It’s that age-old question: How Often Do I Need To SEO Optimize My Site? Okay, maybe not age-old, but it is one we get a lot. If you’ve been wondering the same thing, you’re in the right place. Not only will we answer that question, but we’ll also cover a lot of other helpful search engine optimization topics in this post, starting with the basics.
SEO Fundamentals
Not super familiar with SEO? For starters, SEO is an acronym for search engine optimization. In its simplest form, it means optimizing your web content for search engines. (We’ll get to why that’s important in a minute)
As for what goes into SEO optimization, there are all kinds of ways to do this. For starters, there is on-page and off-page SEO.
On-page SEO involves things like the actual written content on your website. This isn’t only basic web copy and blog posts, but it also includes headers, title tags, internal and external linking, and much more. (Check out this post next if you want to learn more: 9 On-Page SEO Factors You Need to Know to Rank Higher)
On the other hand, off-page SEO involves things that happen away from your site, including link building and social media. But for the purposes of this post, we’re focusing more specifically on on-page SEO and why regularly optimizing your site for SEO is so important.
When we say it’s important, what do we mean by that? Well, we should clarify, it’s important IF you want website traffic! SEO is all about helping you get more clicks, more traffic, and ultimately, more business.
Search engine optimized content shows up before other content in search engine results. This is important because the higher up your page appears in search engine results, the more clicks you will get.
As for “How often do I need to optimize my site for SEO?” The answer is, well, always!
SEO is an ongoing process.
It isn’t a set it and forget it strategy. It involves regular tweaking, monitoring, and adjusting to be fully optimized.
You can set up a great website that’s optimized today, but things change quickly in the world of SEO which is why you need to stay on top of it.
The Importance of Regular SEO
To elaborate on things changing quickly in the world of SEO, a lot of this comes down to ranking factors and best practices.
While Google tends to be secretive about the exact algorithms they use for search engine rankings, there is plenty of information they do release. They place a great emphasis on what’s known as E-A-T. This stands for expertise, authority, and trustworthiness—three of the biggest ranking factors they use for websites.
(It’s worth taking the time to read more about their algorithm directly from the source. Click here to read what Google has to say about how search engines work)
Keeping up with your site’s SEO helps you reap all the benefits of a fully optimized site, including:
- Search engine optimization helps build your brand
- Optimizing a website helps draw more web traffic
- It doesn’t require you to pay ad space (PPC is incredible, but it requires an investment. SEO can be done for free. They both have their pros and cons and we cover them in this post)
- It helps your target audience find your site
- SEO boosts your authority and credibility (authority is another critical ranking factor)
- It helps you stay ahead of your competitors
- It improves user experience (and the better the user experience is, the higher Google ranks your site!)
- It’s easy to track and measure the results of your efforts
How Often Do You Need to Optimize Your Page and Why?
We know you’re still waiting on the specifics of how often you need to optimize your site for SEO, so let’s cover that now.
(Keep in mind, depending on your existing ranking, traffic, and goals, the frequency of your search engine optimization can vary—these are just general rules of thumb)
Some elements of your website are more evergreen than others. For example, the content on your “About” or “Services” page doesn’t necessarily need to be updated every week. But as for search engine optimization, there are several tasks that should be performed regularly. And when we say regularly, we mean at least once a month, but ideally even more often.
Five SEO Tasks to Perform Regularly
Keep in mind, a lot of search engine optimization comes down to research. You don’t necessarily need to switch up your site this often, but we do recommend performing keyword research and certain other SEO tasks on roughly a weekly basis.
Here are five of them.
- Tracking keywords: You want to ensure you’re ranking for the keywords you intend to, while also monitoring new opportunities for keywords to rank for and including them in your content.
- Adjusting the relevant meta tags for the right pages: These are small, descriptive snippets that tell search engines what a particular page is about. This isn’t visible to site visitors, but instead is part of the page’s source code.
- Refreshing old content: Back to that whole thing about SEO not being “set it and forget it.” Regularly updating old content breathes new life into your content. It can involve adding new keywords, adding new links to recent, relevant content, sharing about a new service or product, and much more.
- Adding new content: This involves adding new web pages when necessary, including if you add a new product or service. It also involves regularly posting blogs. Regular blog content boasts a lot more than just search engine optimization opportunities. It also helps your audience get to know you and your brand.
- Replacing and updating links: Maybe you first published a blog post 10 years ago and it includes a link to a page that no longer exists. These broken links can do a lot of damage to your search engine ranking, which is why it’s important to keep an eye on them.
How to Keep Track of Search Engine Performance
If you’re thinking, “I’m supposed to do this every WEEK?”, don’t worry. There are a number of tools to help you monitor your site that don’t require your direct effort at every turn. These platforms can spot errors or opportunities and send them your way when they require your action. Some common examples? SEMRush, Moz, and UberSuggest, to name a few.
You can also use these tools for measuring additional metrics. This includes things like:
- Conversion rates
- Time on page
- Track the pages per visit
- Bounce rate
- Search traffic
- Additional common metrics
But it’s one thing to monitor search engine performance, and it’s entirely another to make the changes and updates it takes to boost your rankings. The monitoring stage alone is time consuming, but many business owners give up altogether when they realize it takes ongoing work to keep their site in good shape.
Now for some good news: SEO services can be outsourced to pros so you can go back to running your business and focusing on what you love, rather than worrying about things like backlinks, meta tags, and headers.
Get Higher Rankings and More Revenue
Our SEO Agency has grown organic rankings for many businesses not only in Florida, but across the country. Blue Water Marketing customizes our campaigns to your unique business using white-hat SEO techniques. Our SEO campaigns are designed with increased rankings, lead generation, and higher revenue in mind.
Take a look at some of our digital marketing case studies to see the results we generated for other businesses to get an idea of what we can do for you and how we can SEO optimize your site.
Or, get in touch with us today to set up a discovery call and don’t wait another minute for the results you want!
