Search engine optimisation is one of the best ways for a modern business to reach new audiences, build leads, and thrive. Whether you are looking to reach local audiences in Sydney and the Gold Coast that could convert to customers or improve your range, improving your SEO offerings is a must for your business to grow.
The Internet abounds with companies that promise to boost your search engine rankings immediately through hacks. However, short-term boosts in your rankings are rarely enough to keep you on the front pages of search engines for long enough—only as long as you pay dishonest companies. Some of the tactics used by companies looking to make short-term ranking leaps are actually frowned upon by Google and other search engines and could hurt your strategy in the long run.
You will find more success in building a strong base of search engine strategies relevant in the long run rather than looking to make instant gains. Here are a few reasons why it is best to treat your ranking journey as a marathon, not a sprint.
The Importance of Long-Term Strategies
Building long-term search engine optimization strategies will help you maintain a higher ranking and sustain it in the long run. A little extra work will save you from having to make adjustments in a few short months.
One reason why long-term thinking is so important is that most of the strategies that lead to the highest rankings require time to implement. Two key components of SEO rankings are link building and content creation.
Link building is when another site links to your own, which tells Google and other search engines that your site is a reputable one building actual connections to the community. However, you cannot just pay people to link to your site or hope someone will think of you eventually. This requires you to build relationships with marketers, journalists, and other influencers within your community. You also need to identify the best sources for a link that will likely improve your ranking and drive customers to your business. None of these things happens overnight.
Another important component of search engine strategising is content creation. Google rewards sites that provide useful information to their users, so it is not enough to stuff your blogs full of keywords and hope for the best. Identifying relevant topics, writing well-written, grammatically correct content, and adjusting technical aspects takes time.
Since two of the most beneficial strategies for search engine optimization require extended amounts of work, it is only natural that long-term plans work best.
Personalised SEO Strategies Yield Results
When you take the time to develop a proper strategy instead of sprinting toward the results you hope for, you or the company you are working with will have more space to develop personalised strategies.
Achieving high Google search rankings is not a goal in and of itself but should be a means toward generating customer conversions and revenue. If you are trying to reach customers in Queensland, it makes no sense to rank highly for a search term in Victoria. Good SEO agencies will work to meet your particular goals, including tying your results to your physical location. (See our local SEO page for more information.)
Developing a personalised strategy will also help you build relationships with relevant sites for links, which are crucial for rankings.
Short-Term Gains, Long-Term Losses
Some agencies promise to improve your search engine rankings immediately. However, they often use strategies either frowned upon or outright banned by Google and other search engines.
There are two types of SEO—white hat and black hat. White hat SEO improves search rankings while following search engine terms of service, while black hat SEO violates the rules favouring quick gains. Unethical professionals use tactics such as buying links, keyword stuffing, and more to boost their rankings quickly.
Black hat tactics do work when it comes to improving rankings, so they are still so popular?. However, search engine robots are not easily fooled and can quickly uncover these hacks, many of which directly violate their terms of service. The algorithm will then punish your site by dropping your ranking, which can be hard to recover even after switching to more ethical tactics.
Attempting short-term strategies for optimising your search engine ranking will not only cause more work in the future but could also damage your site’s ranking permanently. It is best not to trust anyone who promises overnight optimisation.
Maintaining a High Ranking
Securing your place on the first page of Google’s results is one job, but it is an ongoing task to keep that high ranking. Google and Bing’s criteria for a good ranking change constantly, so your search engine strategy needs to be ready to change along with those algorithms changes. It makes no sense to create a strategy based on current criteria when those could be adjusted soon.
The search engine algorithm also prioritises websites that are properly maintained and updated. You will need to schedule regular updates to your website to continue publishing fresh content and hopefully securing more backlinks.
Technical SEO, which ranks how usable your website is, is also important. That means that to secure your top ranking, you need to regularly check your site (or hire someone to perform regular checks) for broken links, inaccessible pages, mobile formatting, and more.
Preparing for Your SEO Marathon
You are never truly finished with preparing your website to rank highly on a search engine. Instead, it is an ongoing project that will help you attract a new audience and build a much better site. Do not trust agencies that promise you instant results because those rankings often disappear as quickly as they are earned.
Instead, prioritise optimisation strategies that will set you up for long-term success, such as writing useful content and generating relevant links from other pages. This will require more sustained effort over time but will lead to far better results.
If you would like to discuss or have any questions relating to Search Engine Optimisation, please call us on 02 9594 1087 or 07 3103 3726.
