How Often Do You Update Your SEO

Have you ever seen the infomercial for the Ronco rotisserie oven?

It’s quite entertaining.

A chef throws all kinds of food into an oven, turns the dial, and then yells in excitement “Set it and forget it.”

While this is certainly a convincing sales pitch, the same approach doesn’t work for your SEO strategy.

We know: creating and implementing an SEO strategy that can help you get at the top of the search results is hard. And, once you see your ranking increasing, you’re probably hoping that things are doing to stay this way so that you can focus on other aspects of growing your business.

Unfortunately, with SEO, you can’t just “set it and forget it.” That’s because SEO is like a living organism that changes and evolves constantly. Google, Bing, and other search engines are frequently updating their algorithms to deliver better results to internet users. You need to check and adapt your strategy too if you want to maintain your position in the search engine results.

But, how often do you need to revise your SEO?

Let’s take a look at some of the most important ranking factors and how often you need to update them.

You might also be interested in SHOULD YOU KEEP YOUR OLD SEO CONTENT?

SEO Ranking Factors

1. Check Your Keywords Regularly

Keyword research is a big part of SEO and you want to make sure that the search terms you are targeting are delivering some results. But, don’t pat yourself on the back and move on the moment you start ranking higher for your keywords. Just because a search term is popular in your industry right now, it doesn’t mean that it’s going to stay this way forever.

Here’s an example.

If you are a health blog, then you may have noticed a decrease in interest for the blog posts that target keywords like “Paleo” or “Whole30.” That’s because these diets have started to drop in popularity in the past year as people are now more concerned with things like intermittent fasting, clean eating, or ketogenic diets.

That’s why it’s important to keep track of the keywords you are using and periodically (every three months or so) check their search volume. If the search volume has decreased, then you need to go back to the drawing board and try to figure out what keywords your audience is using to look for a solution to their problems. If, on the other hand, you notice a higher search volume, then you may want to create a dedicated landing page for those keywords to boost your conversions.

You can use various SEO tools to perform keyword research, such as Ubersuggest, Ahrefs, or the Google Keyword Planner. Social media can also help you understand what questions your prospects are asking about your products or services and how they are phrasing them.

2. Don’t Neglect Your Old Content

You know that Google loves fresh content and you’re probably busy churning blog post after blog post after blog post. But, how about your old content?

Updating content is an essential part of ensuring that your SEO strategy is effective. Going back to an old piece of content and trying to find ways to improve it or update it will pick up the attention of the search engines.

Don’t worry. You won’t have to update every article on your website. If a blog post is performing well, then you probably don’t need to refresh it. But, if the traffic is low, then you need to take a closer look to understand why it’s not performing well. Maybe the information is out of date and you need to update it. For example, an article about SEO tips written five years ago will need a few updates as a lot has changed in this industry in the past years. Or maybe you just need to do a bit of on-page SEO and write better meta descriptions and title tags.

How often should you check your content? Well, you should make it a habit of checking your Google Analytics weekly or at least twice a month. That way, you can ensure that you’re always offering high-quality and informational content to your audience.

3. Check Your Links

A broken link usually translates into a bad user experience. If Google notices that a page on your website has a high bounce rate, then it will deduce that the content is not relevant or that something is wrong with the page. So, it will lower your ranking as Google’s purpose is to always deliver the best results to its users.

Spammy backlinks are another problem that can affect your search engine ranking. That’s why we recommend using a backlink checker to verify the quality of your backlinks and how they can affect your position in the search engine results. Review your links at least once a week and if you find a bad backlink, get in touch with the webmaster and kindly ask them to remove that Link.

Over to You

Checking and tweaking your SEO strategy every week might seem like a lot of work. But, it’s not really. If you do these minor changes constantly, then you can rest assured that your SEO is always in line with the latest algorithm updates and the needs of your target audience. But, if you ignore your SEO for months or years to come, then you may find yourself overwhelmed by the amount of work ahead of you.

The experts at Australian Internet Advertising can help you with all your SEO needs. Whether you need to build your SEO strategy from scratch or you need an SEO audit, we can help you get above your competition and grow your business.

Take a look at our services and then get in touch with us to discuss what you need.