To date, the need for business owners to pay for monthly SEO services still remains debatable. Whether it’s necessary or not, this blog post explores both angles of the argument and helps you decide if it’s worth your time and effort to be doing SEO every month.
“There’s Need for Monthly SEO Service”
Those who claimed a monthly SEO service is necessary often agree:
- SEO is an ongoing process that requires to be constantly monitored and tweaked to ensure optimal results.
- Search engine algorithms are ever changing, hence important to keep SEO strategies abreast with current trends.
- Competitors are apt to outrank in the search engine results pages (SERPs) should a website not perform an SEO audit every month.
While all of these points are valid, they don’t justify the need for a monthly SEO service. Let’s delve deeper into each point.
Search engine algorithms are constantly updating, so it’s important to adjust your SEO strategies accordingly.
This is by far the strongest argument to doing SEO every month. Google and other search engines make up to hundreds of changes a year, so staying up-to-date on the latest trends is crucial. Instead of doing it all by yourself, you can always outsource this function to a trusted SEO company.
If you don’t perform a monthly SEO audit, chances are your competitors will outrank you in the SERPs.
While it’s true that your competitors might outperform you, there’s no guarantee that this will happen. It all boils down to the nature of your business and level of competition in your industry.
If you come from a smaller company and niche sector, you won’t notice much difference in rankings should you skip a month or two of SEO work.
On the other hand, if your business belongs to a highly competitive industry, it’s probably worth investing in a monthly SEO service to avoid losing your spot in the SERPs.
“There’s No Need for Monthly SEO Service”
Those who think a monthly SEO audit is unnecessary often agree:
SEO is a long-term strategy, so you need not do it monthly.
This argument is valid to a certain extent. SEO is indeed a long-term strategy and its benefits can become prominent overtime. However, that doesn’t mean you should prioritise it less. To preserve your rankings and continue generating results from your SEO efforts, you must check in periodically to ensure everything is on track.
You can do most of your SEO work upfront and rely on minor, occasional adjustments when necessary
While it’s possible to do everything upfront, we don’t advise that. As mentioned above, search engine algorithms change constantly, so what worked the previous year may not work this year. Revisiting your SEO monthly can ensure that your website is up-to-date and compliant with the latest algorithm changes.
Doing SEO monthly is both time- and cost-consuming
This is a valid concern. SEO can consume plenty of time and cost if you hire an SEO company. Having said that, there are ways you can minimise the time and expense of monthly SEO service. For instance, there is softwares you can use to perform keyword research and link building. You can always outsource your SEO tasks to a professional agency.
So, Are Monthly SEO Services Beneficial for You?
The short answer is yes, if budget is never your concern. It all comes down to the nature of your business, the level of competition in your industry, and most importantly, how much time and money you’re willing to invest in SEO.
Here’s How to Decide Whether or Not to Do SEO Every Month
If you’re still debating whether or not to proceed with monthly SEO services, ask yourself:
- How competitive is my industry?
- Am I comfortable performing certain tasks monthly, or would I rather prioritise the others?
- Do I have sufficient budget to outsource my SEO tasks, or do I need to reduce the costs and do everything myself instead?
Answering these questions should clarify if a monthly SEO is practical for you and your business. If you’re still unsure, we recommend starting with a couple of months to see how things go. You can always scale back your efforts if you find that it consumes too much time or cost.
What Are Some Common Monthly SEO Tasks?
These are some of the tasks you should venture into on a monthly basis to ensure that your website is performing well and ranking high in search engines:
a) Research New Keywords and Incorporate Them into Your Existing Content
Research relevant keywords that are already ranking on page 2 or 3 and add them into your existing content whenever possible. Doing this can help boost your website’s ranking for these keywords and ultimately improve your overall SEO.
Some great tools to perform keyword research include Google Search Console, and Ahrefs. These tools allow you to discover related search terms and analyse how competitive they are to rank for.
Once you’ve found multiple relevant keywords, proceed to include them in your content NATURALLY. This could be in the form of blog posts, product descriptions, or even your website’s metadata.
Bear in mind that content is still amongst the most important ranking factors when it comes to SEO. Thus essential to update your content regularly with new and relevant keywords.
b) Analyse Your Website’s Search Engine Rankings and Traffic Data
Performing an analysis of your website’s search engine ranking and traffic data can help identify the progress that has been made and any areas that require further improvement. Checking your rankings regularly will also help to ensure that your website is visible to prospective customers, and that its traffic levels are high.
Several tools and services you can utilise for this purpose include Google Analytics, SEMrush, and Moz. They provide you with valuable insights in terms of your site’s organic search traffic, backlinks, keyword rankings, and so much more.
Analysing this data helps you better understand which area of your SEO campaigns need improvement, and which keywords and phrases you should target to increase website traffic.
c) Evaluate Your Website’s Overall Optimisation and Make Changes When Needed
Now it’s time to evaluate your website’s overall optimisation. This process includes reviewing your website’s structure, title, meta descriptions, header tags, and other on-page factors alike.
Suppose any of these elements aren’t optimised properly, do it now and do it better. This could involve adding or removing keywords from your title tags and meta descriptions and ensuring that your website’s structure is easy to navigate.
It’s also important to ensure that your website’s content is high in quality and rich in keywords. This means producing original, well-written articles pertaining to your niche. If you have any old or outdated content on your website, you can either remove it or update it.
d) Perform a Backlink Audit and Reject Those that are Spammy or Low-Quality
One of the most important aspects of SEO has to be link building. This involves gaining high-quality links from other websites to your own. Having said that, it’s also crucial to audit your backlinks regularly, as some of them may become spammy or low-quality overtime. Should you come across any of those, disavow them using Google’s Disavow Tool.
Building links aside, you should also monitor your backlinks and remove any that could jeopardise your website ranking. Doing all these can help improve your overall SEO campaign.
e) Review Your Google Analytics Data to See How Users Interact with Your Website
Google Analytics makes a powerful tool for gaining insights on how users interact with your website. This data can be harnessed to improve your website’s overall optimisation.
You can benefit from this tool big time, for example, what keywords users are searching for on Google to find your website, what pages they are landing on, and how long they are staying on your website.
Reviewing this data can help you better understand which areas of your website require improvement. Also, you’ll learn which keywords and phrases to target.
f) Publish New Blog Posts, Guest Posts, and Other Type of Content Regularly
Never underestimate the power of new, high-quality and original content. This could be in the form of blog posts, guest posts, infographics, videos, and so on.
Aside from improving your website’s ranking in the SERPs, you provide users and search engines with something new and fresh to read or watch. This will help keep them coming back for more, and eventually increase the amount of time they spend on your website.
g) Invest in Content Marketing and Link Building
After publishing your content, you ought to promote it to generate the most traffic possible. You can do this in multiple ways, such as via social media, email marketing, or link building.
Link building can be extremely helpful—it gets other websites to link back to your own by creating guest posts, infographics and other content alike.
Moving Forward
Doing SEO every month is pretty much essential if you wish to maintain your rankings and continue generating results from your SEO efforts. However, it may not be suitable for everyone. Whether or not to do it monthly has to depend on the nature of your business, the level of competition in your industry, and how much time and money you’re willing to invest in SEO.
Whichever path you choose, the most important thing is to come up with a clear and consistent SEO strategy and stick to it in the long run.