SEO Services - Why You Need a
Search Engine Optimization Maintenance Service Plan
© Herman Drost

A search engine optimization maintenance service plan will
ensure that your site will continue to increase in its
rankings, attract more visitors and make more sales. It's
not enough to simply design your web site, have it
optimized for the search engines and expect it to
continually rank well. If left alone, you may soon lose the
business your web site initially generated.

What should be included in a SEO maintenance service plan?

1. Monitor search engine rankings - there will be many
fluctuations in your search engine rankings. This may be
due to search engines changing their ranking formulas, or
competitors trying to get ahead of you. More sites are
added to the web each day so you need to monitor your
search engine rankings to be competitive. I create monthly
ranking reports on where your site is currently ranked for
each of the major search engines.

2. Traffic Tracking - it's essential to know where most of
your traffic is coming from so you can make adjustments to
your marketing strategies. For example if most of your
traffic is coming from one particular page, you may want to
place your best products on that page to get more sales. I
analyze your site statistics (if they are available form
your web host) to check how much traffic you are receiving,
where is it coming from and what keywords are being used to
find your site.

3. Keyword research - web sites are being added to the web
every day, therefore keywords that once got high rankings
may no longer work. You may have high search engine
positions for your most important keyword phrases but if
you are not receiving any traffic from those phrases, you
will need to evaluate the keywords that you have used.
Attaining a #1 ranking for keywords that no one will search
for, will not increase your traffic.

Researching new keywords is essential to maintain good
rankings. I analyze the current keywords used on your site
and research and add new ones. Once the keywords have been
chosen, the content should be updated to reflect them. This
may include subtle changes to the meta tags, page titles
and text headings; or it could involve adding additional
sections to the site, rewriting content and reorganizing
the web site's structure. It all depends on the specific
requirements of the site and market.

4. Competitive analysis - an integral part of search engine
optimization is determining what keywords your competitors
are using. I analyze where your competitors are currently
ranked for the same keywords you are using for your web
pages. I also check how many competitors you have for each
of the major search engines. If there are too many
competitors for a particular keyword it may be better to
use less competitive keywords for your web pages or use
them in conjunction with the most popular ones.

I will also analyze the link popularity of your competitors
to determine how many incoming links they have and what the
quality of those links are. You should not link to
unrelated sites and ideally link to sites that already
attract a lot of traffic.

5. Add fresh content - web sites that continuously
update and/or expand their content, usually experience
higher rankings than stagnant web sites. New keywords
should first be researched before adding new content. This
will help boost your traffic and rankings because visitors
will have more ways to land on your site based on the
keywords they entered in the search engines. One great way
to achieve this is to add new articles to your site on a
regular basis.

6. Web copy analysis - getting a lot of traffic to your
site does not guarantee sales. It primarily depends on how
effective your web copy is. Read my article:

" How to Write Effective Web Copy "

You want to convert visitors into sales. I analyze how your
web copy is structured on the page, what words you use, if
it is written for your visitors plus check it for spelling
and grammatical errors.

7. Boost link popularity - this refers to the amount of
other quality web sites that have links pointing back to
yours. The more quality links there are, the better you
will rank on the major search engines. I extensively
research other sites related to yours and add or exchange
links with them. This may require a links/resources page to
be added to your site.

8. Tweaking web site structure and navigation - if visitors
are having a difficult time navigating your site, reading
the content or experience broken links, then I will repair
or tweak the site to make it more suitable for your
visitors.

Conclusion - your web site should be an integral part of
your business plan. It may be the first view your visitors
have of your business. You therefore should update and
maintain it regularly so your visitors will want to revisit
and keep doing business with you.

To choose a Search Engine Optimization Plan or
SEO Maintenance Plan that fits your web site, visit:

Search Engine Optimization Services