You’ve meticulously fine-tuned your website for SEO as part of your online strategy and can now enjoy the benefits that come along with it. Job done? Not quite. Like most elements of your website, ongoing maintenance is required to ensure your initial work doesn’t go to waste. Here are just a few reasons why SEO maintenance matters to the success of your website.
Changing search engine algorithms
Search engines regularly update their algorithms to improve the quality of search results, so the way your website is evaluated and ranked will likely change over time. For example in March this year, the newest Google core algorithm update came into effect and there have been suggestions by Searchmetrics analysis that, amongst others, the update has impacted niche pages dedicated to limited or single subject matter.
Your competitors are doing SEO maintenance too
Any business should have an awareness of its competitor movements. This extends to SEO maintenance. Your comp set is targeting the same pool of clients and will be refining their own strategies to be noticed by the customer, including using social media. Stay on top of your SEO maintenance to ensure it’s not easy for them to outrank you and gain business, not necessarily by providing a better service than you, but by being more visible at the point of customer need.
Reviewing if your current approach works
Perhaps the most important reason why SEO needs constant updating is that you need to understand if your current online strategy is working. When forming your initial plan of action, you’ll have set goals to track yourself against; with getting to the top of search pages sure to be a major aim.
To address this you’ll need to look at how the content on your site is being received. Which pieces are most popular, or which are being ignored? These are notable considerations as they affect your conversion rate. Using tools like Google Analytics you can build a dashboard that will allow you to see where you rank for certain keywords on the Google search page. Committing to SEO maintenance means you’ll be able to see if you’ve managed to improve on or maintain your ranking, and where you need to make a concerted effort.
Search engines don’t like a stale website
Your business isn’t staying static so the content on your website shouldn’t either. Without SEO and general website maintenance, the crawlers will start to see your website as less relevant. Your website will then start to lose traffic as it appears lower and lower in search pages. Engage your audience with diverse content that is regularly updated for SEO to keep a steady stream of traffic; and with the right calls to action, you could see an increase in conversions.
These reasons should be all you need to put SEO maintenance at the top of your to-do list. For more tips and how-tos have a look at our blog or get in touch with us at info@helloslate.co.uk
Posted: July 2019
Author: Slate
