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.
You want to hire a web design agency but are worried that the final product won’t reflect the aesthetic you want. That’s a legitimate concern. If you are unclear about the design aesthetic you want or don’t communicate it clearly, the website you get may not align with your vision or branding. This walk-through of the design process can help ensure that your design vision is delivered.
Clarifying Your Vision
Before anything else, you must have a clear idea of what you want your website to look like. If your business has been around for a while, you’ve probably established its visual branding.
Visual branding encompasses the logo, color schemes, typography, and distinct visual elements that distinguish your company from others. In most cases, your website aesthetic is going to be largely influenced by that.
If you are starting from scratch, then you’ll need to formalize your visual branding with brand guidelines. After all, you want your web design to be something that visitors remember and associate with your company.
A web design agency can help with this. Start by researching other websites, landing pages, and blogs to get an idea of what appeals to you and why.
However, remember that branding influences aesthetics; it isn’t synonymous with it. There are other things to consider, such as layout, navigation, use of visuals, and interactive features. All of these things combine to create a strong visual impact.
Client Input
Now that you know what you want, or at least have an idea, you can communicate that to the design agency. You can help them turn your vision into reality by letting them know:
- Your overall goals for your website
- What you are trying to accomplish with this specific project
- The functions you want available to users
- Your target audience/user personas
This information will influence the functionality of your website. That’s something that must work with your desired aesthetic.
Creative Brief
You don’t have to be a graphic or web design professional to have creative input into your website. If you communicate what you like and dislike, a good designer should be able to work from that information.
Start with some of the websites you’ve researched. Share these with the design agency and indicate what you find appealing or unappealing and why. List the functions and visual features you’d like to incorporate into your web pages if possible. It also helps if you can describe where you envision things.
Your creative brief should also contain the images you want the designer to use. If you have a visual assets library, that can be extremely valuable here. Your designer will be able to help maintain your branding by using fonts, color schemes, and images from that library.
If you don’t have an assets library or it’s a bit sparse, you can also share stock images and examples. This sharing will give your designer a good idea of your design aesthetic and some inspiration to work from.
Stating Expectations from the Start
The process of setting expectations for your project will involve both your team and the design agency. It should start with mutual respect for the knowledge and contributions that each side brings to the table.
As the client, you know your business, industry, customer base, and branding. You also know your products and services and how you want to present those on your website.
In terms of aesthetics, you have a firm idea of the look and experience you want your site to offer. You also know what you want visitors to be able to do on your website, whether that be downloading software, watching videos, purchasing products, or something else.
At the same time, the web design agency brings other knowledge and experience. Their designers have a lot of valuable know-how about the latest web design trends, how people interact with websites, what makes sites perform better, where various features may enhance website experience, and where they detract from it.
Ideally, by understanding everybody's roles and capabilities, you'll be able to work with your web design agency to set expectations that respect your goals and aesthetic vision while also ensuring you get the most value out of the designer’s expertise.
Find a Web Design Agency You Can Trust
The best way to ensure your aesthetic vision for your site is realized is to connect with an agency you can trust. Look for an agency that values client input and encourages communication throughout the process.