How Often You Should Revise Your Website’s SEO Strategy
SEO is like your stairway to hea…Mm, I mean, to the top Google rankings, of course. The cooler your content the more visitors are likely to stay on your page and read on.
However, before the human factor comes the search engine. You have to impress it, make it notice you in order to reach the top Google rankings and be noticed by the reader, too. This means that you need a proper SEO strategy for your website.
SEO, that is to say search engine optimization, is the way you optimize your content in order to be noticed by the search engines. It’s about the keywords, meta-titles and other attributes, the frequency and length of your content, etc.
It’s easy to conclude that devising an SEO strategy is not something you do once and then concentrate on your content.
Truth is, you should constantly revise and update your SEO strategy to climb up and stay in the upper positions when searched.
You’re probably asking, “What do you mean by saying “revise website SEO?” What exactly needs to be revised? How often should I update my website for SEO?”
Let’s cover the revision process point by point, from the on-page components to the off-page SEO elements and the optimal frequency for revising each.
- On-Page SEO
- Keywords
- Content
- New Content
- Off-Page SEO
- Social Profiles
- Inbound links
- How often should you update your site for SEO?
On-Page SEO
On-page SEO refers to the strategies, rules, and methods you use directly on your webpage for search engine optimization. Those include your keyword use, content elements, such as titles, meta-titles, tags, etc. as well as content updates.
Keywords
Well, SEO itself is often directly linked to keyword use. And while it is so much more than merely using the right keywords in the right places and forms, the importance of using the right keywords on your website can’t be overestimated.
So before you produce a new article or a post you should carefully research the related keywords and use them in order to “please the search engines.”
It is not enough, though. The reality is, keyword popularity keeps changing. The older popular keywords become extinct and new ones are generated. So, you need to go back to your older posts and analyze your keyword use again time after time.
Also keep in mind that Google has moved away from taking into account just the number of keywords so keyword-stuffing a bad article won’t get your site on the front page. As important as keywords are, nothing is more important than quality content and even crawl bots understand that now.
So, how often should you update old posts for SEO? Optimally, once in three months is a great frequency, but if your time boundaries are too tight, revisiting your keyword use once every 6 months is also a viable option.
Content
Here we mean the meta-titles, headers, tags, descriptions, and other SEO-related elements you use on your website. They’re super important for your website’s SEO strategy.
The meta descriptions are the first thing the viewer of the page sees before answering the “to click or not to click” question. The headers are the HTML elements that literally “catch the eye“ and should also be adjusted to the ranking trends.
Again, like in the case of keywords, before choosing the tags or writing the headers you need to research the popular words and expressions on your topic to make the right choices.
For example, it is standard practice to keep the title tags shorter than 55-60 characters. For a fuller list of rules for optimizing your titles and headers, check this article out.
Another standard practice is writing long and substantial articles that include videos and other forms of media. You can go back to your older posts and add new infographics and videos to them from time to time.
As for revisiting your content strategy, make sure you revise your titles, header tags, and other elements once your keyword strategy is updated, since the HTML elements are closely related to keywords.
In all other cases when Google or other popular search engines update their ranking algorithms, revisiting your website SEO strategy and adjusting your descriptions, titles, and headers is an absolute must.
New Content
Creating fresh new content is obviously one of the most important steps not just for your SEO improvement but for the maintenance and sustainability of your website.
Updating your content is something you should do often and well. It’s a must for reminding the user and the engines about yourself, keeping the reader interested and involved, etc. Here’s why having new content on your website is crucial:
- Fresh content means more frequent indexing. Though this doesn’t automatically mean that your posts will rank higher, it definitely means that Google will scan your site more often. So, if you improve your content and become a guru of SEO, your posts will be noticed faster and higher rankings are sure to follow.
- Google algorithm favors frequent updates. Now, of course, this doesn’t mean you should construct your whole website around this SEO preference, because the quality and SEO of your posts may suffer, but it does mean that frequent new content should be a part of your SEO strategy.
- Content is indeed king. By posting new and well-researched content on a topic that also follows other SEO rules, you are slowly building up your authority in the field in the eyes of both Google and your visitors.
The optimal frequency of updating website content varies from website to website, from topic to topic. Lots of sources favor daily content updates, however, before you commit to such frequent blogging make sure you have the resources and the niche for it.
So, how often should you blog for SEO? The general tip is updating your content approximately once a week. Here you can read about why blogging on a daily basis might harm your SEO rather than do it good.
Off-Page SEO
Your website SEO strategy isn’t limited to the tactics you use on your website. It includes your social media promotion, inbound link marketing for organic traffic building, etc. Each of those should also be revised from time to time in order for your website to rank higher. Check the ultimate off-page SEO checklist here.
Social Profiles
Social media is your business card inviting new visitors to your website. That’s why it has an indirect yet powerful effect on your SEO.
The social media strategy includes the platforms you use for promotion, the profiles, the content you share, the comments and discussions, etc.
Recently, there is even an argument being made that social media is the new SEO. More and more people rely on social media searches first and foremost, so those have recently been included in the algorithm.
Besides, all the social media shares your posts get are backlinks. Moreover, some claim that social media is the best way to build up a link but the most important shares and comments are from the multipliers and influencers of the industry. That’s why you need to monitor who’s who in the industry – and there are always newcomers and retirees – to cite them, collaborate with them, interview them.
Keeping track of the feedback your new content receives on social media is how you figure out the topics and forms your visitors prefer which leads to business-specific adjustments to your social profiles.
Revisiting your social profiles weekly, analyzing their progress/regress and updating your social media strategy accordingly is the optimal way to improve your SEO strategy.
Inbound links
Inbound links are the links to your website from other websites. You often get these through guest posting, gaining partners, setting up an affiliate program, etc.
Keeping track of your inbound links and making sure none of those are broken (leading to removed pages) is very important for your website’s SEO strategy. Broken or spammy links should be removed ASAP.
Again, you should monitor your inbound links constantly. I’d advise returning to them every other month, as well as every time you make major website changes, including deleting web pages, changing servers or other actions that might lead to some older links breaking.
Not sure how to fix your own website’s broken links? Check out this article about setting up redirects on your WP website.
How often should you update your site for SEO?
Frankly, updating your SEO is a constant process and the more often you perform it the higher you’re likely to rank.
The good news is, you’re no longer alone manually updating and revising your website’s SEO strategy.
10Web SEO service is an advanced free solution for automating most of your SEO strategy updating processes. The service takes care of analyzing your website content, pointing out your specific SEO mistakes, suggesting reports with practical tips for SEO improvement. What else does one need?
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Hope you found this article on how often you should revise your website SEO strategy helpful and the questions “How often should I update my website for SEO?” has a definite answer. How often do you typically revise these aspects of your SEO strategy and how is that working out? Tell us in the comments!
Website SEO strategies should be improved based on google update and user’s demands that suits your business. Every 3-6 months you have to make a new plan for SEO.
Hi Sabbir, we couldn’t agree more! How often and to what extent you should revise your SEO plan depends on your business goals and intentions. That said, it’s better to update your SEO plan – or at least assess the SEO landscape to establish whether re-strategising is necessary – every 1-3 months. 🙂