Semalt: Why Is SEO A Process And Not A Temporary Act?

You commissioned an SEO campaign and the agency is doing its job exemplary. You enjoy better visibility and high positions in Google for phrases that best describe your business. What's more - you get traffic, which in addition translates into conversion. Does this mean that you can be successful, end your SEO activities, and continue to enjoy traffic from SERPs? If you want your site to keep bringing you traffic from Google to meet the algorithm's requirements, then you should be running all the time. SEO is a process!

There are still changes taking place in Google and in the vast majority of cases they are unannounced - neither the website owners nor SEO users know what modifications will be implemented. Even if such information is provided, it may turn out that a given update will not be introduced by the specified date, but e.g. postponed for the future.

If you want to use the potential offered by Google, you have to follow the requirements of the search engine algorithm all the time, otherwise, you may lose your visibility gradually.

And is it worth investing funds in such activities and positioning in this search engine? You should have no doubts about that - for a few reasons, at least. 

SEO is a process worth investing in and continuing to operate. Check what makes it impossible to leave your website without SEO activities, if you do not want to lose your results and reduce visibility.

If you decide on an SEO campaign, it does not mean that a few days later your website will be in high positions for the most important keywords for your business. It is a gradual process. 

First, the visibility grows - the website begins to appear on subsequent subpages of Google results for more and more queries, mainly for long-tail phrases. In the next stage, you can reach positions in TOP10, which may translate into traffic from Google. You will gain high positions for phrases from the aforementioned long tail faster, but you have to wait longer for general words. From month to month, the effects of SEO campaigns should be more and more noticeable, which does not exclude slight drops in visibility, but the overall trend will be positive for your website.

The time factor is of great importance in SEO. You cannot add as much content or links in one day as you have planned for the whole year. You can in fact, but it certainly won't do any good (such actions can be considered an attempt to manipulate the ranking). The site should develop naturally and gradually build an image in the eyes of Google.

Remember, however, that even if you get the expected positions, they are not earned forever. Without the constant development of the website, you have to reckon with the fact that you will soon be overtaken by the competition.

Your website has been adapted by an SEO agency to the current requirements of the Google algorithm and meets the expectations on a given day. Meanwhile, thousands of changes are made in this search engine every year.

The entry that appeared on the Google blog in 2019 shows that a year earlier, as many as 3,234 changes were made (of which only some are noticeable to users. It does not change the fact that there are a very large number of modifications).

This makes it necessary to constantly adapt the website to the current requirements. There have already been updates like the 2012 Penguin hitting sites with a very low-quality link profile. Then the search results were even turned upside down.

SEO users must keep track of the requirements of the Google algorithm and adapt their websites to them over and over again. In August this year, Google announced a change in the way website titles are generated in search results. Effect? Over 70 per cent of titles have been rewritten by Google and most often look like the H1 heading, or so the SEMrush study shows.

So there is a new task for SEOwaters: title optimization according to the new rules. And this is what it always looks like in an SEO campaign - new changes are implemented every now and then.

First of all, activities that brought excellent results a few years ago may no longer bring any benefits. At the same time, there is the issue of adapting the way of implementing the campaign to the trends in search.

A great example is Search Intent - nowadays, what matters in the content prepared for websites is understanding the user's intentions and the context of the search. The answer to such expectations is statements and rankings, reviews and opinions, the most popular questions and answers in which you will use long-tail phrases.

Also keep in mind that in SEO, content optimization never really ends. You should analyze the queries in Google Search Console. There you can find such phrases that will not be shown to you by any other tools.

Have you noticed that for a given query, despite the lack of optimization, your website is in the TOP 50, for example, and you gain traffic? This means that it is worth optimizing the content and trying to rank as high as possible for such a phrase. Find out which queries get the most impressions and take action on those that get the most impressions despite your distant position - the potential here can be huge.

Google's algorithm values websites with new materials. This is a signal that something is happening on the website, that it is up-to-date and it is worth displaying such a website in a high position on a query related to a given content.

Updates are also important - most content needs to be changed over time. If the algorithm sees that the content is being updated, it works to its advantage.

Also, remember that you can strengthen internal linking with the next content. So by adding articles and linking them to other materials on the website, you also directly influence their visibility.

An SEO agency has built a high-quality link profile for your website, which is one of the factors contributing to the expected visibility on Google. Perhaps you also gain traffic from the pages on which these links are located. However, remember that these links are not gained once and for all. For example, a given site may stop working or its owner may remove the link.

It is natural that there is an outflow of links while maintaining a high-quality profile requires adding new ones in their place and investing in a better and more extensive profile. Otherwise, the number of domains pointing to your website may be constantly decreasing.

You can observe this with tools such as the Dedicated SEO Dashboard, which give you the opportunity to check for lost / broken links.

It is rare for a company to sell the exact same product over and over again. The assortment changes most often, there are new versions of solutions, etc. It is not so that having a positioned page, you can be sure that new products and categories will immediately be displayed in high positions in SERPs.

Actions such as adding unique, optimized content, taking care of titles or headers, appropriate placement of new URLs in the website structure, linking and more are necessary. Otherwise, your new products and categories may not be getting the organic traffic you expect from Google.

Your cessation of SEO activities is a step your competitors are waiting for, trying to outrun you. The moment you stop investing in content, developing a link profile and optimizing your website so that it complies with the current Google recommendations, you can expect diminishing visibility.

It is very likely that the competition will be on-site on an ongoing basis, as well as acquiring valuable links, thanks to which it will start to overtake you relatively quickly on the most important keywords for your business. From 1st position, you can drop to 2nd or 3rd position.

Do you think it's a minor loss? A drop from 1st to 2nd place means a decrease in CTR (click-through rate) by over 7 pp, and from 1st to 3rd result by almost 13 pp; overtaken in search results by new websites.

You have to work constantly for the effects of the SEO process. From month to month, your actions should bring better and better results, but when you manage to achieve the expected results, it does not mean that you should stop taking action - the competition is just waiting for it. Constantly develop the website in terms of changes in the offer, algorithm requirements, as well as users and new search trends.

If you want your website to get organic traffic from Google during the season, the activities aimed at implementing this plan should be started much earlier - at least a few months earlier. However, in the case of very competitive phrases, more time is needed to obtain satisfactory results.

SEO doesn't work so that you will notice the results of your campaign overnight. It is a process that requires patience and brings results with successive months of action.

Take SEO action again - if you don't feel up to doing it yourself, consider going back to working with specialists.

It is not known how long it will take to restore the site to the desired position in this case, as the decrease in visibility may be due to many reasons. Each such case requires an assessment by a specialist who will diagnose the cause and define a solution.