So, you’ve had a search engine optimization plan in place for about a year now and it’s working out well. Your search rankings have improved, you’re getting more website traffic, and you’ve increased your lead generation – the trifecta of a successful search engine optimization plan.
At the end of the year, you now are faced with a choice: renew your search engine optimization plan for another year, or repurpose that money elsewhere. It can be tempting to pull the plug and put that money toward something else. After all, one and done, right?
Think again! You can lose that hard-earned search rank in the blink of an eye.
Too often we see companies who will invest in a search engine optimization plan, only to drop it after they see some initial positive momentum. Many clients don’t renew because they feel they don’t have to, but cutting your plan would be like stopping a workout routine after you start seeing results. Sure, things will be consistent for a few months. But after five or six months of no exercise while eating the same diet, you’ll notice the changes.
The weight comes back on, you lose energy, and before long you’re back where you started, like you had never worked out to begin with. The same thing can happen to your search rankings if you stop a search engine optimization plan.
After your search rankings drop, your increased web traffic and lead generation will follow, and you will be overtaken by the competitors who have made search engine optimization a priority. A truly successful plan must be consistent and continuous.
In the words of Gordon Gekko: “You’ve done good, but you gotta keep doing good.”
Keywords
Brand recognition is vital, but oftentimes the average consumer isn’t searching for specific brands. Rather, they’re searching for general terms. A qualified marketing agency will squeeze the keywords from those search terms and use them to optimize your website, making it more searchable by engines like Google.
Content Strategy
Consider all of your content: blogs, social media posts, pay-per-click ad copy. Is it valuable, relevant, and consistent to your audience? Or is it just a sales pitch?
This year, 88% of business-to-business companies report using content marketing, and 76% say they will produce more throughout 2016. Of business-to-consumer marketers, 77% say they will produce more content (Content Marketing Institute).
Search engines like Google base your website’s importance on its freshness. That means you have to keep content recent. To do that, you need a content marketing plan as a part of your search engine optimization strategy. Every day, competitors are updating their websites to get that top spot on the search rankings.
Blogging is one of the easiest ways to generate engaging, original content for your website. According to research by Social Media Examiner, 45% of marketers say blogging is their most important content strategy, and 69% say they plan to increase their blogging in 2016.
Friendly Design
Does your website respond when you reduce the size of the window? Is it mobile-friendly? Search engines look for that sort of thing and will prioritize a website that is:
Responsive
Mobile-optimized
In May 2015, 61% of consumers said they are more likely to contact a local business if they have a mobile-optimized site (BrightLocal). However, only 33% of small- and medium-sized businesses actually have a mobile-optimized site (eMarketer).
And the most alarming statistic, 57% of consumers say they won’t recommend a business with a poorly designed website, and 40% have turned to a competitor’s site after a bad online experience (Google).
With more consumers using mobile Internet vs. desktops, having a mobile-friendly website is increasingly vital.
Don’t Stop!
In 2015, eMarketer reported that 89% of marketers worldwide rated search engine optimization as successful in achieving their search engine optimization objectives. Businesses are seeing these results, and more and more are investing in search engine optimization, creating a paradigm shift in the marketplace.
Dominating the search results helps your website get clicks. Getting clicks generates leads. Generating leads means more opportunities to close sales. That’s why search engine optimization is the hot button issue in board meetings.
Bottom line: if you’re not investing in search engine optimization, or if you’re looking to pull out, the losses you endure as a result will vastly outweigh the investment.
