I got a call yesterday from a disgruntled gentleman who explained that about a year ago they had some extensive SEO work performed on their website. Since then they hadn’t done anything wrong, but they were no longer ranking at the top. After doing a few checks, the client was right - their site didn’t seem to have anything spammy about it and no, they hadn’t done anything wrong… which was actually the problem.
It turns out that the client sacked their previous SEO firm after a few months once they started ranking for their selected keywords. The site performed well for quite a while, but because they simply didn’t do anything with it for a year, their competitors caught-up and overtook them.
Having a website audit conducted, building a handful of links and submitting the odd article to some social media sites isn’t going to keep your website listed at the top of the search results for ever (and in a lot of cases, it won’t even get you there in the first place).
Maintaining good rankings isn’t just a matter of ‘not doing anything wrong’, it’s about ‘consistently doing what’s right’.
In many ways physical fitness and search rankings are quite similar. Regular exercise and a healthy diet will keep you in shape and physically fit. Depending on your exercise routine, you may even maintain some reasonable muscle definition… but if you stop exercising, it won’t take long before you’re fat, out of shape and have no muscle tone left at all.
Keeping a healthy website is the same -
- Make sure you maintain a good website structure using sitemaps.
- Perform a full website audit and even look at doing a complete redesign every year or two.
- Regularly add new content and source links from relevant sites that point to the new content.
- Be involved in online social communities that pertain to your industry niche.
By following these steps, and doing them the right way, you shouldn’t have too many problems maintaining a good search ranking.
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funny how clients like this make SEos want to use removable SEO techniques.
Bad customers leads to bad SEO agencies.
If a relationship is working keep it going and everyone will be happy
The problem is that the customer doesn’t understand that the web itself is a fluid.. it’s constantly changing shape, direction and even color.
A “static” (not in the sense we’d think of it, but the old meaning) site is unlikely to retain top listings. Things change: markets, competitors, visitor preferences, it’s all changing.
Most businesses will understand that they need to constantly assess their products, their advertising, indeed all business practices. They *should* understand that their website is different only in that it probably needs assessment even more often.
I think you hit the nail on the head when you said that you need to constantly be building links and watching your competition. That is what keeps us in business as SEO professionals.
And frequent dead link checks! Plus a periodic usability review wouldn’t hurt– your site may not change, but the way the average visitor interacts with your content just might…
Pete, what a great post. I like how you stated your points in such a simple way. I’ve been in the SEO industry only a few months (so I’m still learning as I go!) and really enjoy reading posts such as yours that hit the nail on the head and help me to tie my new knowledge together. Thanks!
Some valid points here.
Clients need to be educated from the beginning - this sort of thing happens all the time.
well well you shared a good example in maintaining rankings as well as maintaining a physically fit body