You understand the importance of search engine optimization (SEO), as over 60% of online experiences begin with a search engine and the top-ranking website receives 33% of all search traffic.
Achieving and maintaining that number one spot is crucial for success, and SEO maintenance is the process of consistently optimizing your website to improve and sustain your SEO rankings.
This guide will provide you with all the necessary information and actions needed for an SEO maintenance plan to enhance your SEO strategy. For any inquiries about professional SEO maintenance, feel free to contact me online.
What is SEO maintenance?
SEO maintenance is an ongoing process that involves making regular adjustments to your website to achieve favorable rankings in search engine results.
The primary focus is on ensuring that your content accurately represents your website, allowing you to compete with other businesses that also engage SEO services to maintain their rankings and stay ahead.
SEO maintenance services assist in preserving your current high search engine rankings.
These SEO services are designed for businesses that have achieved high rankings for their primary keywords but are facing new competition, making it challenging to maintain their top position.
Even if your website is currently performing well in rankings, without ongoing SEO maintenance, you may not be able to sustain that position for long.
SEO involves numerous factors that are often unknown to many people, and ongoing maintenance is crucial to stay ahead in the ever-changing landscape of search engine rankings.
Why is SEO maintenance essential?
Even if your website is currently performing well in rankings, without ongoing SEO maintenance, you may not be able to sustain that position for long.
SEO involves numerous factors that are often unknown to many people, and ongoing maintenance is crucial to stay ahead in the ever-changing landscape of search engine rankings.
1. Rankings in search results are not permanent
While achieving a first-page or number-one ranking may be a cause for celebration, it’s important to remember that rankings can change over time.
Just as your business can surpass a competitor to claim the top spot, others can do the same to you.
Therefore, ongoing effort is required to maintain your rankings, and this is where SEO maintenance comes into play. Regular SEO maintenance is essential to ensure that your website continues to rank well in search results and stays ahead of the competition.
2. Content needs to be updated
By incorporating SEO maintenance as a fundamental component of your SEO strategy, you can effectively compete against your rivals.
This involves refreshing your content, updating keyword targeting, fixing broken links, and other proactive measures to keep your website pages competitive and valuable for users.
However, neglecting to maintain your content can lead to content decay, resulting in a loss of rankings and potential relegation to page two or beyond in search results.
Therefore, regular SEO maintenance is crucial to ensure that your website continues to perform well and remains visible to your target audience in search engine rankings.
3. Search engine algorithms are not static, as they undergo continuous updates
For instance, Google, a leading search engine, introduces thousands of algorithm improvements annually.
These updates can vary from minor adjustments to significant updates that can significantly impact your SEO strategy.
For instance, Google’s shift to a mobile-first index prompted many businesses to prioritize building responsive and mobile-friendly websites to align with the updated algorithm.
It is vital to stay informed about these algorithm updates and adapt your SEO approach accordingly to maintain optimal website performance in search engine rankings.
4. Competitors are investing in SEO
Businesses in the past could skip it without significant impact on their rankings. However, the landscape has changed.
Nowadays, more companies recognize the importance of SEO and invest in ongoing SEO maintenance to stay competitive.
This puts pressure on competitors to either adopt SEO maintenance practices or risk losing out on traffic, sales, and revenue.
If your business wants to maintain its competitiveness and prominence in search results, it’s crucial to prioritize SEO maintenance as part of your long-term strategy. Otherwise, you may only achieve short-term gains with your SEO efforts.
To stay ahead and secure a top spot in search results, make sure to leverage the benefits of SEO maintenance.
How can you maintain your SEO rankings?
1. Conduct Extensive Keyword Research
When starting SEO work with a company, I often hear the same anecdote that their SEO is fine because they show up as the first result when typing their business name into Google.
However, this can be a misleading vanity metric.
To truly gauge your SEO effectiveness, you need to consider what your potential customers would search for, such as “[business service/product] near me.”
This requires using tools like Semrush, Seranking, Adwords Keyword Planner, Ubersuggest.io, KeywordTool.io, or keyword.io, which can provide valuable insights on popular search terms related to your business.
For example, if you find that people are searching for “houses for sale in London under £500K,” make sure your website titles, URLs, and meta descriptions and page titles are optimized to include relevant keywords to capture that search intent.
This information can also guide your content creation strategy, including blog articles, to ensure you are meeting the demand of your target audience.
2. Regularly audit your Alt-Tags
Alt-tags are metadata assigned to images on web pages, and they play a crucial role in both accessibility and SEO. They provide descriptions to screen reader programs used by vision-impaired individuals, improving usability and user experience.
Additionally, Google uses alt-tags to determine the quality and relevance of images to the content of the web page.
While alt-tags are relatively easy to implement in platforms like WordPress, Wix or Webflow, they may require extra effort in other systems like WIX or Squarespace.
However, neglecting alt-tags can negatively impact your SEO efforts. Tools like ScreamingFrog can help identify images that lack alt-tags, and adding them in can result in incremental improvements to your SEO.
3. Check your data on Bing Webmaster
While Google Analytics and Google Search Console used to provide valuable keyword data, this feature has been removed and is now only available in Google Ads.
However, Bing still provides this type of data, and with a significant market share of 24%-30%, it can be a valuable source of insights to assess the performance of your content.
4. Consider hiring SEO Professionals
Maintaining effective SEO can be time-consuming and complex.
Instead of trying to handle it all yourself, consider hiring SEO professionals like Luca Tagliaferro or other trusted experts who can provide specialized expertise and help you with ongoing SEO maintenance.
This can free up your time and energy to focus on other aspects of your business where you excel.
