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 enticing is your content to your target audience? Companies often get caught up in trying to promote their products, failing to keep the customer at the center of their strategy. This is especially true for B2B companies that sometimes forget about the human aspect of the buyers they are targeting. Buyers making purchase decisions for their company are still persuaded by the same marketing tactics as consumers in a B2C model.
Top Marketing Tactics are Buyer-Centric
Old-school advertising was interruptive and promotional; the focus was on presenting the product, service or brand in a direct attempt to persuade the buyer to take action.
Newer marketing tactics persuade buyers by understanding their audience and focusing on the customer’s experience. The powerful approach of modern B2B marketing is more personalized and buyer-centric.
In other words, your content shouldn’t always push for the sale.
Some of your best-performing content will directly answer your potential buyers’ questions or offer them valuable support. Your audience may not be looking to make a purchase at all, so pushing for the sale in everything you create is a turn-off. And, while buyer-centric content might be seemingly selfless, the ultimate goal is to attract leads and build trust with potential buyers.
Not Everyone Cares About Your Brand
You isolate potential buyers with sales-centered content. Branded content that focuses on products or services only appeals to audiences who already like your company. Not all content should directly tie into a service or product.
Buyers Aren’t Always Ready to Make a Purchase
Content should be crafted to appeal to readers during different stages of the buyer journey—not just the decision stage. Leads at the early awareness stages of their journey want to learn more about the problem they are having and aren’t ready to consider specific solutions. And potential buyers who are doing research on solutions want to read your expert problem-solving tips without feeling pushed towards a sale.
Brands Need to Earn Trust With Buyers
Are you convinced to trust a company if they are solely focused on a self-serving sale? As buyers are looking for solutions, they want to find helpful information and build a relationship of trust before making a purchase commitment with a brand.
What you will find is that some content is better suited for offering pure value, while other content may shift towards a sales call to action (CTA).
Know Your Buyers (and Create Content Accordingly)
So, how can your company avoid a self-centered strategy? Creating content your audience wants to see starts with getting to know your buyers. While this might seem obvious, it’s a step that is often skipped by companies who assume they already know their audience or are too focused on pushing a sale.
Just like with B2C marketing, B2B companies should create buyer personas that accurately detail some of their top customers. By defining individual buyer types, the marketing strategy can revolve around the things that matter to target buyers.
Buyer personas should include details, like:
- Job Title/Company Position
- Likes/Dislikes
- Motivations
- Needs
- Frustrations/Challenges
- Location
Understanding your top buyers will naturally help shift the focus from your company goals to what your buyers need and want.
Use Evergreen Content to Draw in Leads
Content that positions you as a trusted industry authority and offers educational value can be extremely valuable in growing your brand.
High-quality blogs and whitepapers that stand the test of time are considered evergreen content. Built to last, evergreen content may need occasional refreshing of links or statistics but the core concepts stay relevant for years (or decades).
Evergreen content typically takes more work to produce, but it holds a lasting value and is easily repurposed. Usually, evergreen content answers questions in detail without using time-sensitive answers.
So, are you creating enough evergreen content to engage your audience?
The right content will position your brand as trustworthy and draw in buyers looking for solutions.
The buyer-centric approach is what makes modern marketing tactics so powerful. Even for B2B brands, potential buyers are an audience who must be won over if you want them to make a purchase from your company.
If you need help creating content that is buyer-centric, we can help. With an experienced, holistic approach to marketing, our team creates and implements game-changing growth strategies for B2B companies.