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.
Data collection through your website is one of the big reasons you need a website: lead generation. And yet it’s easy to inadvertently deter people from contacting you by asking them to fill out a lengthy form. You need their data so you can address their immediate needs - an inquiry, an offer, a complaint, troubleshooting, etc. - and also want to gather contact details to market directly to them in the future. It is important that your website forms only ask for pertinent information.. People are increasingly concerned with privacy. Ask for too much, and they will become frustrated or worried about what you’ll do with all their data and never hit submit. Collect too little, and you fail to achieve your objectives. So, how much is too much? How much is just right?
Here’s how to effectively balance the amount of information you collect through your website forms.
What Are You Planning To Do With It?
First thing first, what are going to do with this data? If it’s to be used purely for email correspondence and sending direct marketing via email, all you need is a name and email address. A phone number will be needed if you plan on SMS marketing or directly calling the lead. You will need an address if you're sending them direct mail. Consider the practical data you need, and try to leave off extra information you won’t use.
For example, if you’re not planning on mailing anything to the prospect, you don’t need their full address. You can ask for their state, or country information if that will dictate who will respond to them within your organization or if it determines your ability to provide them products or services.
The one piece of contact information you should always get is their email address. This is the least invasive means of communication and the one people are most accustomed to handing over.
What do you need beyond contact info? Do you need to know the name of their business? Their website address? Job title or industry?. If you’re screening potential clients, conducting a survey, or need certain facts in order to deliver what you’ve promised, you may need to ask for a lot of data. Just remember, keep it to the information you actually need, and leave out anything else.
The more you ask for, the easier it is for them to give up before filling in the form.
What Format Do You Need It In?
You should also consider the format you need your data to take. Do you need the first and last name separate when asking for a name? If you’re planning on using personalized content that speaks to them directly by their first name, that’s a separate field you need. If you’re collecting a phone number, you will need the area or country code. Addresses require a minimum of a zip code, house number, and street name.
Can You Collect Additional Data in A Followup?
If you need answers to specific questions and contact details, you might consider asking first for the contact info and setting up an automation that immediately sends the contact a questionnaire to fill out. This makes it as easy as possible for them to sign up while still allowing you to ask all the questions needed and giving them the space to answer in their own time.
Permission To Send Them Information And Marketing
One final thing you will want is to include a checkbox with the option for them to opt in to receiving communication from your company's. This gives you permission to email them with offers, promotions, and other relevant content.
What They're Interested In
Whatever the reason for collecting a person's data, it's useful to know what they are interested in and how they heard of you. Adding a checkbox or dropdown menu that allows people to select options quickly is a great way of doing this. Need help setting up your website forms for essential data collection?
Need help setting up your website forms?
Get in touch today, and we’ll discuss optimizing your site for lead generation.