You created your website, filled it with content, and optimized your SEO. So, you’re done right? Not quite. The internet is growing and changing quickly everyday, and for every post, article, product, or video you add to your website there are hundreds more being added to other sites, and taking your place in the search rankings. This means optimizing your site’s SEO is not a one time thing. In order to make sure your website appears in a user’s online search, there are several ongoing SEO tasks you should do regularly to improve your online presence
Is SEO a One Time Thing?
There are some that treat SEO as a one time thing, basically you do the tasks and you’re done. But a successful SEO campaign is ongoing and requires ongoing optimization and adjustments. Google and other search engines constantly release algorithm updates and make adjustments that affect organic performance. Therefore, SEO is constantly changing and websites need to change with it.
Why is Ongoing SEO Maintenance Necessary for Your Website?
The internet is always changing and the algorithms search engines use constantly evolve. These changes online and in the algorithms can leave your once optimized website buried beneath a pile of updated and SEO-friendly competitors. Here are a few reasons why ongoing SEO maintenance can make all the difference for your business:
- Evolving algorithms: In order for a search engine to be more efficient and useful for their users, their algorithms are always changing. This means sites could be ranked by new factors every single month. So, it is important to understand what is changing with each algorithm update in order to know how to optimize your site.
- SEO trends change: SEO trends change when algorithms change. What was once an important ranking factor before may not be a ranking factor after the latest algorithm update. Understanding evolving algorithms will help you recognize which SEO trends will currently help you with ongoing optimization.
- Google likes it: Google and search engines like to see consistent updates and improvements made to a website. This shows them that you’re working to improve user experience and convey up-to-date information. When they see a site with new and improved content, they know that they are giving their users the best information possible.
- Keyword volume and intent change: Just as algorithms can change, keyword search volume, trends, and intent can also change. Intent refers to a searcher’s intent when they use certain keywords or phrases in their online search. It is always better to choose your keywords based on search intent and match up the content to what is currently being rewarded. If you use keywords without understanding the true intent behind the term, your content will never rank organically. There are also instances where keywords underperform and need to be replaced with new opportunities that will work to generate qualified leads and revenue for your business.
- Information becomes outdated: It’s easy for information to become outdated and irrelevant, especially in the tech world. This devalues your website and E-A-T, your site’s expertise, authoritativeness, and trustworthiness. If old information or misinformation can be found on your website, Google will see this as a poor user experience and will not rank your page where users can find it. Site visitors can also find that information useless and will move on and seek out more reliable information elsewhere. Therefore, repurposing and refreshing content is essential and should be a regular practice!
Ongoing SEO Tasks You Need to be Doing to Optimize Your Website
1. Create new content
With the upcoming Google Page Experience Update, E-A-T is playing an even more prominent role in algorithm updates. One of the best ways to convey a quality E-A-T on your website is through content. Make it a priority to create and fill your website with original, reliable, and up to date content! This is an effective way to maintain your site’s SEO and demonstrate to search engines that user experience is consistently being improved. It also signals to Google that you’re regularly working on improving your site and enhancing the value through new content.
2. Repurpose existing content
If your content becomes outdated due to new information, or is no longer up-to-date with new algorithms or SEO trends, update the information. While creating new content is important for an effective SEO campaign, so is repurposing the existing content on your website. Repurpose articles, landing pages, videos, and anything else that provide a poor user experience, outdated information, and leaves questions unanswered.
3. Run a site audit
Site audits are an ongoing SEO task that should be conducted regularly because a lot can change on a website in a short time that may slip through the cracks. Running a site-wide audit every six months can help identify technical issues that need addressing, such as 404 errors, missing image alt text, and indexing issues.
4. Remove deadweight content
Another simple ongoing SEO task you can complete is to remove any outdated or redundant content. There may be pages that can be repurposed as we mentioned above, but there are also pages that no longer serve the website after a certain time. Keeping pages that don’t generate traffic or conversions for your business is not considered a best practice because it takes up valuable space in the crawl budget. This means that search engines will spend time crawling irrelevant pages on your website and may not crawl the most important pages that should be a priority. Cleaning up deleting defunct content can boost your site’s SEO and overall relevancy, so make it an ongoing SEO task.
5. Refresh meta titles and descriptions
Another important step is to make sure that your meta titles and descriptions are current, describe what information your site has to offer, and are enticing. With a limited amount of space to write an enticing title and description, it can be difficult. Test out and keep record of which keywords, metadata, and calls to action have the best click through rates for your pages.
6. Clean up redirect chains
Internal links are a valuable factor in an SEO strategy, but the more internal links you use on your site, the easier it is for it to get out of hand. When pages are removed and broken, a redirect should be implemented. However, too many redirects are not good for a website’s SEO, so be methodical with how you create and remove pages on your website. When redirects are implemented, it can cause redirect chains and loops with internal links that have not been directly updated with the new live link. Redirect chains and loops are not a best practice because it can create a poor user experience, devalue the link juice, and could potentially slow down the page speed. Make it an ongoing optimization practice at least every six months.
7. Link Building
Link building is an ongoing optimization task due to the nature of it – it’s a long term and time consuming practice. But if you want more backlinks, you need to actively pursue them with various strategies. It’s great to build up your authority and create quality content that websites automatically want to backlink to, but it takes time to get to that stage. Try out some of these backlinking strategies and see what works best for you! Just make sure that they are authentic and natural, not forced or purchased.
8. Competitor research
Pay attention to your competitors. Notice what ongoing SEO practices they implement online. Before you know it, they can quickly surpass you in keyword rankings and organic performance. Analyze what they do, what content they write, keywords they target, backlinks they obtain, and much more. Keeping an eye on the competition will help you stay ahead.
A Dedicated Agency Can Do the Ongoing SEO Maintenance for You
While some ongoing SEO tasks are simple enough that you can complete them on your own, it can be a lot to handle all at once, especially if you are a small business owner. That is why we recommend enlisting the help of a dedicated agency like Boostability. At Boostability, you will have a real team, not a robot, boost your site, your content, and your online visibility. Whether you are a small business owner or an SEO reseller looking to partner with a white label SEO provider, we can help your business get the attention and qualified traffic it needs to succeed on search engines. Ongoing optimization can be overwhelming, but our team is here to help! Learn more about our small business SEO services and SEO Partner Program, and see how we can help you boost your site’s SEO strategy.
