The fact you are asking this question concerns us. Here’s how your online presence and R.O.I will suffer – perhaps even irreparably – should you decide to ditch Organic SEO (Search Engine Optimization).
Engaging in the organic SEO landscape can feel overwhelming. Like opening that box of Christmas lights only to find an impossibly tangled mess, stepping into the foray around organic SEO can result in information overload of epic proportions. Brain melting, head busting, spontaneous combustion levels of overload.
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Akin to being presented with the Fast & Furious franchise, and trying to fathom the impossible-to-follow timeline amidst bouts of loud grunge music, SEO presents itself as a complex and intricate tangle of criss-crossing attributes dense enough to bend light.
As such, people bail. People simply switch off when it boils down to Search Engine Optimization. The subject is beyond comprehension, so is effectively shunned.
If you ignore it, you can plead ignorance – right?
SEO is for other people – right?
If you pretend that organic SEO doesn’t exist, it can’t hurt you – right?
That’s where you’re wrong.
If you stop the process of Search Engine Optimization, you’ll bear witness to your own online assassination. And then have to mop up the mess afterwards – while your competitors savage your digital carcass and absorb all your potential new client leads.
By steering time and money away from investing in SEO, your rankings will decline until you implement new SEO strategies to combat the damage done.
Somewhat like a life support machine with lag, you won’t notice an overnight difference upon pulling the plug. However, time will not be kind to you. It won’t be long until inquiries dry up and you feverishly pump money into Google Ads in a desperate campaign to regain lost ground. That can get ludicrously expensive in rapid fashion.
Don’t think that you can substitute Google Ads for organic SEO. Sorry (not sorry) to burst that bubble. Google will be your friend right up until you stop paying them. Once you cease handing them feasible currency, you won’t have a SERP (Search Engine Results Page) friend left.
Organic SEO – on the other hand – will always have your back. Ditching SEO costs (when you have an agency undertaking organic SEO on your behalf) may seem like the correct knee-jerk reaction for instant financial gain, but here’s why you are shooting yourself in the foot (with a machine gun).
The Dangerous Effects of Stopping Organic SEO
When blitzing through your finances and seeking places in which to make cost savings, it’s commonplace to eject from something you don’t understand. Quite simply, if you don’t understand something, you can’t comprehend the benefits that it brings.
Perhaps a good example of this attitude comes from Chernobyl – the nuclear meltdown that effectively changed the course of human history. If Anatoly Dyatlov (Deputy Chief Engineer) had understood, respected, and followed the safety protocols above him, then scores of people might not have suffered a nauseating demise.
While comparing humanity’s largest nuclear accident (to date) with quitting organic SEO might seem insensitive, the impacts are arguably similar. By remaining ignorant to the protocols of modern business, you are going to suffer – even though, a bit like radiation poisoning, you won’t spot the first aliments of decay immediately.
Rather – ‘switching off’ your efforts around organic SEO will slowly eat at the foundations of your customer onboarding process. Once the entrance to your funnel has collapsed, your leads cannot get through and your growth will stall. It’ll take several weeks before the Digital Reaper comes knocking, but when he arrives, you are going to beg for mercy.
Over time, your ranking positions on Google (other search engines are available) will inevitably slip and provide less visibility. That’s when the downward spiral commences – when your rankings decline, so does your organic traffic.
This all sounds rectifiable. So where’s the dangerous stuff?
I hate to break this to you, but if your competitors continue utilizing organic SEO and you quit, then you are highly unlikely to ever reign atop of the search engines. Organic traffic is the lifeblood for modern businesses and website owners. It’s a tense battle for audience attention. As soon as you quit the race, you are out of the running.
In some cases, organic traffic is responsible for more than 40% of revenue. That’s a huge chunk of cash flow to ditch. By not understanding the importance of continued SEO practice, you are effectively gifting your revenue to rival businesses. Top job.
The Importance of Organic SEO
To quote WebFX, SEO is not a one-time project with a clear end date. Instead, it’s a long-term business strategy that requires continual effort.
Look at it like this. SEO is like having a dog. You can’t just feed it once and then lock the animal away expecting life to flourish. Instead, it’s going to die (quite horribly), and The American Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals may have something to say about that.
You have to remember that the social and industrial landscapes change. While having a business website was once a vanity project for those who primarily went skiing and ran their business as a secondary ‘hobby’ (those holidays don’t pay for themselves, y’know), things are different now.
Businesses without a website do not inspire trust in those searching for a service or provider. That’s only part of the picture, though. You need to have your website on top form with accompanying SEO for people to find it in the first place. That’s where Google (and other search providers) come in.
Except, it’s not Google’s purpose to list every webpage on the internet. It’s not luck of the draw where you appear in a search. Instead, Google’s mission is to provide trustworthy results. It’s all calculated from organic SEO. This is where a backlink strategy, fresh content, adhering to core web vitals, and testing, creates the bedrock for contemporary survival.
SEO is the treadmill that your competitors are also running. If you slow down and your site remains stagnant (without fresh content or SEO maintenance), your rivals have the perfect opportunity to outrank you and climb high into the search results.
Big deal. So competitors can outrank you. So what? You’ll just rank further down the results and people will still find you, right?.
Sorry (not sorry) to burst that bubble, but 75% of internet users never stray beyond the first page of search results. So that’s three-quarters of your potential traffic straight down the drain. Well done.
Still feel like saving money on organic SEO is a worthwhile business decision? There’s more. So don’t make your mind up just yet.
Why You Need to Pay Constant Attention to Organic SEO
Google powers itself with the scary-fast grunt of algorithms. These algorithms take all SEO factors into account and are constantly updated. These changes are a bit Orwellian, admitted, in that with Google’s movement, you are also required to move.
Your SEO strategy requires constant tweaks and restructuring when the dreaded algorithm change materialises like an end-of-game level boss. By falling foul of any new changes, you risk a long, slow descent into the SERP abyss. We are talking beyond page 10 *screaming intensifies*.
So, while your website has been maintained up until now, and everything feels hunky-dory – it won’t last. Your dog will need to be fed again. Even if you are at position number one on the first page, you can lose that spot after stepping away from organic SEO.
Furthermore, Google appreciates and acknowledges ‘freshness’ in a website. If Google doesn’t detect any changes or updates, then the algorithm could deem your website – and consequently, your business – as dormant. This is something to avoid, as being classified ‘dormant’ basically means Google won’t present you as a trusted business.
Then there’s the risky stuff. Without monitoring your SEO progress and keeping tabs on the process, you can have technical backfires that go unnoticed. Even the strongest of websites can go through a stretch where certain files become misconfigured or links go on strike and break.
It’s all part of the fun of dog ownership. There are days where inexplicably bad behaviour occurs unprompted. The outcome is how you deal with it. And ignoring organic SEO (just like ignoring your dog) is not a healthy option to choose.
As if that’s not quite enough, you’ve also got toxic links to contend with. If you end up with too many low-quality links or ‘questionable sites of questionable origin’ linked directly to your site, Google will dish out penalties that bring headaches and woe for business owners.
Disavowing these links is the safest procedure, but you need to have your wits about you. If you are about as on the ball as a dead seal and offer the focus of a soft-lens retro adult film, your SEO will tailspin into oblivion.
Before you can then breathe, you have the concept of stolen content to fight off, too. As is often the case, other website owners steal and plagiarise content from other businesses. This can be a result of laziness, arrogance, or an inability to write successful online content through a sense of overwhelming anxiety concerning digital proficiency.
Venturing into e-commerce and the digital business world can feel quite daunting for some, and their lack of online knowledge causes issues where intellectual copyright is breached. While this is no excuse, it’s still something that you have to deal with.
Google is pretty apt at determining where content has been stolen, but without action on your behalf, there’s a real risk of penalization for duplicate content. This can affect the rankings and Google’s trusting relationship between your business and the algorithms.
So…What Should You Do?
We would never, ever, ever, ever recommend packing in your organic SEO strategy. If you want to get the maximum benefit from your website, you need to feed the dog consistently or else face a Chernobyl effect on your revenue.
While you won’t lose traffic and rankings overnight in a gangster-like Coup d’état, you’ll find the crushing slow-down somewhat debilitating. Remember the formula – you need organic traffic to maintain your new client leads. Without organic traffic, you will be hard-pressed to make progress.
Not just that, but by jacking in your organic SEO, competitors are waiting in the wings to take your ground and steal your clients – and your money!
So, what would really happen if you stopped your organic SEO? You cannot ignore it. In our digital world, SEO remains paramount to contemporary business success and your pace will suffer.
Leads will dry up, revenue will fall, and there will be a huge amount of work required to regain the ground you once had. Pouring money into Google Ads won’t solve the problem, and will quickly devour your yearly budget in a matter of weeks.
Moral of the story? Stick with organic SEO.
Phew! Talk about information overload. Did you get all of that? Well, you don’t have to.
We can help you! We have an SEO package available where we take all these aspects on for you. We also have a Professional Content Creation service available.
Interested? You can get in touch with us anytime!
Our SEO package will ensure that all the boxes are ticked, and you won’t need to worry or bother with making time to deal with Search Engine Optimization. You won’t need to panic when a Google algorithm update is announced. We take care of everything on your behalf.
It’s the same story with our Professional Content Creation service. Struggling to find the time to draft SEO-friendly content for your business? Our copyrighter, proof-reader, SEO specialist, and image library will undertake the work for you – saving you all kinds of stress.
Don’t be shy or hesitate to reach out for help. We look forward to hearing from you soon!
Calum Brown
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