SEO is not a one-off activity but rather a marketing channel that should be monitored and optimised over time. This infographic outlines some compelling facts as to why you need to think of SEO as an essential ongoing part of your marketing plan.
1. SEO is Always Changing
Google changes it’s algorithm 500-600 times a year. If you don’t have anyone looking after it and keeping up with or anticipating the changes, your website will be left in the dark.
2. Google Rankings Don’t Happen Overnight
According to Google’s own video entitled ‘How to hire an SEO’ you’ll need to around 4 months to a year to see potential benefits from SEO implementations. This will depend on your industry, competitiveness and other factors.
3. Your Competitors are Doing SEO
Most competitive industries have full time SEO agencies or in-house staff optimising their web presence. In fact, in 2016, companies spent more than $65 billion on SEO. You’ll need to keep doing SEO to stay competitive in your market.
4. SEO Compounds Over Time
Like a good investment, the returns on SEO will compound over time.
Traffic will slowly build, then new keywords and opportunities will be discovered and the whole thing snow balls. If you keep up a good SEO campaign, you’ll find that with the familiarity and constant testing and tweaking by your (good) SEO consultant, will enable many more wins to occur than short term changes.
Your SEO expert will learn your industry and your competitors and this cumulative knowledge will help your business in the long run.
“Whatever results you’re getting at 6 months should be considerably less than what you’re getting at 12 months.” – Forbes
5. SEO is a Marketing Channel
If you stop marketing, you lose customers. Google traffic is still the number one lead source for many businesses – if most of your business or a good chunk of it comes from Google organic search, you need a qualified SEO specialist to look after it, maintain it and continually optimise this channel.
6. Google Loves Updated Content
There are many examples of how Google looks favourably at updated content. Studies show that updating your content can help boost your rankings and traffic. Conversely, deleting content and thin pages can aid your ‘crawl budget’ and help Google take notice of the best pages on your site rather than worrying about pages that have no purpose.
7. Stopping Prematurely is a Waste of Money
If you stop after 3 months because of poor results then your expectations were wrong at the outset.
The reality is, it takes around 3 months for your SEO to fix past mistakes. And the SEO you do today won’t take effect for a month or 2. Do proper research, technical SEO and develop an ongoing SEO plan.
8. Stopping and Starting Can Raise Alarm Bells to Google
Link velocity is the rate at which links are pointed at your site. If your SEO is helping you build links and then you stop, this will ring alarm bells for Google and tell them that either your site is losing credibility.
Update: Link velocity isn’t a problem in 2020. As long as the links you get are legitimate, it really doesn’t matter how fast you get them, it all counts.
Credits
Moz Google Algorithm Changes
Media Post – $65 billion Spent on SEO
Go Blogging Tips – Link Velocity
Search Engine Land – SEO is a Marketing Channel
Moz – Fresh Content May Affect Rankings
