Is SEO a One-Time Thing

Whether you're a small business or a large corporation, search engine optimization is the best way to spend your marketing budget. Creating valuable, optimized content regularly will ensure that Google rewards you by helping you get in front of more and more potential clients each month. The best way to get in front of your target demographic is to find a professional internet marketing agency and have them help you build and execute a custom search engine optimization strategy to help more relevant clients find your website.

Is SEO A One-Time Activity?

SEO can be set up as a one-time activity. For example, our agency offers a 1,000-dollar search engine optimization jumpstart to clients with new websites. In this jumpstart, we go through the website and optimize everything, image size, headings, etc. Doing this ensures that your website will be SEO-friendly and can show up on Google. 

One-time search engine optimization services can be an excellent way to catapult your new website onto Google to ensure Google has no trouble finding and displaying your website. However, any ongoing campaign will significantly outperform any one-time SEO. So yes, you can do SEO as a one-time service, but the results you will see will not compare to those gained from a recurring campaign.

Is SEO A Monthly Thing?

Search engine optimization is typically a monthly thing. That being said, some months require more work than others. This is because the SERPs (search engine results pages) is a constantly changing landscape that your SEO expert must carefully analyze. Changes in the strategies of your competitors, changes in Google's algorithms, changes and advances in your specific industry, and even changes you request can all cause drastic alterations to your marketing strategy. 

SEO is a monthly service, yes, but more importantly, it's a service that does best when it's constantly being monitored and adjusted. The ever-changing nature of digital marketing makes it so that from month to month, your consultant needs to regularly update, alter, and consistently publish new optimized content to your website to ensure you get in front of as many customers as possible. So while you can pay for a one-time SEO service, you will see the best results if you have an ongoing campaign. 

Is SEO A One-Time Cost?

Search engine optimization can be a one-time cost, but you'll most often see agencies offering monthly contracts in which payment is due monthly. However, some agencies provide the option for a one-time yearly fee. In this way, you can have SEO become a one-time fee, but it will generally be costly. However, you will usually get a discount if you pay for several months. Our agency, for example, doesn't try to lock you into 6-12 month contracts like most agencies will. We execute our campaigns on a month-to-month basis and offer the option for you to pay for multiple months upfront. If you pay for 3, 6, or 12 months in advance, you can save 10%, 15%, or 20%, respectively. 

So, if you want to pay for your search engine optimization services months in advance, try finding an agency that will offer a discount for multiple booked months. Having that discount is unnecessary, but finding an SEO agency that gives it is excellent.

How Often Should You Do SEO?

It depends on the level of competition in your industry. If there is a lot of competition, you should invest in SEO for as long as you are in business. The longer you invest in a search campaign, the more your SEO experts can build your website. After a few years of investing in digital marketing, you will see that your competitors cannot catch up without doing as you have - investing in SEO for years. They will be able to catch up once you stop investing in SEO, as they will inevitably catch up since you are no longer growing the website. However, if you never stop, it will be tough for your competition to catch up. They can do it, but it would be challenging and time-consuming. 

How Many Hours Does SEO Take?

The length of time your SEO expert works on your website each month will vary. There should always be a baseline they do not go under based on the budget you provide, but some months they will have to work longer than anticipated. The months when your digital marketing professional will work longer than expected will be due to specific unforeseen changes in your local environment. Perhaps a Google algorithm update causes some of your pages to stop ranking, so they must adjust to get your pages to show back up. Maybe a competitor steals a valuable keyword from you, and your digital marketing consultant has to create or adapt content to win it back, etc.

What Happens If You Stop SEO?

The main benefit of search engine optimization is that when you decide to stop, you will be able to enjoy your rankings and traffic for a long time. The downside of search engine optimization is that to ensure your competitors cannot keep up with you, the best thing to do is to keep the ball rolling on your campaign. However, you do not at all have to keep your campaign going. If you invest in SEO for a year or two, you should stay ranked and maintain a continuous flow of organic traffic for months or years, depending on your industry's competitive nature. However, you may be pushed out of the top spots for valuable keywords if your competitors still pay for SEO. So while it would be best to keep SEO going, you do not need to continue it after you have started seeing the amount of traffic you are content with receiving.

Conclusion

Hopefully, this article has answered your questions! Feel free to read more of our articles regarding SEO if you want to learn more. We have articles about the pros and cons of SEO, the benefits of organic search consultants, and even an article that shows you why you should invest in a campaign for your own business and how it can help.