Is SEO just “set and forget”?

If you expect your site to hold its place or, even better, to continue to improve over time you can’t just rest on your laurels.

The early work of clearing the roadblocks, creating some keyword based content and getting a few links to point to your site have all had an impact and your website now may be more visible and may be even competing in the top 10 for some of your keywords. But as we’ve pointed out elsewhere in these pages, you may not be able to retain your position in the top 10 over time when either the search engines change their algorithms or your competitors catch up by optimising their sites

This is why we recommend periodic reviews for your website.

What should happen at a review?

For sites we have not been involved with previously, our initial review will focus predominately on structural issues. (You can get a feel for these issues by visiting our SEO Method page.) Once these changes have been implemented and they have been allowed to have an impact in the search engines, we encourage you to allow us to perform a follow-up review.

When we do a review of a website we’ve previously optimised, we like to check a number of things, including

• Is your website still in an optimised state (see our Don’t try this at home page for a perspective on this)?
• The number of pages the major search engines know about the website. Has this grown since the original work?
• If you have negotiated links from external sites, do these links still exist?
• Review any outward links from your site to external sites. Specifically
  • Do the external sites still exist?
  • Are these external sites still keyword relevant?
  • Have any of them implemented any inappropriate techniques (sometimes referred to as “black hat”)?
• Has there been any major change (positive or negative) in your keyword position in the search engine?
• How are your competitors doing for these same keywords? Are there any new players in this space?

If we have access to relevant information (i.e. visitor logs), we are also interested in establishing what keywords are producing results in the search engines. It is important to understand how these keywords differ from the keywords used in optimising the site.

What does all this mean for you?

The answers to these questions tell us if your website is on the right track and indicate what else needs to be done. The option to start new SEO activities or not always remains yours. We are aware many small businesses have limits to their budgets for “marketing” initiatives. The review will give you options and priorities for moving forward and prices for that work. In most cases the cost of the review will be deducted from the work to be undertaken.

Even if you are reluctant to invest in an external review, perhaps because of cost, you still need to review your progress. You will find lots of information on this site that will assist you in this process.

Do you have the time to and expertise to be able to complete this review and protect your business? Aren’t you better off concentrating on the tasks in which you have experience and that produce revenue for your business?

When compared to the cost of lost market share because your website was overtaken by competitors the cost of periodic reviews may seem like money well spent. We are aware many small businesses have limits to their budgets for “marketing” initiatives. Our review will give you options, priorities and prices for moving forward. In most cases the cost of the review will be deducted from the work to be undertaken as a result of the review.

The time between reviews will depend on your circumstances. If you’re lucky enough to have limited competition in your market segment, reviews every 3 to 12 months may be sufficient. For those less fortunate reviews between 1 and 6 months might be more appropriate.

Of course, if you want to just “set and forget” you can engage MidBoh to provide automatic reviews at agreed intervals. We would be happy to discuss this service for your website.

MidBoh offers 2 additional services that may interest you. Both options include automatic reviews every 6 months (or at a mutually agreed interval). This would include 3 important additional functions

• monitoring your site’s performance in the 3 major search engines (Google, Yahoo and MSN)
• monitoring up to 3 nominated competitors performance in the 3 major search engines (Google, Yahoo and MSN)
• monitoring up to 3 nominated competitor website’s for changes that may impact on your SERP and alerting you of significant change.

In these situations we will advise you about the change and provide appropriate recommendation(s).

This discussion may have raised a few questions for you. Please feel free to contact MidBoh if you would like to discuss your requirements and how we might be able to help your business grow.