How Often Should You Review Your SEO Strategy?

You probably do some kind of spring cleaning at your office every year to get rid of things you don’t use and to dust out all those corners. You probably also clean out your files and evaluate what should be kept and what can be tossed. Additionally, you review your list of products and services from time to time to see what’s performing well and what isn’t. Your SEO strategy deserves the same kind of scrutiny and attention. In fact, since SEO changes so frequently, you should review your efforts frequently to fine-tune your efforts and get the best results.

As a marketing agency, we work to improve your SEO as it’s changing. It’s a good idea to review your SEO strategy at least annually, but if you notice that you’re not converting visitors to your website as effectively as you have in the past, you should definitely review before a year goes by. If you are having trouble knowing your SEO issues, check out our guide on how to know your SEO issues.

How do you go about reviewing your SEO strategy and how often should you review your SEO strategy?

Review Your Fluctuations

Your SEO metrics will fluctuate for a number of reasons. Search engines re-crawl websites, change algorithms, and update their indexes from time to time, and all of these factors will influence your metrics.

Don’t worry about minor fluctuations. They’re part of life and shouldn’t cause you concern. What should cause you concern is if you see clear, negative trends or if you have a significant drop in referral traffic to your site.

What do you do if you find a clear, negative trend or a big drop in referral traffic?

Do some research about the current algorithms. Remember that 93% of online experiences start with a search engine, and search engines use algorithms to sort results. It’s possible that the newest algorithm devalues links pointing to your website. Armed with knowledge like this, you can make the necessary changes to bring your traffic back up to normal.
Check your ranking. It’s also possible that your competition has seriously overtaken the position you used to enjoy in the rankings. Find out how you rank compared to them, and then do some research. How does your website compare to theirs? Are they blogging? Offering free downloads? You can learn all about this with a Free SEO analysis.
Find out if you’re blocking access to a search engine’s crawler. You may have inadvertently blocked engine crawlers from indexing your site. Sometimes the DNS server is unavailable or there’s an issue routing to your domain. Firewalls can also be problematic in this regard.

Review Your Goals

What were your original SEO goals? If you’ve updated your strategy recently, what were the goals of that strategy?

Reviewing your goals is important for two main reasons. First, it’s important to know if you’ve reached your original goals. Second, your goals may have changed, and if they have, it’s important to create new goals that meet your company’s current needs.

If you haven’t created SEO goals in the past, consider setting goals in one or more of the following areas, if you need help look into hiring an SEO:

Ranking. Moving up in the search engine rankings is not easy, but it will definitely help you to gain more traffic and optimize your content.
Traffic. Increasing traffic to your website should help with conversions. It’s easy to measure with tools like Google Analytics, and you can get real-time data to help you evaluate the efficacy of each social media or Adwords campaign.
Conversion. Ultimately, you want your traffic to convert into paying customers. Adding calls to action can be a great way to improve your conversion numbers.
Engagement. If building trust, respect, and appreciation have been goals for your business, you might want to set SEO goals regarding engagement. How many comments would you like to see on the blog and social media posts? How many new subscribers would you like to get to your email newsletters?
Profit. Profit is the name of the business game, and it’s the pinnacle of your SEO efforts. What kind of ROI are you getting from your SEO? What goals could you set to increase your profits?

Remember as you regularly review your SEO strategy that your goals should be attainable, realistic, and timely.

For more information about SEO strategy, or to schedule a time to review your SEO strategy with a professional, contact us at Park Slope Softworks, an inbound marketing company in Brooklyn.