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.
How Digital Marketing Helps Your Sales Team Close Deals Faster
We all know of the battle between sales and marketing. Sales typically complains that marketing isn’t generating enough quality leads, and marketing complains that sales isn’t working to close their leads.
And while both of these departments are strong enough to be dangerous individually, think about how powerful they could be if they worked together! If implemented properly, digital marketing can not only help produce more qualified leads for your sales team to close, but can also help move leads through the buying process.
Check out these four things digital marketing does to help your sales team close deals faster, and learn how you can your sales and marketing teams to work in sync.
1. It Introduces Prospects to the Brand
Imagine a world where your sales team doesn’t have to make 100’s of cold calls a day. Rather they could spend their time on the phone talking to qualified leads who are already on the path to buy. Digital marketing tactics make this possible.
Rather than sending your sales team on a wild goose chase to find businesses or individuals who could become viable buyers, digital marketing utilizes SEO and SEM tactics to bring the right businesses and individuals to you.
And SEO leads have a 14.6 percent close rate as opposed to outbound leads with a 1.7 percent close rate (Search Engine Journal). It’s hardly comparable; SEO just makes good sense!
Say ‘hasta la vista’ to a million cold calls!
2. It Informs the Prospect Prior to Initial Contact
Did you know 61 percent of global internet users research products online before buying (Interconnected World: Shopping and Personal Finance, 2012)? And did you know 60 percent of all organic clicks go to the top three organic search results (Business2Community)?
Further, did you know businesses with websites holding 401-1,000 pages get six times more leads than those with 51-100 pages (HubSpot Lead Generation Lessons from 4,000 Businesses, 2011)?
Why am I telling you all these stats, you ask? Well, what these numbers tell us is that people are doing their research. They’re going online and looking for information themselves before deciding whether or not they might be interested in buying.
Digital marketing allows businesses to generate content, such as blogs or free offers (workbooks, whitepapers), to host on their website to not only help their organic search rankings, but to also provide prospects with the information they are seeking before the first contact with a sales person.
So by the time this prospect reaches your sales team or your sales team reaches out to them, they are already informed about your industry, your product and your business, making them a more qualified lead. This eliminates the need for your sales team to inform the prospect of all this information themselves, thus shortening your sales cycle and using your sales team’s time more efficiently.
3. It Nurtures Leads to the Point of Close
Depending on what you’re selling, your sales cycle could be one day or it could be one year. And if your sales cycle leans on the longer side, that’s a lot of calls your sales team is going to need to make to leads to touch base on their status if they weren’t ready to close at first touch.
Well, by implementing lead nurturing and automation digital marketing campaigns, your sales team can kiss goodbye the days of having to consistently call cold leads to see if they’re ready to buy.
Lead nurturing allows you to take cold leads that were not ready to convert and place them in an automated workflow that will run for a scheduled period of time. This workflow will “nurture” the lead to the point of sale by providing them with the information they need to make an informed decision, traditionally via email.
For instance, begin by sending the lead top of the funnel content such as blogs, guides and checklists to provide them with additional information about the industry/product. If they bite (click through the email to view the content), send them more detailed, middle of the funnel information such as case studies, free samples, FAQ sheets, or brochures. If they once again click through, send them bottom of the funnel content such as free trials or demos, estimates, coupons, or consultation offers.
Remember, each of these workflow emails should be spaced out as to not overwhelm the lead or make your brand come off as too sales pushy. And if a lead doesn’t click to move through to the next funnel of the workflow, continue to send them content and offers for the stage they are in. If several rounds pass without conversion, let that lead rest and have a sales member touch base with it at a future date.
4. It Maintains the Relationship for Future Sales
The great thing about digital marketing is that it doesn’t only work to produce and nurture leads. It also maintains the relationships for future sales, taking the pressure off your sales team to continue a relationship.
While it’s always great for your sales team to touch base with their past customers regularly, your digital marketing team can assist them in doing so by automatically keeping past customers up to date on your brand’s news and offers.
After buying, give your customers the option to enter your email marketing campaigns and send them new content offers, newsletter or coupons to keep your brand top of mind. This will increase the likelihood of them becoming a repeat buyer.
Get Your Sales and Marketing in Sync!
Ready to get your sales and marketing teams working in sync to better your business, but unsure of how or where to start? Sync Web Designs can help!
Our team of skilled digital marketers can assist you in putting an SEO/SEM strategy into place that will attract new qualified visitors to your website, convert a higher quality of leads, nurture those leads through the buying cycle, and help your sales team close more leads to customers.
Get more information on Sync’s digital marketing services by calling 704-545-2868 to speak to an account representative or visit Sync Web Designs’ website to get started!