Let’s say you decide to up your marathon game. You stretch and strengthen. You do tempo runs, hill repeats, intervals, and long runs. You run your first race and crush it.
Then you stop.
You can guess what happens next. Without consistent training, your muscles weaken. So does your lung function. There’s no putting your running game in neutral. You’re either improving, or you’re losing ground.
It’s the same with SEO. Even if you’ve achieved peak rankings, when you put SEO on pause, you can expect a long road to regain the success you once enjoyed.
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SEO: A Long Game
I compare trying to get quick SEO results to hiring a contractor who promises to build a two-story addition to your home in a day. It’s not possible. And even if it were, you could expect the walls to collapse not too long after.
Just like you want a reliable house, Google wants to showcase reliable websites. That’s why they reward sites that consistently deliver relevant, high-quality content. If you deliver low-quality, spammy content—or even if you deliver high-quality content inconsistently—you don’t appear reliable.
Ranking is all about consistency and longevity. That’s why my team’s minimum SEO contract is a year. Not to lock you in, but to give SEO enough time for you to succeed. We want each client to win, and we know that it will take time to prove to Google that they’re a reliable authority in their industry.
Why Not Quit While You’re Ahead?
Some clients invest the time to start seeing their page 1 results, then decide they’ve conquered SEO. They’re king of the hill, so why not sit back, enjoy, and spend their SEO budget elsewhere (perhaps on paid aids).
But here’s what really happens when you pause your campaign:
Bye Bye, Organic Traffic
One of the big perks of organic traffic is that it comes with high buyer intent. Paid ads find buyers, but buyers find SEO. Thanks to SEO, organic traffic will seek you out through relevant search terms and be primed to convert.
How do you keep attracting this valuable traffic? You generate consistent, quality content that gets indexed and ranked by search engines. Without new content to keep you relevant, you sink lower and lower into the digital black hole, out of reach of potential customers.
Competition Catching Up
Just because you stop doesn’t mean your competition does, and Google is taking note. The longer you’re idle, the faster your competitors are closing the gap. Soon, they’ll become firmly entrenched in those page 1 positions you once held.
Who looks at anything beyond page 1 of Google? Almost no one. As much as 70% of all clicks go to just the first 3 results in Google.
By dropping even a position, your competitors will be welcoming an influx of qualified traffic, while you’re duking it out with other low-ranking competitors for yesterday’s scaps.
Compounding Delays
Search engines are influenced by how long someone holds a top ranking. That’s why page 1 competitors are so hard to dethrone. Google favors keeping winners winning.
What I tend to see is when you pause your campaign, you can expect a 3x delay in progress.
- 1 month pause = 3 month progress delay
- 3 month pause = 9 month progress delay
You’ll spend far more money (and time) trying to claw your way back than you would’ve if you had just maintained the rankings.
While it might be tempting to pull back on SEO when you start seeing success, stay the course. Each new gain will build on the last one, like compounding interest from a bank account. Other marketing options, like paid ads, may try to woo you, but few things have the staying power of a sustained SEO campaign. It’s the ultimate way to get in good with Google–and with the customers who want exactly what you’re selling.
