I’ve been asked this question a lot over the years.
Let me give my thoughts why it needs to be a monthly activity…
In a nutshell SEO is the application of a number of processes to help a website get better positioning in the Google Search results (aka SERPs).
Why does your position in Google matter?
A business website that shows on page 5 of Google for a specific business category is going to get way less traffic than a competitor business who appears on the first page of Google for that same search phrase (read my other post where I explain why you need to use incognito mode when doing this).
Now we know there’s value in being on page 1 versus page 5, but how did the businesses on page 1 get there?
They’ve most likely been applying SEO techniques to get to page 1 (if they haven’t then they just got lucky and will likely lose that position over time).
Unless you’re a super rare business in the middle of deepest Timbuktoo, with no competition, then there will be a bunch of sites from your competitors on page 1 and beyond when searching for that particular business / location. The more competitive the industry and the larger the city, the more businesses will be competing for that coveted page 1 spot.
However, SEO isn’t like Google Ads where the traffic stops as soon as you stop paying, SEO is a slow reacting process, all those companies listed on page 1 are doing varying levels of SEO (some may have stopped, some may have just started and others may just be running along as normal). If they stop doing SEO, they aren’t going to suddenly drop to page 2 and beyond. In the same way, a business starting to apply SEO isn’t going to magically jump to page 1.
So consider this analogy – imagine a river race with 10 kayaks, once the race starts they start paddling away, if they paddle slower then the other racers will gradually overtake them, if they paddle faster then they start to move ahead of the other racers – this is very similar to how SEO works for businesses. If a business wants to stay at the top of the Google results then they need to keep up with the other leaders.
A marathon, not a sprint
So with that in mind, if 10 business are currently doing SEO activities, and are listed on page 1, then there’s a good chance they will stay there… BUT…what about page 2 and beyond – those businesses could also be doing SEO and they could start bumping businesses off page 1.
This is why SEO needs to be an ongoing activity – to ensure you get to page 1 of Google and stay there while their competitors also engage in SEO activities. These days it should just be considered a cost of doing business.
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