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.
Choosing a CMS: 5 Differences Between WordPress & Concrete5
So you need a website, but you’re not sure which CMS or content management system option will best serve the online needs of your business or organization. A friend told you that what you need is a WordPress website.
“WordPress is easy, can be customized and has an online arsenal of plugins available for download,” they tell you!
You could even go with the ‘Do it Yourself’ route and choose a natively hosted themed platform, something like a Squarespace or Wix website.
This sounds good, but what else should you know? Are there other options that are more concrete and user-friendly?
After a little research, you determine you would like to enlist the expertise of a design and marketing agency. Let's assume you’ve landed on a creative team you feel comfortable working with (ahem, Synchronicity!) and they recommend a custom built CMS like Concrete5.
Which is better? What are the differences between the most commonly used CMS, WordPress, and a custom CMS built specifically for your project like Concrete5?
Well, here are a few pros and cons, as well as some other factors to take into consideration when choosing a CMS.
1. Customization
First let’s establish what is custom and what is customizable. Preexisting platforms are often customizable, however, they are not custom. This type of CMS was not developed specifically for your functional needs and aesthetic taste.
With a WordPress website you will be able to edit colors and add and arrange content, but the tools that give you these capabilities were not built and implemented with your individual project in mind. Although you can hire a firm or web developer to edit and customize the Wordpress framework, it is often restrictive as to how far you can go with the customization.
Working with a creative firm on a Concrete 5 platform will afford you the option of truly custom design and development. What that means is you will be able to create unique design, functions, and page by page honing the look, feel, and movement of your site.
2. Plugins
There are countless plugins built for WordPress, which will enable you to add new tools and features to your site. These might include: contact forms, image sliders, photo galleries, video galleries, news tools, blogging tools, event tools, e-commerce and payment platforms, security features, or social media linking options, just to name a few.
The trouble with all these zillions of plugins is they are often not written with the best security in mind. Downloading and installing a plugin that was written and developed by someone else can pose a serious security risk to your site and even your potential visitors.
With Concrete 5, we mainly custom build out the functions and tools upon a secure framework, thus allowing us to provide a more secure product.
3. Security
On the other side of the coin Concrete5, though open source, does not make use of sometimes risky plugins developed by third parties. The C5 framework as a whole is also much less susceptible to compromise.
Using a WordPress CMS will require you or your team to conduct regular and frequent security scans in order to ensure your site is clear of potential bugs or viruses and is running smoothly.
Whichever CMS you choose, you should consider going with some type of monthly maintenance option. Some design agencies will not offer WordPress development without your approval of regular backend maintenance.
4. Editing/Content Management
After your CMS is completed you will be tasked with the job of managing your content. If you are responsible for populating your site with copy, images and other content, it will be much easier to do so in a custom built C5 framework. Although with Wordpress you can accmploish the same, the interface and tools are often confusing and difficult to manage.
Wizywig editors (or text editing fields) will be cleaner, more powerful and tailored to their specified function. Uploading photos and file sets will be more intuitive and arranged in a more efficient fashion. When all your content is populated, you must keep your site current and up to date - blogs, news and events should all be updated frequently.
5. Your Budget
The specificity of your team’s needs will determine whether you need a custom CMS or if WordPress will provide an adequate option.
Yes, a WordPress platform will most likely be significantly less expensive. However remember, most of the time you will get what you pay for. There are many other things that are wrapped up into the final number of a quote. Support, maintenance and the design firm’s experience will all come into play during the proposal process.
Get Your Free CMS Analysis from Synchronicity!
Ready to get started on your own WordPress or C5 web project? Our experienced team of UX designers and developers can assist you in designing and constructing a website that is functional, user-friendly and ascetically pleasing.
To get more information on our design and development services, please call 866-387-7962 (or in the Charlotte, NC area, 704-454-2866) to speak with an account representative or visit Synchronicity’s website to get started!