Search engine optimization (SEO) is about more than finding a great keyword. It’s about ensuring your website remains visible and viable, putting your business in front of as many people as possible. It’s a multi-faceted approach requiring a lot of care – care that pays off when it’s done right and monitored constantly.
But what if you want to stop monitoring SEO for a while? Maybe you’re cutting back and want to put most website costs on hold, or you’re rethinking your strategy and don’t want to spend money monitoring something that you plan to change. When you take your foot off the gas, the consequences might not be immediately apparent, but they can gradually destroy your online presence. Consistent monitoring is key for digital growth and here’s what happens when you stop:
Changing Algorithms
Search engines like Google are constantly changing their algorithms (Google updates its algorithms, on average, 13 times per day)! What worked yesterday, last week, or last month may not work today. You need to monitor your SEO to identify what algorithm updates are negatively impacting your campaign. If you don’t, you can quickly fall behind.
Staying Ahead of the Competition
In our highly digitized and competitive marketplace, staying ahead of your competitors is key to a successful campaign. When every click counts, you simply can’t afford to fall behind. Your competitors are constantly reaching for the top spot in search results, and if you’re not keeping up you’ll quickly fall below them.
Content Becomes Stale
Successful SEO requires that you update website content regularly. If you stop updating your website content, your ranking in search results will sink. Search engines like fresh content and tend to rank it over stale content on an inactive website. Why promote something that may be inactive, right? Even great keywords that propel you to the top of the search results aren’t enough to keep you there without fresh content.
Decline in User Experience
Our digital landscape moves fast and your website needs to keep up. If your website takes more than a few seconds to load, has broken links, forms, or media, or is full of outdated content, users are going to lose patience and click away. Search engines prioritize user experience, which they measure based on your website’s bounce rate (how quickly a user leaves your site). Without regularly monitoring your site, updating plugins, and running tech audits, you can be left with a nonfunctional site that users will immediately bounce off of. This will negatively impact your search engine rankings.
Your Backlinks Can Disappear
Keep in mind that other people change their websites all the time, so if you have backlinks, you could lose those without realizing it. Backlinks allow you to reach a broader audience, so if the backlinks go, that audience goes, too. By monitoring SEO you can identify dead links and find new opportunities for healthy backlinks, consistently expanding your online presence.
Difficulty Monitoring KPIs
Monitoring your SEO allows you to track key performance indicators like traffic, phone clicks, email clicks, form submissions, conversions, and engagement. Without this data, you may struggle to make other business or marketing decisions. Our Philadelphia digital marketers are constantly tracking your KPIs and provide detailed reports of this information, as well as any keyword movement, and can offer up-to-date strategies for improvement.
Loss of Trust
Maybe the most detrimental effect of letting go of your SEO is the loss of your target market’s trust. If your website is nonfunctional, contains irrelevant content, or looks like it hasn’t been updated, users are not likely to stick around. They’re even less likely to fill out a contact form or make a purchase. By failing to monitor your SEO, you’re sending a message to your target market about your level of professionalism and care. And once trust is lost, it’s hard to regain.
SEO Locale: Digital Marketers You Can Trust
Whether you stop monitoring SEO yourself or end your contract with your digital marketing company, the effects can be incredibly detrimental to your business. At SEO Locale, our Pennsylvania SEO services tackle your digital marketing from all angles. Our dedicated team of digital marketers constantly monitors your SEO success and makes all necessary adjustments to keep you ahead of the competition. Take control of your SEO and contact us today.
