Let me guess. You’ve been meaning to get round to SEO for __ months, but [fill in your excuse here]. A few years ago that was questionable; today it may be deadly. Not convinced? Here are five reasons why you need to make SEO more of a priority.
Today’s technique may be tomorrow’s spam.
The rate of change in Google’s algorithms and rules has been incredible, and Google are redefining what is permissible, suspect and risky on an ongoing basis.
In the past, press releases, guest posts and even paid links were allowed; even encouraged. Today you don’t want to sit around and wait to see happens next. Staying on top of SEO current events may play an important role in your visitor counts and sales.
Your competition are coming for you.
With the exception of AdWords, SEO is about as competitive as it gets. You and your competition are going after the same people, in the same places, searching for the same keywords.
And you all want to outrank each other.
The status quo is dynamic and temporary. You need to actively maintain your rankings and traffic.
(Hint: the first step involves trying to do so.)
People are searching for what you sell right now.
If they’re not finding you, or you’re not making it easy for them to find you, who will they find instead? Where will they find what they’re looking for?
Now you’re competing with Google.
Google’s knowledge graph and increased top-heavy placement of AdWords ads mean that you’re not only competing with your direct competition any more. You’re also competing with Google themselves.
My screen resolution is a pretty healthy 1920 x 1080, but this is what I see when I search for sightseeing in London:
I can only see three organic listings without scrolling. And why scroll? Most people will find what they’re looking for in the knowledge graph. In the above example, if you’re not in the top three, you probably won’t get clicked at all.
It’s not that difficult.
Fellow SEOs don’t like me saying this, but around 75% of SEO is pretty straightforward. And let’s face it, you’re probably not doing that much SEO at all right now. Doing anything (no matter how little) is much better than doing nothing.
Put SEO on your agenda – before a change in circumstances force you to do so.
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