The aspect of optimization presents a strategy that is both complex and requires high-maintenance to execute. That is one of the main reasons why SEO takes time to work. And even once you manage to establish a strong SEO presence, you have plenty of other work to perform. Today, we take a detailed look at the best ways to organize your SEO maintenance tasks.
Why do you need to organize and maintain it all?
It is becoming more and more difficult to find sustainable rankings, organic traffic, or conversion growth – without some commitment to the entire process. Yes, website audits are a great way to start impacting your organic positions. But only so long as you use them as a foundation on which to continue building your optimization efforts.
The fact remains that search engines continue to modify the algorithms their bots use to rank websites. In some cases, we are informed about the upcoming changes, while in other cases we don’t even have a clue. One day, you notice that your rankings have dropped and you don’t know how to explain it. The point here is that rather than wait for changes to come and be reactive, you need to make an effort to be proactive.
Therefore, I would like to present you with the most crucial daily, monthly, quarterly, and yearly SEO maintenance tasks you need to consider implementing:
Daily SEO maintenance tasks
Grow your knowledge
One of the critical aspects of SEO is always to stay ahead of the competition. That means monitoring industry news and implementing continuous updates on your optimization efforts. For starters, you need to take the time to keep informed about any ongoing changes in the world of SEO.
Even though significant changes are difficult to miss – the smaller, subtle ones, can get to you if you neglect them and allow them to multiply and magnify. That is why reading up on industry news presents such an important factor.
Stay acquainted with current metrics
You need to make sure that you keep track of SEO performance metrics daily. As part of your daily SEO maintenance tasks, take time out of each day to check the overall performance of your website. That is especially important for e-commerce businesses.
The more informed you are about your daily metrics, the easier it will be for you to recognize red flags such as:
- A specific or aggregate positioning drop.
- An organic traffic drop.
- A decrease in sales or lead volume.
Recognizing such issues can be crucial when for maintaining your SEO standing. Once you catch the changes, you can take measures right away. Identify the problem and reverse any negative impacts before they impact your business and marketing goals.
Create an outline of your SEO maintenance tasks and tactics
Every larger endeavor needs a concrete plan of action – or strategy if you will. SEO is no different. You will want to define daily tasks, milestones, and achievable actions that will slowly get you to that final destination. When you look at SEO, try not to think of it as a rabbit racing towards the finish line, but rather as a tortoise, taking its time to get there.
Therefore, if you are looking for the best way to maintain your optimization tactics, you need to combine big and small. Define an annual plan, which you will then break into months and further divide into the progress that can be made daily.
Monthly maintenance tasks for your SEO efforts
Report on performance
Reporting on daily and weekly changes does matter, but won’t solve all your problems. Instead, you need to go a step further and monitor monthly performance ups and downs. By doing so, you will be able to get a better grasp on your website value and performance.
The whole point behind this is to provide yourself with a larger sample size when it comes to performance trends. With monthly performance reports, you can easily cross-compare the advancement of your SEO tactics.
Recap completed actions plans
You should always take the time to re-visit your monthly accomplishments and evaluate the effectiveness of your SEO performance. Take a look back and consider the following:
- Was everything completed?
- Were there any deviations?
- What obstacles or roadblocks were in the way or overcame?
Remember – retrospect can boost your ability to predict future complications and react accordingly. When you combine the action items and tactics with the performance data, you should get a real-time image of your SEO performance and how to improve it.
Plan the tasks for next month and evaluate that plan
Monthly time frames are ideal for examining the accountability for completing pre-assigned tasks. One of the key traits in SEO maintenance tasks is flexibility and the ability to adapt quickly to any potential changes on the market. Dynamic as the SEO environment is, you should always be prepared for switching tactics to better respond to current trends.
Whether you are looking to double down on an efficient tactic, or recalibrate the overall strategy you are following, it’s essential to leave enough room for yourself and your team to be agile in challenging situations. That comes especially in handy when you are looking to plan next month’s activities.
So, make sure always to evaluate the plan for the upcoming month and compare it to the current market situation. Avoid reacting too swiftly or overthinking things, but don’t wait too long to implement new changes to keep your status in the online community.
Quarterly SEO maintenance tasks
Auditing technical issues
It’s essential to take a quarterly look at the overall performance of your website. Technical issues can often lead to a drop in rankings. That is why it is so vital to keep everything up-to-date:
- Page loading speed
- HTTPS security protocols
- Use of microdata
- Prevention of broken links
- Use of robots.txt, etc.
These are issues that you need to take care of, but ones that you also have to keep track of every quarter. And you can accomplish that through regular website analysis projects.
This analysis should include a review of reported issues in Google Search Console and Bing Webmaster Tools. Plus, comparison to benchmarks and standards for site speed, mobile usability, validation of structured data, and the aspects that aren’t often looked at on a more frequent basis.
On-page issues to consider
Websites experience problems all the times. A code plugin here and there, a plugin update from time to time – these are just some of the basic SEO maintenance tasks when it comes to on-page issues. You need to eliminate duplicate tags, duplicate content, or other elements.
The good news is that there are plenty of third-party tools that you can use to boost your SEO performance and quality. These tools that can alert you to potentially harmful changes, such as removal of a meta description, etc.
Regardless, having a reliable tools stack and process for quarterly evaluation and comparison to the previous audit is essential. That way, you can ensure that the results of the audit and any fixes needed are noted and make it into the tactical plan.
Link profile auditing
Every good SEO plan requires a strong link building profile. Starting from a continuous boost of internal links and expanding to a concrete backlink account. Whether engaging content or a well-developed outreach plan, there are plenty of SEO maintenance tasks that serve to attract a link building strategy. And as you go on to build your link profile, you need to take the time to re-examine it every quarter:
Evaluating the quality of links,
- quantity of links;
- diversity of sources;
- relevancy of linked content;
- comparisons to competitors;
- comparisons to benchmarks.
Plus, period-over-period comparisons are all crucial aspects to ensure that the plan is performing as intended in the area of backlinks. Additionally, if not caught through daily or monthly efforts, any spam links or harmful SEO attempts can be found here and addressed through the disavow process.
Examine local listings
Local listings maintenance is not really that dynamic, so long as your NAP (name, address, phone) remains unchanged. However, this fact does not mean that you should completely neglect this aspect of your SEO strategy.
By using third-party tools, you can ensure the accuracy and consistency of data. And this is strongly advised quarterly. With such regular checkups, you’d be able to catch and make necessary changes to the content, reviews, and other aspects of the listings themselves beyond the basic NAP data.
Yearly SEO maintenance tasks
Measuring performance
SEO is a marathon – which means that it takes long-term plans to make it work out. And making annual plans and running annual agreements and evaluations is advisable when it comes to the best ROI calculations. This investment is valuable when you need to analyze the performance data over 12 months. You can then compare it to previous periods, look at benchmarks, and celebrate successes.
Planning strategy & tactics
In addition to looking back at your annual performance, you should also take the chance to plan your goals and moves for the upcoming business year. After all, having a proper plan of action and a long-term goal is vital for measuring success.
Although SEO maintenance tasks can sometimes change the course of your original plans, having one is still a smart call. Otherwise, you risk creating a gap between expectations and reality. And that is something you want to avoid before spending months down the road.
Conclusion
The SEO maintenance tasks noted here are by no means obligatory or written in stone. They come from years of experience in conducting SEO services for other companies. You should take them as professional advice and practical tips on how best to improve your optimization process. Whether it’s daily, weekly, monthly, quarterly, or annually – maintaining a well-defined and structured method of optimization can be paramount for the development of your business.
