In the business world, some departments have it far easier than others. The HR and the finance department for example is usually static and unchanging, there might be certain periods where they’re much busier than the usual but you’re usually juggling around the same things. Contrast this to those working on the field of marketing, where trends change as often as the pop culture fads. In one moment, you might be making references to the latest Avengers film while in the next; you might be talking about something else entirely.
Marketing has always been about the zeitgeist, searching for something that’s currently dominating our current discourse and if appropriate, using them for our own benefit. This has been the case for decades and will probably remain true for the foreseeable future. As a relatively new branch of marketing, SEO is also bound by the same rules and as we go further into this discussion, I’m going to outline several reasons why it’s a good idea for businesses and SEO services alike to revise their SEO strategy from time to time to keep up with the ever-changing landscape.
Adapting with the latest marketing trends
Before the start of the final season of Game of Thrones, Mountain Dew aired a commercial featuring some of the brand’s usual collaborators humming the series’ theme song. During the Marvel-related euphoria that coincides with the latest Avengers two-parter, Infinity War and Endgame, my social media feed was also filled with so much Avengers-related content that you can’t swing a metaphorical dead cat without hitting Thanos’ absurdly large chin. The same thing also happened during the run-up to Harry and Meghan’s first child.
Taking advantage of the latest pop culture trends has been part of the marketing playbook for as long as that playbook has existed but it’s pretty common for brands to give the same treatment to their whole SEO strategy in general. Making fresh & original contents does help with SEO but that’s far from enough as SEO as a field encompasses a whole lot more than just content. SEO has one foot in technology and the other in marketing and the fact that these two fields never stay rooted in place should be enough to convince you.
Google’s algorithm are constantly updated
Search engine algorithms are constantly tweaked based on the data they’re getting from queries submitted by their public. Most of the time, these tweaks are minor but every now and again, Google rolls out one major update or two that should definitely prompt a proper rethink on your part. These major updates are usually announced beforehand and while the technical details of what the update would change is kept strictly confidential, some general information revolving around the update would typically be published to keep businesses from being caught off-guard.
To keep you abreast of what’s cooking at Google, it’s a good idea for business owners to subscribe to the Google Webmaster blog as that’s where news around Google’s search technology is published. Even if you aren’t fully in control of your SEO strategy, you have a contract with an SEO services company that does the heavy lifting for you, say, it’s still a good idea to at least keep yourself informed so you could tell when they’re doing the job you paid them to.
The world of web development are constantly updated with new technologies
SEO is broadly divided into two categories, on-page SEO and off-page SEO. The latter refers to things you do outside your webpage for the purpose of generating traffic such as posting on social media platforms while including a link to your website. Meanwhile, the former relates to the things you do inside your website such as uploading blog posts to your website and optimizing how your website is displayed and loaded, which directly revolves around the world of web design & development.
A decade ago, when a webmaster wants to optimize their website for mobile devices, they have to go through the painstaking process of stripping the more sophisticated elements of their website and adapting the size of the remaining elements to small screens and a portrait landscape. Eventually, with the advances made in mobile devices and web development, the concept of responsive web design becomes the new normal with websites now simply adapting to the size and orientation of the screen they’re displayed on.
Responsive web design is just one example in how web development practically changes the world of SEO as Google at the moment considers responsive web design to be the model for mobile optimization. However, this could change in the future as companies experiment with new display models such as folding phones and VR, which is why it’s important for business to adapt their on-page SEO strategy with the latest news in web development. What is considered a best practice now might turn obsolete in just a couple of years.
Being on the first page is good, being first period is better
Another reason why businesses might want to take a second look at their SEO strategy is simply because there might be a better way of doing things or because your current strategy just isn’t working. Comfort is the enemy of progress and thanks to the somewhat esoteric nature of SEO, there’s always something you could do in order to achieve a better result. It’s possible for example that the keywords you’re optimizing for is slightly too generic and your effort is practically being bulldozed by bigger brands with considerably more brand recognition. It’s also possible that your contents just aren’t relevant enough to be given top billing on search engine results.
The business of optimization is akin to a true friend’s work; it’s never done. There’s always something you could to increase efficiency, either by getting more results using the same amount of resource or getting the same amount of results by using less resource. Even if you feel your current SEO strategy is working well enough, it’s never a bad idea to take a second look as there are probably a couple of things to try out that you might’ve previously missed.