Search engine optimization (SEO) is essential, and you know it. Search engines account for over 90% of all online activities, and the top-ranking website receives 33% of all search traffic.
To be successful, you need to be at the top of the search results, and regular SEO maintenance can help you achieve that goal.
In addition, SEO is never finished, making it challenging to choose strategic and tactical factors that have a real chance of making a difference.
The correct level of preparation to keep SEO on track and efficient may be built by breaking it down into daily, monthly, quarterly, and annual milestones and process-driven techniques.
All of these actions should be related to the overall strategy and goals of the company, but they provide a solid framework for yearly SEO planning.
Ultimate SEO Maintenance Checklist For 2022
It’s essential to understand the concept of search engine optimization (SEO) upkeep and how it works. This SEO maintenance book will teach you all you need to know (and do) to keep and even increase your search engine ranking position.
Keep an eye on the website’s performance
SEO requires you to keep tabs on your site’s progress and individual pages. Monitoring your rankings, click-through rate (CTR), page visits, and more are what you want to do.
These digital marketing indicators might assist your team in identifying web pages that require additional attention and care. As an example, a steady fall in CTR could indicate that your title tag isn’t appealing to your target audience or addressing their specific concerns.
Use these two free tools to keep tabs on the performance of your website:
- Google Analytics
- Google Search Console
You can view data points like the following in Google Search Console:
- Queries
- Impressions
- Clicks
- CTR
To keep tabs on how well your website is performing, generate SEO reports, and identify pages that want SEO attention, use the tools listed below.
Local listings are essential
Google Sheets, LocalFX, etc. Maintaining local listings is critical for firms with a local focus. Why? Because the majority of customers will find you through local listings.
Before organic search results appear when someone types in “sandwich shop near me,” for example, local listings (also known as a local SEO 3-pack) appear on Google.
A person’s experience can be ruined if your local listing has false information, such as your business hours. If someone finds your listing and decides to check it out, that’s great. Unfortunately, your store will be closed when they come.
They respond by posting a bad review about your business on Google, which everyone may see.
As part of your SEO maintenance, ensure that your company’s name, address, and phone number are accurate.
You can use tools like LocalFX, a paid local listing management service, or free tools like Google Sheets to keep track of changes.
Fix links for future
Broken links (often referred to as 404s) cause issues for search engines like Google and end-users.
They are a dead-end for both people and search engine spiders. If a person clicks on your website from the search results, they will return to the results page and search for a different site.
Pogo-sticking, as it’s often known, affects your search engine results ranking. When it comes to fixing broken links, your SEO plan can help.
You can identify broken links quickly with a program like Screaming Frog (the free version can crawl up to 500 URLs).
When it comes to fixing broken links on your website, you may require HTML knowledge or the support of a developer. Screaming Frog can detect 404 errors and redirected URLs (also known as 301s). In most cases, users don’t even see these links.
Content optimization should go on
It doesn’t mean your company is safe because you provide evergreen content. Evergreen content’s search engine rankings can deteriorate over time if your staff doesn’t regularly update it. However, regular SEO maintenance might help you avoid this situation.
When it comes to content SEO, there are three things to keep in mind:
- Verify that the data you’ve provided is accurate and up-to-date.
- Alignment of search intent: Is your page aligned with the current search intent?
- How relevant is your selected keyword to today’s searchers?
Occasionally, you may come across pages relevant to your search and include factual information, but they use outdated keywords.
You may have an issue with your content since it does not match the intent of your keywords, even though it is correct. If you go with either option, your team will have to review every page on your site and make the necessary adjustments.
With Google Search Console, you can locate pages that need re-optimized. You may, for example, keep an eye out for pages whose views and clicks are steadily decreasing. Alternatively, you can utilize a paid service such as Ahrefs to keep tabs on a page’s keyword ranks.
Keep a copy of your original page and log your changes to get the best results. Your company can begin maintaining and upgrading its SEO strategy by using this essential checklist.
Why Is SEO Maintenance Checklist Essential?
There are a few crucial reasons to keep you Seo maintenance checklist updates almost everyday. We have rounded up the most impactful ones for your convenience.
Rankings aren’t permanent at all
You should expect high-fives and shouts if you get a first-page or number-one ranking. Many businesses, however, fail to realize that rankings change over time. As you can take a number one rating from a competition, so can someone else take your number one spot.
SEO maintenance is helpful because you will always have to strive to keep your rankings.
As part of your SEO strategy, it is possible to counteract the efforts of your competitors. For example, you can change keyword targeting, replace broken links, and perform other maintenance on existing material.
Your business can benefit from any or all of these strategies to keep its web pages relevant and useful to users. While it’s possible to keep your material fresh, it’s also possible to drop to page two or even lower if you don’t update it regularly.
It’s not once-and-done approach
Pay-per-click (PPC) advertising, for example, may serve a short-term purpose, while SEO, on the other hand, is more of a long-term strategy that necessitates ongoing attention in order to provide the highest return on investment (ROI).
As a result, you won’t get the expected results from SEO if you treat it as a one-and-done strategy. As a result, you’ll only get a meager return on your investment.
If you employ SEO maintenance, you won’t have to worry about it. Maintaining and improving your search engine rankings can be as simple as following a few simple actions every now and again. Depending on the size of your website, you may just need to dedicate a few hours per month on SEO upkeep.
If you don’t have the time to handle your own SEO, you might follow the example of companies who work with SEO agencies. By outsourcing your SEO campaign, these companies save your team time and money. However, if you want to ensure that your website remains at the top of search engine results, it may be in your best interest to hire an SEO agency.
Conclusion
We all have particular goals and outcomes in mind when it comes to our SEO efforts and investments.
Structure and organization help keep your time and energy focused rather than reacting to things that shout the most loudly.
Having a set cadence and structure in your approach allows you to balance both planned actions and the agility needed to react in the moment, regardless of the technological elements, on-page, content, or backlinks.
Progress should be made and priorities should not be out of whack while working on SEO.