By now there a few, if any, businesses – from sole traders to big corporations – who don’t realise that it is important to have a website to showcase their work and attract new clients. (If you are still out of the loop in this respect, take some time to digest Dentons Digital’s blog explaining “Why Your Business Needs a Website”.)
A website is no use, however, without SEO (Search Engine Optimisation) – in other words, crafted in all respects to grab the attention of the search engines and thereby appear in the search results when someone out there is seeking your products or services.
Anyone who builds a business website knows that SEO is the most important element to build in to the site. It must feature strongly through every aspect – from the UX (user experience), across the content, to the strategic placement of calls to action and the site’s internal structure.
That’s why top web design agencies like ours at Dentons Digital launch business websites that come out of the box performing brilliantly on search engines like Google.
The glory doesn’t last, however! Just like a fresh flower that is blooming brightly, the impact of that superb search optimisation will wilt, and perhaps even die if it isn’t fed and watered with ongoing SEO.
Let’s take a look at why SEO needs to be nurtured with professional expertise that can build on your website’s solid foundation
Why Website Security Matters
Here are some of the main reasons why ongoing SEO is required to make sure your business website is garnering increasing organic traffic levels:
Algorithm Updates
Search engines work by crawling through websites, assessing them by a system of rules, processes and criteria – known as algorithms – to calculate which sites are most relevant and useful to answer a search query. The algorithms make their choices and the search engine serves them up in the search results, prioritising those sites that are the best match for the search.
Successful SEO for your business website therefore depends heavily on an understanding of search engine algorithms. This is no mean feat – Google’s core algorithm, for example, considers more than 200 factors when evaluating websites. It takes a true SEO aficionado to fully appreciate them all.
The problem is that even if you do grasp and interpret the most important algorithms and optimise your website to meet them, they will keep changing and evolving. Google frequently rolls out core updates to refine its algorithm, and each update can significantly impact search rankings.
It’s crucially important to stay informed about algorithm updates to maintain your website’s place in the search engine pecking order. You also need to know how to translate the updates into on-page and off-page actions to optimise your website accordingly.
Changing User Behaviour
One of the fascinating insights that the practice of SEO has brought to light is the fact that user search behaviour is constantly shifting and evolving.
Monitoring user behaviour metrics reveals how as new trends emerge, search queries change in nature, and user expectations of search results shift.
For example, with smart phones dominating the scene and image recognition technology increasingly popular among today’s young adults, visual search is gradually becoming preferred over keywords, which means SEO needs to adapt and strategise accordingly.
The tone of keywords, too, is changing – searchers are using more conversational and natural language rather than short, exact phrases to find what they want from an online search.
To keep on top of SEO it’s essential to keep analysing user behaviour via your website analytics, and ensure you are creating content that resonates with your target audience – your customers.
Staying Ahead of the Competition
While you’re striving to reach the top slot in the search engine rankings, so are your competitors out there in the market. If you let your SEO efforts slip, there are others waiting in the wings to claim your spot – both your current competitors and new ones just coming in to play.
You can bet your bottom dollar that your competitors are working just as hard as you are to improve their SEO and outrank you in the search results. That means you’ve got to outmanoeuvre them to stay ahead. Even level-pegging requires putting in some effort. This is particularly important for a small or micro-business competing in a local area.
That means you should be using tools (like Semrush or Ahrefs) to uncover your rivals’ traffic generation strategies along with all sorts of other valuable data and information to help you develop efficient marketing strategies.
Tracking your competitor’s keywords, and conducting a backlink analysis to see which domains are linking to them, are just some of the actions that you need to perform regularly to keep an eye on their SEO activity, and adjust your own accordingly.
How to Keep Your SEO on Track
If there’s one thing that successful SEO needs, it is consistency. To produce results takes time and patience initially, and maintaining your position in the rankings needs specialist knowledge, commitment and the investment of more time.
If you find yourself floundering because you just don’t have the time to dive deep into SEO for your website, or you don’t have any interest in the field, the most cost-effective way forward is to let professionals handle it for you.
Dentons Digital SEO campaigns can be tailored to suit your budget and your business. We generally offer a few hours’ SEO work per month for a very reasonable rate, which is sufficient to keep your website visible and very viable as far as the search engines are concerned.
If your website is currently languishing in the doldrums with no active SEO input, don’t delay. Contact us today to schedule a free SEO audit by our hotshot SEO team, and we’ll tell you exactly what needs to be done straightaway, and on an ongoing basis.
