Why is SEO a Monthly Fee?

One of the most common questions I get asked when talking to potential clients is 'Why is SEO a monthly fee?'

There are two essential types of SEO - onsite and offsite. Onsite SEO happens mostly at the beginning of an SEO campaign - in the first month or two. While offsite SEO is a more continuous process, that need regular work. What this means that off-site SEO requires a monthly fee to ensure the correct work is being completed. You can read more about the entire SEO process, and how monthly offsite SEO fits into it, in the post below. 

Onsite SEO

The type of SEO that your business will need at the beginning of a project is known as onsite SEO. This is basically about getting you site up to a standard that is 'Google-friendly'. This varies from site to site and consists of several different factors that are explained below:

Page Titles 

The first element of good onsite SEO is getting your page title right. A good page title will do two things - Help get you ranked for a specific keyword, and entice the user to click through and visit your page. 

Navigation

Another of the most critical elements in onsite SEO is page navigation. Good navigation is essential for several reasons. The first is that it allows your visitors to be able to find the information they need quickly. While the second is, it will also help to boost your SEO rankings. 

Site navigation can help your SEO rankings because the internal links between your site pages help search engines to index and assess your page correctly. In fact, the better the internal page navigation, the easier it will be for search engines to understand and place the context of your site. Thus improving its SEO. 

Adding Text

Website text is  a critical element of onsite SEO for two reasons. The first is that the text itself should be good quality, informative and entertaining. This is because this is the type of content that is most likely to attract visitors to your site. 

The text should also include relevant keywords. The reason for this is that embedding particular words will help theme your website, and boost the ranking of your site.

Technical

Finally, when it comes to on-site SEO, correcting any technical issues is important. After all, if your site is displayed with bugs, mistakes, or poor coding, it will harm your rankings. Therefore your website and its onsite SEO must go through a thorough testing procedure before it launches.

Monthly Off-Site SEO

The second type of SEO that your website needs to rank successfully for your business is offsite. Offsite SEO is an ongoing process. That is, it is not a'once-off'' event. In fact, because offsite SEO requires the on-going sourcing and placement of quality backlinks to your website, it will need to be continually updated to ensure your ranking stays high. 

What Are Backlinks?

Backlinks or inbound links are links from other websites to your site. A smart way of thinking about backlinks is that they are like references when you apply for a job. That is, the more high-quality recommendations you have, the better impression you will make. 

The situation is very similar for SEO and backlinks. This is because search engines will count your high-quality links from other sites, and push up your ranking accordingly. In fact, backlinks continue to be one of the most critical rating factors for SEO there is. Bad backlinks tend to be the reason that a website may get penalised by Google, therefore its vital to get this part right!  

Backlinks Take Time 

Finally, it takes time for backlinks to be indexed and the results to show in the search engine results pages (SERPs). This means you don't always see the results right away for this type of SEO. 

In fact, it can take up to 10 weeks for backlinks to positively affect your website's SERP rank. Therefore you will need an expert attending to this continually for it to be effective. This is the reason why SEO is an ongoing process, and why the process incurs a monthly fee.