Anyone who has built and launched a website has likely encountered an oft-repeated acronym: SEO (search engine optimization). And while you might not have ever done SEO yourself, you've benefited from it in the past: Every day, search engines like Google employ complex algorithms to sift through more than 400 billion web pages and deliver the most relevant results.
Website owners like you use SEO techniques and strategies to get their websites to the top of the search results for relevant user queries. But SEO is not a one-time endeavor — Google and other search engines change often, and ongoing SEO ensures your website stays in front of the people you want to reach. Just as a physical storefront requires regular maintenance and updates to stay competitive, your website needs ongoing SEO to remain visible amidst the ever-changing digital landscape.
The ABCs of SEO: What is Ongoing SEO and Why Does It Matter?
Don't let the techy jargon intimidate you. HubSpot — considered one of the gold standards for SEO and digital marketing advice — defines SEO as simply a collection of strategies and tips that "expand a company’s visibility in organic search results'' and help "drive more visitors to the company’s website, increasing their chances for more conversions which leads to more customers and more revenue."
SEO Connects the Search Engine Algorithms With Your Website's Content
Regardless of your website's goal or industry niche, all SEO techniques have one thing in common: They look at ways to optimize your website's content, keywords, and links to help search engines rank your website higher in the search results when someone searches for something related to your keywords, content, or brand name.
According to HubSpot, SEO needs to address the key factors that all search engines use to determine the value of your website's content — and therefore how high in the search results your website or specific landing page should appear:
- The intent or meaning behind why someone is searching for a specific term or question
- The relevance between what someone searches for, and the content on your website
- The quality of your content (for instance, a website about physical exercise written by certified personal trainers is deemed by Google to be higher quality than a website where the articles are written by non-experts)
- The performance of your website, such as how long it takes a page to load and whether it works well on mobile devices
Static SEO Versus Ongoing SEO: Why It Matters to Stay Fresh and Keep Your SEO Updates Current
As users' web behavior changes and technology evolves, search engines proactively adjust their algorithms.
If you aren't conducting ongoing SEO maintenance and upgrades, a well-optimized website today can quickly become obsolete tomorrow, causing your search rankings to drop and attracting fewer organic visitors. Google itself updates its algorithms several thousand times per year, including significant "major" changes every few months that dramatically change how it crawls and ranks content. For example, Google's infamous Panda update changed how it ranked how-to lifestyle content on the Internet, causing one major content publisher to lose a whopping $6.4 million of traffic and advertising nearly overnight.
How Ongoing SEO Influences Your Website Strategy
Staying abreast of changes to SEO techniques and strategies provides important guidance to your content, marketing, and overarching website strategy. For example, it can dictate or influence:
- How much content you publish, and the content's format, length, and focus
- How you incorporate other forms of media on your website, including images, video, and audio
- How you organize content on your site, including landing page layouts and your site's navigation
- What keywords and target users your website focuses on
Embrace the Power of Ongoing SEO
Caroline Forsey, an expert in thought leadership and marketing content, looked at the survey results from more than 400 of the world's leading web analysts to predict the biggest SEO trends of 2024. According to her data, some of the top changes in SEO strategies this year include:
- A heavier emphasis on expertise, meaning the content on your website should come from experts in your related field (including bylines and author bios that demonstrate the author's credentials and experience on the topic they're writing about)
- A renewed emphasis on first-person, credible content, especially as more websites generate high volumes of low-quality AI content (Google itself has announced upcoming changes to tackle low-value articles created by AI)
- A priority on websites that are deemed trustworthy, such as e-commerce sites with well-rated customer service, or content sites that do a good job of citing trustworthy research and statistics
- Bonus points on content that is creative and original and doesn't simply rehash content found on other sites
Of course, these SEO trends will inevitably change every year, and ongoing SEO will keep you competitive no matter what Google, Bing, and other search engines do. No matter your website's industry or content strategy, ongoing SEO requires that you:
- Focus on keeping your content fresh and high quality, including new blog posts or regularly refreshing and updating old product descriptions or articles
- Conduct keyword research often, since the terms or phrases that your core audience uses will evolve over time
- Maintain your website's overarching performance, such as mobile-friendliness as mobile devices evolve, and page load speed
- Build a diverse portfolio of high-quality backlinks from authoritative websites within your niche, which may include outreach campaigns, getting others in your industry to write guest blogs, and participating in online forums or communities
- Keep on top of technical and performance metrics, such as scanning your site for broken links (and fixing the links you uncover) and using tools like Google Analytics and Google Search Console to track organic traffic, keyword rankings, click-through rates, and conversion rates
- Stay on top of algorithm changes so you can adapt your SEO strategy in real-time
Some website owners think of SEO as the first step of their promotional strategy. But it's less a first step, and more an ongoing journey to ensure you, your brand, and your content stay relevant in such a competitive atmosphere. Whether you choose to go it alone and take a DIY approach to SEO, or you choose to consult with a digital marketing and SEO agency, check in often and make sure your SEO evolves as the world around you evolves.
When you partner with a web design agency, accountability and managed expectations are an absolute must. In addition to providing you with an end-product that exceeds your expectations, your agency partner should also take the following 6 steps to ensure that your project stays on time and within budget.
1. Provide a Detailed and Specific Project Plan
Every web project should begin with a detailed project plan that will outline exactly what the agency is going to do for you and what items may be outside of scope. This understanding is absolutely necessary for planning and budgeting. Additionally, the project plan will create a concrete timeline. If the project plan is clear and everybody signs off, there should be no unpleasant surprises in the future.
2. Supply an Itemized Cost Breakdown
It’s important to have a clear understanding of the cost of any web design project. To make the most informed decisions possible, you need detailed information on the costs involved. Further, your web design agency should be able to tell you exactly where the money you spend is going. The best way to do this is to present you with an itemized cost breakdown. This breakdown should contain:
- Service or deliverable description
- Unit cost
- Total Cost
- Unit of measurement or flat fee
The breakdown will provide you with the needed clarity about what each deliverable is going to cost. If you find that the price is pushing the limits of your budget, you can use this information to identify any line items to exclude.
3. Clarify When Tasks Are Outside of the Project Scope
As web design projects unfold, things tend to evolve. You may identify features and functionality that you want to have after the project has already begun. In some cases, that’s something your web designer should be able to accommodate, but not always. A good web design team will be honest with you and willing to put on the brakes when a task is simply outside of the project scope. By doing this, they can make you aware of when a request could cause issues with your budget or timeline.
4. Identify Any Risks that Can Delay the Project
A skilled web design agency will be able to review the details of the project along with expected outcomes and identify risk factors that might impact the timeline you’ve established. Here are a few of the more common delays you might encounter:
- Lack of an efficient method of providing feedback and approvals
- No clear sitemap
- Unanswered questions at the start of the project
- Failure to gain buy-in from stakeholders
- Lack of responsiveness
- Too much feedback
In addition to being able to identify these issues, your web design partner must be willing to have difficult conversations with you about these issues. This willingness includes letting you know when inaction or other issues on your end are putting the project at risk.
5. Provide Feedback in a Timely Manner
Communication is a key factor in ensuring your project is completed on time and meets your expectations. The chances are that you’re going to have questions and concerns at every stage. You’ll have important decisions to make that depend on the feedback you receive from your web designers. If they are uncommunicative, things can go off the rails. Ask any potential web design agency about a communication plan before you contract to have work done. This discussion should include details on how and when communication will occur and a turnaround time on questions and requests for information.
6. Manage Changes in Direction or Scope
Sometimes a change in scope is unavoidable. New information comes to light, or a stakeholder determines that business needs necessitate a change. When this happens, there will need to be adjustments in the following areas:
- Budget allocation
- Timeline
- Other project features
- Cost
The good news is that changes to project scope can lead to better outcomes. However, the process must be managed carefully. A quality web designer will have a structured approach to dealing with these changes and determining the best way to move forward.
Work with a Charlotte Web Design Agency You Can Trust
There’s no shortage of web design firms to choose from. Your challenge is finding the agency you can trust to complete your project on time and within budget. Ask your potential web design partner what they are going to do to ensure your project is completed as promised.