A high ranking website is a terrible thing to waste. The result can be the downfall of your business and it can happen easier than you may think. To be effective, SEO must be done well and consistently. That is because the Internet is a constantly changing and evolving being. The change is driven by the search engines and the growth of the Internet itself. Search engine optimization experts know that you must stay current or you risk disappearing into the World Wide Web.
Some people are under the false impression that all you have to do is put some SEO strategies in place, boost your ranking and then you’re done. Budgets are often cut or reallocated to other “more urgent” business issues and the webmaster is left to hope and wonder. This type of thinking is penny wise and pound foolish. Marketing efforts have a long tail and require time and constant care and feeding to be effective. SEO is the same.
When you back away from SEO your website starts to get old and stale. Google and the other search engines live by the “What have you done for me lately” mantra. And, your users stop coming back because you don’t give them a reason to. Nothing new means nothing new to see. The biggest issues with backing away from SEO include:
- Links begin to rot and lose their impact. Google wants to see continuous additions of new inbound links. Over time, links lose their luster with the search engines.
- Falling behind the latest changes to the search algorithms. Your site may even end up getting penalized for things that were once acceptable that are now frowned upon. Keyword stuffing is the classic example. Once a common practice, now you get penalized for it.
- Most content becomes less relevant over time. Products change, the market conditions move on, consumer tastes change and stuff happens. Keeping your content current and changing is important to both your potential customers and the search engines. No one wants to read old, outdated information if they can easily go elsewhere and see what’s new and hot.
- Your competition is being aggressive and staying current. If you fall behind the search engines, you are also falling behind your competitors. Consumers are impatient, demanding and less loyal than ever before. If you don’t give them what they want, it is easy for them to find someone who will.