You know, I often say if you have a website you need SEO.
SEO is the one marketing channel that ideally should be activated before marketing begins.
And once you have SEO activated, it must stay activated.
If you reach technical excellence, SEO continues.
If you improve your site visibility earlier than anticipated, SEO continues.
If you hit number 1 for all your targeted keywords, SEO continues.
There is a start to SEO but there is no end to SEO.
SEO, folks, is never-ending.
Let me share with you, two reasons why this is –
Reason number 1 has to do with the point of optimisation.
The point of optimisation is simply to make improvements.
That all we, as SEOs, aim to do.
Make improvements on a site, and in the case of off-page optimisation, make improvements for a site.
That’s it! In a nutshell, that’s it.
Forget search engines for a moment.
We don’t optimise for search engines, we optimise for users.
Now, we attain users from search engines but we do not optimise for them.
It’s all for users. We optimise a site to better cater to our users, or our prospect users.
When we optimise, we simply make improvements.
Improvements have no end. Therefore, optimisation has no end.
You see, this is why you can have a look at any site, at any point in time, and find ‘something’ that can be improved, from an SEO point of view.
This is why SEO is very creative channel.
This is why the list of things to do in SEO is truly never complete.
There shouldn’t ever be a question of should we SEO.
The question should be around ‘what should we optimise, first – and next?’
The second reason why SEO is never-ending is due to the element of competition.
You see, just as you’re aiming to improve your website to attract and cater to users, your competitors are doing the same thing with their websites.
If you were to turn-off SEO, you would still generate traffic through it.
You may not even notice a change for a day or two, or a week of two, or even a month or two.
But eventually, you’ll lose traffic.
And by the time you lose traffic, your search visibility would have been compromised?
Why?
Because your traffic loss wouldn’t start with an immediate traffic loss.
It’ll be things you wouldn’t notice without an SEO.
Your visibility will be compromised.
Your rankings will be compromised.
And then your traffic will be compromised.
Simultaneously, your competitors will see their visibility, rankings and traffic increase.
If you were to turn off SEO, what message do you think this would send to search engines?
Remember, search engines, just as you do, aim to service their users.
They service their users by presenting the best, most appropriate sites to them when they search for something.
By turning off your SEO, what are you saying to search engines…?
You’re telling them that you no longer want them to consider your site as the best, most appropriate one for the users you want to attract to it.
As a response, they devalue your site. Gradually – over the course of months, depending on how competitive your industry is.
This is why you would see a downwards trend in traffic.
As long as you have a website, you need SEO.
If optimisation is all about making improvements, and you turn off SEO, you’re simply showing you no longer wish to compete in a commercial environment.
You no longer care to show to prospect users that you value their visit.
Why would someone visit your site when they’re not welcomed?
They wouldn’t! Not when there are tens and hundreds of others sites they can choose from.
You see…?
If you regard SEO as a channel you’ll invest in one time, perhaps to fix a specific issue, you’re considering SEO all wrong.
Completely wrong.
You’ll be setting yourself up to lose market share.
It’s not just a certain area of your site that’ll be affected.
It’ll be your entire domain.
As important as SEO is to marketing, it’s equally as important, if not more important, to the maintenance of your site.
This isn’t something that’s nearly as popular in the mainstream publication but SEO plays a vital role in site health.
Let me be clear here, your domain is always open to threats.
As well as aiming to optimise, there’s also the need to maintain, and not regress.
As long as you have a website, folks, you need SEO.
