There comes a times when after working on search engine optimisation (seo) for months, you wonder whether you should continue with it even after achieving good rankings for the desired keywords and good rankings.
- The following questions must come to your mind atleast once:
- Can I stop doing SEO for my company?
- When should I stop it?
- Should I stop investing in SEO altogether?
- Is SEO really worth it now that I have achieved concrete results?
We have listed a few reasons for you to NOT jump to conclusions when it comes to investing in SEO:
Don’t stop on a whim if you haven’t achieved your goals
Even if you haven’t achieved the desired results, rankings, etc. you shouldn’t pause your SEO campaign. If you have been investing in SEO for months, without seeing any results, then you must analyse the reasons behind it before putting a stop to it. There could be many reasons your keywords haven’t seen a rise as expected.
- Your site could be stuck in a Google Sandbox if it’s comparatively new as compared to your competitors.
- If you have created a few links, it takes Google some time to index them all. Even when Google does find them, it takes time to shuffle the SERPs accordingly.
- Your competitor could be stronger, so it will take time for you to catch up.
Consider the following scenarios that will occur when you stop doing SEO
- Your competitors will keep moving ahead even if you stop doing SEO.
- Your competitors will eventually catch up with you when it comes to better rankings and visibility.
If we factor in both the scenarios that we can safely assume that a new website shouldn’t stop their SEO campaign and that a well-established site can pause it for a little while only. If you stop the SEO campaign, then it is only a matter of when that you will let your competitors catch up with you. Don’t forget, there is a wealth of data that is available to your competitors to know when you have backed out of your SEO campaign.
By taking a step back, you are only giving a chance to your competitors to gain momentum, to build their brand and authority – which might be an extremely difficult uphill task for you to scale when you eventually decide to regain your rankings. Even if your competitors do not act upon your inactivity, it surely doesn’t mean you will continue to enjoy your previously earned ranks.
- Your SEO authority will eventually drop
SEO authority is achieved when you have continuously worked toward your SEO campaigns to achieve better results.
Once you stop doing SEO, you will eventually lose your authority. This is because you will gradually and naturally lose backlinks because of ‘link rot’. Even if your backlinks are not lost, the links lose their strength over time since they get pushed back into deeper pages of websites. Furthermore, we cannot stress enough on the importance of content for better SEO rankings. If you pause your SEO campaign, then your content isn’t as fresh or as relevant when it was initially published.
More difficult keywords
There is always going to be someone better than you and therefore, you shouldn’t stop doing SEO just because you have met your goals on some keywords. Put simply, there is always something better out there. You shouldn’t stop SEO efforts just because you have met a part of your keyword ranking goals. Ask yourself this: are you targeting your niche’s most difficult or even the highest search volume keywords or not?
You might want to take a breather on the fact that you have dominated a number of keywords, but in reality, there are always better keywords out there for you to target.
Traditionally speaking, you can hit a ‘traffic ceiling’ once you have achieved the ranking goals because your SEO agency will work towards maintaining the rankings of the first set of keywords.
In order to achieve real traffic growth for your site, you will have to target more keywords out there. There are many long-tail keywords that you can discover and use after careful planning and research.
One of the main benefits using Long-tail keywords is that a highly descriptive term using more than 2-3 words make up the most of all search queries. They also tend to be less competitive and convert the highest.
They:
- Make up the most of the search related queries on the internet.
- Traffic generated from long-tail keywords are most likely to convert into sales because such an audience have more immediate need.
- Formulate a comprehensive content strategy which is backed by extensive keyword search.
Keep up with Google
We all know Google keeps changing or updating their search algorithm in order to mirror the real world changes in the SEO world to enhance a searcher’s overall user behaviour. Just to give you an idea of what Google has done in the last few years:
Mobile-first indexing: Google now prefers those websites that are mobile friendly.
HTTPs as a ranking signal: Google prefers site that use https encryption.
Site-speed update: Google prefers sites which load faster.
So, in case you are relying on any outdated techniques to rank, that you may also find yourself penalized by Google.
If you do not incorporate new updates by Google, you might get outranked by your competitors.
Moving forward you should
- Continue with your SEO efforts, but change the strategy if the results are not clear
- Set goals on higher and more difficult keywords if you have met your initial goal
- Ask your SEO team to create a new content strategy and marketing plan if you are not getting great results from your current keywords
- Keep updating your SEO strategy as per Google
- Invest in other forms of digital advertising strategies: Google AdWords, Email marketing, Content Marketing and Facebook marketing.