

      Liked by 4 people

      1. That’s a great point to make. Discover is 100% human-curated by several editors. But you’ll see “Recommended Posts” interspersed between sites you follow in another tab in your Reader (“Followed Sites”). You’re shown these recommendations periodically based on your interactions (your likes and comments) and liking/commenting activity of similar users.

        Liked by 2 people

  5. I enjoyed reading your post. I especially liked that fact that you provided examples with both written explanation and a visual sample.

    Liked by 6 people

  9. Excellent advice. Today is literally my first day blogging I’m trying to learn exactly what it is while trying to set up my blog. I am an independent sales rep for Avon and I’m trying to get my products and my store noticed. These workshops or classes in blogs and information that everybody is giving and posting is so helpful because I literally feel like you have to spend so much time on these blogs advertising pretty much rather than investing in your business. It’s just I know people say when you own your own business that’s what you do the majority of your time is sales and marketing and advertisements so I’m definitely trying to learn all of the ways that I can promote my business and I really enjoy your blog.

    Thank you
    Jacindasblogonavon.wordpress.com

    Liked by 5 people

  12. Amazed that you are also using a blogging cms and giving tips to refresh a website without having a blog.

    In my views, a blog is a must have for all the websites to do better with the users/customers just like Twitter and Facebook is doing.

    Regards,

    Liked by 3 people

  25. Interesting read! I just started planning in blogs in advance when I feel inspired to write. Now i have blogs already planned in until the end of September and that gives me time to focus on other things in the mean time.

    Liked by 2 people

  37. Helpful article. I’m currently helping someone create a business website and this is really informative. I’ve read some of your other articles and you seem to have a clear, strong writing style that makes your points easy to follow. Thanks for sharing-

    xoxo
    Angie
    angieyhsim.wordpress.com

    Liked by 3 people

  40. these are some great ideas. I’m always fiddling with my website, because it can always be improved. for me that’s pretty easy. every now and again I add in new photos of recent events, and I have a reminder in my diary to do this every few months, then when I look at the website it prompts me to do a few other different things. it always seems to give me a boost in client engagement, but I might be imagining it.

    Liked by 4 people

  45. Motivating article! It’s so important to share tips with small businesses and nonprofits for their websites, so they don’t spend all their time updating but rather doing great work!

    Liked by 3 people

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