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.
Over 70% of B2B customers research product and services before meeting with you. In fact, they prefer online interactions over in-person ones as it saves them both time and money.
Providing a positive online experience can drive more leads than cold calls and emails. But mobile-compatible designs and faster load times are not enough. A good website design should consider other factors like SEO, accessibility, personalized user experience, and much more.
To create the ultimate B2B website, developers need to stay on top of the latest trends to provide a great online experience. So, to save you some time and energy, we compiled the 6 biggest B2B website and UX trends in 2023.
Website design and UX trends for 2023
1. Short Videos
Over 50% of B2B customers watch videos online before buying a product or service. However, this comes with a slight caveat – these customers can have very short attention spans.
This isn’t entirely the case, though, as there is still an audience for long-form podcasts and shows on platforms like YouTube and Spotify. What it actually means is – people don’t have time for ‘irrelevant’ content.
Adding a short introduction video to your website showcasing your company’s brand and offerings can bring in more customers, increase engagement on your website, and provide a unique user experience, eventually leading to more conversions.
2. Immersive scrolling
Trying to create a unique user experience has led web designers to incorporate different scrolling experiences into a website, like multi-directional and asymmetrical scrolling. The most popular option is parallax scrolling, where different elements on the page move at different scrolling speeds to simulate depth. Add additional images and animations to this, and you will have yourself an immersive website experience.
It’s a great way to share your brand’s personality and voice through images. Just remember not to overdo it because overstimulation can take away from the message, and too many elements could affect the website's performance.
3. Chatbots
In 2023, we will see more chatbots integrated into websites. They offer your business opportunities to work more efficiently in a constantly changing market. You can automate processes that humans previously handled. 71% of consumers say they will turn to chatbots if they provide a better user experience, which seems to be where the world is heading.
These interactions with chatbots will improve as they start to learn and use more natural-sounding language, more complex vocabulary, and even recognize misspelled words thanks to machine learning and AI.
4. Privacy and security
Many countries are now following the EU and putting laws protecting their citizens' data in place. Gartner predicts that by 2024, 75% of the world’s population will be protected by modern data privacy laws that put the user first. So, complying with data privacy and security guidelines may save your company from legal action in the future.
Showing your commitment to data privacy also helps gain customers’ trust so that they feel more comfortable sharing their information with you, especially if you are a B2B business that works with sensitive customer information.
5. Accessibility
The beauty of the internet lies in the fact that everyone has access to information – even those with disabilities.
Entities like government websites and public information websites have to meet the standards set by the state, so this may not apply to your case. However, including keyboard-friendly features and screen-reader compatibility can go a long way in providing a more accessible experience to an entire section of society who might otherwise have gone unnoticed.
6. Dark mode
Dark mode is a very sought-after website feature. There is a high chance that your own browser is in dark mode while reading this. The low levels of light emitted in dark mode reduce eye strain and improve battery life.
Moreover, giving your visitors the option to switch to dark mode creates a more accessible and personalized user experience.
In 2023, your website design mantra should be – Less is better. You could include everything we mentioned, but it might not be ideal for your website or customer.
A good rule of thumb is to find the right balance between sharing relevant information without compromising the experience. This can really help your business stand out in the busy online world.