Why SEO shouldn’t be seen as a short-term one-off investment

I bet you’re not surprised hearing this from someone who works in an agency but I would be saying the same thing to my marketing team and the board of directors if I were working client side.

SEO should not be seen as a one-off short-term practice, the technical changes, content amendments and historical links built in February 2023 cannot still be expected to carry the same weighting, authority and relevancy as they would in February 2024.?

Some but not all!

This is not to say the work undertaken is no longer valid, more that newer signals need to be generated for search engines and users. As well as ensuring your site, and content, are evolving in line with your target audiences.

?All too often I see client comments, that they have done SEO now and that they can make internal savings on the SEO investment.

This couldn’t be further from the truth.?

I would see SEO as more of a marathon, not a sprint. If you think that once you are on page one for your desired set of keywords, your visibility is strong and revenue is on the increase, that SEO is done, then unfortunately you are wrong!

You need to then think about maintaining that ranking, and that involves a constant review of your organic strategy, keyword rankings (are the commercial terms still viable), search visibility, creating new and relevant content and fresh authority being generated and sent through to the site.

Remember that your performance (rankings, and visibility), being improved will come at the cost of a competitor who will then almost certainly, well ideally should, retaliate with their SEO strategy.

Google, our ever-eternal god (other search engines are available), will keep evolving to provide users with the best experience, by tweaking and amending its main core algorithm.

As such your SEO strategy should be continual and flexible to ensure that any update doesn’t ultimately affect your online performance negatively.

If you don’t have an SEO strategy then this could be disastrous for any business, yes there are still businesses out there that don’t and if you have stopped or paused your SEO strategy then any recovery time will be lengthened.

Is the long-term SEO investment worth it?

Having the correct strategies and forward-thinking in place will only result in improved organic rankings and subsequent visibility. Being in strong positions in Search Engines is more important to businesses now than at any time in the past and the reliance is only going to increase.

To ensure that your site/pages stay relevant, whether it’s enhancing keywords, amending on-page content, creating user-focused content hubs or building more authority through either natural outreach or DPR (Or both ideally), then a long-term strategy is required.

The better the SEO strategy, the more holistic approach is taken, then it is more likely that your site will see success.

That is why having a marketing plan that has SEO at the forefront is crucial for any business and the practice of SEO is more relevant than ever.

So is it worth it, YES!

When will I see the results?

Love this question, as it is the ultimate question as result matter and as I have an SEO background then the obvious answer would be “It depends”

SEO is a long-term continual strategy rather than a quick fix. It involves gradually improving various aspects of your website and generating different signals for your target audience and users.

If your site is in a strong position to start then clearly any changes will be quick to realise but sites that haven’t undertaken any previous SEO could, and should, expect to see a longer time frame.

The competitiveness of your industry will also dictate the time frame.

Search engines need time to crawl, and index, the changes to your website. While some changes may be indexed relatively quickly, it can take weeks or even months for significant improvements to be reflected.

It is important to grasp an understanding of the basics and then keep on top of the ongoing algorithmic changes a team of SEO experts #agencyplug can keep on top of these.

But SEO should be seen as part of “the norm” in any business's marketing strategy.

Continually review the data

Data is key.

To put your mind at ease, about how your is SEO performing and to show your return on investment it is best to review your data and key metrics.

This will then be the benchmark to revert to when understanding SEO performance.

I can't stress this enough but you need to be clear about what you want to achieve through SEO.

Are you looking for vanity terms to be in strong positions or are you looking to make more money from your newly acquired organic traffic - these 2 however do not necessarily go hand in hand.

There is a lot of opportunity around the "messy middle" that businesses take their eye off, and this can be a great opportunity to see some early growth in comparison to competitors.

Ultimately, don’t be frustrated by the early stages of an SEO strategy, the results with the right strategy will come!