SEO for Growth: How Long Shall You Be Doing It For?

How long shall I be doing SEO for?

The question is, by far, the most common we get asked. Probably since the very first day we started our agency.

Clients ask it when they really want to know what the return on their investment will be and, indeed, if a long-term commitment in SEO optimization will be worth the cost and the effort. To put it simply, as any SEO 101 guide would tell you, it should be a part of your marketing strategy for as long as you want your website to appear on the first page of Google.

Here’s why.

DON’T THINK ABOUT SEO AS A MUST

Think about SEO as a constant opportunity to grow: it’s not something you must do whereas is something you can do, in order to improve. Once you gain your first results and your ranking on Google seems to be growing fast, you may think there’s no reason to spend other money on SEO activities.

But the reality is that as soon as you think you must do it you won’t recognize the importance of being able to do it. Digital marketing itself is a never-ending cycle of gathering data, strategizing, creating, measuring, revising. And all of that is part of a cycle that runs constantly, month after month.

The same principles apply to SEO. After all, SEO is a segment of marketing: the “build it and leave it” approach doesn’t really work when we’re talking about it.

RANKING MEANS COMPETITION

Once Google has discovered, crawled and indexed your web pages you have to fight to get high enough in the search results. And eventually, you may think if other search results are not selling the same product or service as you then you’re out of any competition. You’ve finished your tasks.

We strongly believe that’s not the case: a Google results page is one of the most competitive places on the Internet. There will always be competitors because, as far as we’re concerned, there will always be a search engine ranking.

Google and other search engines value fresh, relevant and updated content. Every website that is regularly updated is proven to dominate the organic rankings. The more you add new content, the more you optimize it for your costumer (and costumer to-be), the more will return to your site to index it. Bottom line, you need to provide values to gain results.

NEVER SLEEP

Google will constantly update and revise its search algorithm to display the most relevant search results to improve the user experience. You want to make sure your SEO strategies are in line with current algorithm updates, don’t you?

Stay ahead of the competition, keep up with Google algorithm updates, continue with SEO optimization, leave a budget for it. Basically, don’t rest on our laurels. SEO is an ongoing process that should continue as long as your website is out there and as long as you want to work on it, while that happens.

The internet never sleeps, and neither does marketing.