Why is SEO an Ongoing Process and What Happens if You Stop

SEO maintenance is a full-time operation that involves backend and frontend development and support. Ongoing SEO is the constant improvement of your website for both search engine algorithms and users interacting with it. You will need to do annual audits, regular analyses, and constant fixes, updates, and additions to keep your site fresh and relevant.

Does this sound like a big task? In this article, we break it down into manageable, bite-sized parts so you can start your journey upward on the search results page.

What is ongoing SEO?

The ongoing SEO process refers to the continuous process of optimization. It looks at the website visibility in search engine results (SERPs) over a time period and focuses on regular updates and adjustments to keep it up to date. A few areas involved in this process are:

• User behavior
• Search engine trends
• Industry trends
• Rankings
• Traffic monitoring
• Relevancy of content
• Value to users
• Keyword optimization

Why is SEO an ongoing process?

Search engines constantly update their algorithms to improve search results and user experiences. Often, these results will impact how you adapt your SEO strategies to respond to these changes.

But this is just one reason out of many. Your competitors are always updating and expanding their campaigns and strategies, so you will need to stay ahead of them as well. Content also needs to be updated to stay fresh and relevant. Link building is another area that needs constant work and focus to keep momentum.

SEO is a continuous process of monitoring, adapting, and improving to build your website up and grow it to be a success in the rankings and visible in all search engine results.

What are the benefits of ongoing SEO?

The benefits of ongoing SEO are continuous growth and long-term success in visibility. Consistent SEO will also increase your brand’s authority and make you a trusted source of information in your industry.

SEO gradually builds organic traffic, which creates sustainable growth and is cost-effective in the long run. Once you achieve good rankings, the cost to maintain is also low.

Regular SEO activities also include analytics, user behavior, and keyword trends. You can also use this data to give you insights to inform broader businesses and marketing decisions. You can refine as you go to help you refine your overall strategy for better results.

What happens if you don’t do SEO maintenance

While your website will be able to maintain popularity and decent traffic results for a while, slowly, over time, it will start to decline. You will notice over months that your visibility will drop as well as the overall presence.

As your website traffic drops, so will its rankings on search engines. Organic traffic will decrease, resulting in fewer people finding your website. Fewer visitors will mean fewer conversions and sales.

The good news is that even if your SEO has been on hold for a time due to unforeseen circumstances, you can get it back on track again. Once you start your SEO strategy again, you will slowly start seeing improvements.

It will take you time to get back to where you used to be, but it is still possible with consistency, professional SEO strategy, and quality content.

9 SEO maintenance tips to keep your site relevant

With the understanding that SEO is an ongoing process, it’s important to understand how to stay abreast of what’s happening and do your best to keep from falling behind as a business or individual. When you least expect it, SEO rules may change a little… or a lot… and you have to be prepared.

Let’s take a look at 7 best practices for ongoing SEO:

1. Write for Snippets when doing your ongoing SEO process

Google snippets, or featured snippets, are displayed right underneath the search bar on Google. You have probably seen them, making helpful suggestions for your searches. They usually pop up for quick question-type searches.

Featured snippets come from web search listings. Google’s automated system will determine if a page makes a good snippet. You can use certain tactics to increase your chances of getting your content in it.

Snippets are usually descriptions or summaries. If your content contains information or perhaps an explanation around a concept or a definition, then this might be a good opportunity to get featured.

2. Evaluate your SEO regularly

By evaluating your SEO, you can adjust and alter your content and website as needed. There might be overlooked opportunities or gaps or new opportunities in the marketplace that could improve your ranking.

Make a regular habit of checking analytics and traffic to see where you can make improvements. You might also find that users are getting stuck or that a page isn’t converting. Small changes and fresh eyes can help these users to improve their journeys.

3. Rework your content every 12-18 months

This can mean as little as freshening up your page, or giving your whole website an overhaul. Many corporate leaders scoff at the idea that they should change their content, but even without factoring in SEO, keeping your site updated is never a bad idea.

For instance, have your primary products or services changed? Have you switched vendors? Do you want the world to know about added customer service items? Started selling online or to buyers from an additional geographic location?

As your business grows, your website has to grow, too. The best way to prepare for this growth financially and prevent content decay is to add a line item in your budget for the upkeep of your website.

4. Add new SEO-friendly content to your site

Interesting, optimized content can help your site attract traffic and customers, and also rank well in search engine results. This content can be blog posts, article pages, infographics, or anything else you think your potential customers would enjoy.

If you’re not a writer (or graphic designer or videographer) by nature, you may choose to outsource your content creation. Just keep in mind that you’ll want the writer to work in conjunction with your SEO team—either internal or external—so keyword optimization isn’t missed.

5. Be active on social media

Most businesses today have accounts on Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, and other social platforms. Unfortunately, not all of them are actually active.

Most business owners acknowledge that this is something they know they should do, but it often gets put on the backburner as other marketing strategies take priority. However, even though social media doesn’t directly impact SEO, it can be a great way to generate qualified traffic to your site, which can lower bounce rates, raise time on site, and in turn, send positive signals to search engines.

6. Keep tabs on your biggest competitors

Ultimately, the goal of SEO is to outrank your competitors—so don’t be afraid to scour their websites and see what they’re doing right. Learn from their high points, as well as their mistakes.

For example, if you’re struggling to generate consistent traffic, take a look at one of your competitors that has a strong online presence. What keywords is their site optimized for? What kinds of content do they create? Although we’d never recommend directly copying another business or site, this can be a great source of ideas for your own SEO strategy.

7. Be patient with SEO maintenance

If you’ve recently started with SEO in-house or with a top SEO service provider, you may find yourself checking your analytics on a daily (or hourly basis). And while monitoring your results is certainly useful, it’s important to remember that SEO takes time.

Patience is key, and being impatient can backfire. For example, let’s say you write a page that’s optimized for “best hotdogs in St Louis MO”. After four weeks, the page isn’t ranking when you type that keyword phrase into your search engine, so you get annoyed and go back. You change the content to be optimized for “best type of organic hotdog St Louis Missouri” (which, by the way, just sounds awkward).

Four more weeks go by… without anything. The problem might not have been the keywords, but the fact that you never gave the page a chance to get crawled! There are billions and billions of pages online, and you can’t expect your site to be indexed as soon as you change it.

If you start tweaking your content before they have a chance to do their “magic”, you’re destined to be left behind. On the other hand, if you aren’t seeing any movement after six months of optimization, it’s probably time to reevaluate.

8. Stay up to date on SEO trends

SEO changes constantly, so it’s important to stay up to date on what’s happening in the world of search engines. Professionals who practically eat, sleep and breathe SEO all say the same thing: You cannot afford to assume that the status quo will remain forever.

Most constantly study SEO trends and topics, if not only a daily, then at least a weekly, basis. This keeps them from missing out on trends, algorithm changes, and other important events — like a recession — that can improve or damage their clients’ rankings.

Not sure how to keep up with algorithm changes? We have a video for that below!

9. Keep it clean

While a lot of old content can be reused and even optimized, some might need to be deleted. Check to see how a page or post has done over time. If it didn’t do well at any point, it might be time to let it go.  Old posts can inspire new ideas, or lessons can be learned about why it didn’t work.

Hire an SEO company to do it for you

When you’re talking about SEO, it’s a never-ending process. It’s kind of like being a business owner—you have to stay on top of your game every day. But if you don’t have the time or resources to keep up with an ongoing SEO strategy, feel free to contact us about our organic SEO services! Our talented team of Internet marketers has the skill and expertise your business needs to rank well and attract new customers.