SEO is critical to any website. But what happens if you quit this practice cold turkey?
If you suddenly stop doing SEO or getting the services of an online SEO company, you will eventually observe lower rankings in search results. After a certain period, it will lead to less organic traffic and visibility online.
But you might find that your rankings will not dramatically dip overnight. You will likely see a bit of change for several weeks to months after completely stopping SEO. But finally, your rankings will go substantially down.
It will continue to a downward spiral until you start applying SEO to bring them back up again.
You will find that your rankings will significantly drop at a fast rate if your competitors continue applying SEO while you pause from it, enabling them to beat you in the rankings.
Stopped Creating Fresh and Relevant Content
Google, compared to other search engines, will judge your website based on fresh, relevant content. Sites that are regularly updated are proven to dominate rankings. The more you post new content, the more crawlers and bots will check your site and index your posts. It will result in your site appearing in the SERPs.
Google encourages you to provide value to your audiences, and the most effortless way to do this is by providing them with relevant content they are looking for. Once you stop focusing on creating quality content, your traffic and rankings will decrease.
Competition Never Stops
SEO is a widespread practice, and all businesses apply it to their website. Campaigns that are proven to be successful learn from the competition and adapt their strategies accordingly. If your site dominates the SERPs, you shouldn’t be surprised that your competitors are closely monitoring you and trying to develop ways to be steps ahead of you. But when you stop online SEO company services, you give the competition the chance to overtake you.
Changes in Algorithm
Google is constantly updating its algorithm, and it causes an impact on which sites will rank and which sites will not. The strategies that SEO agencies apply are continually shifting so their clients will reach the coveted top rank. Google and other search engines are constantly rolling out new updates to their ranking algorithms nearly every day. Some of these updates are minor and will not impact rankings much, but others such as the Penguin algorithm can switch up the SEO game. The strategies and practices you have applied previously may have helped you dominate SERPs, but this can be made obsolete instantly. Without the help of an SEO specialist constantly watching over your site, you will leave yourself vulnerable to changes.
Risks Will Go Unnoticed
Once you discontinue your SEO campaign, you will cease to pay attention to critical risks or problems with your SEO. If you do not troubleshoot these issues, you will potentially miss out on conversions and ROI.
Potential risks include the following:
- Technical SEO might go unnoticed. As a result, things may break down on a website. Once you discontinue your SEO, you might miss critical technical issues such as misconfigured text files or broken links.
- It is also crucial to keep an eye on your backlink profile to make sure you don’t have harmful links that are low-quality. If numerous spammy sites are linking to yours, Google may judge that your site is spammy as well. These links need to be disavowed, or they can harm your SEO.
- It is also possible that your content might get stolen. People take the content of others online and utilize it as their own. If someone duplicates your content onto their website, you can get penalties from Google for having duplicate content. The result is lower rankings. To ensure that your rankings are protected, you need to check for duplicate or stolen content regularly.
What Is the Impact of Stopping SEO Altogether?
SEO is comparable to going to the gym. If you skip it for a period, you will notice considerable changes in your performance. If you stop going altogether, you will find that you will no longer be in good shape as you used to. SEO requires constant maintenance and attention.
Conclusion
When you quit SEO, you will notice a drop in your rankings and traffic. Regardless of whether you hired an SEO expert or are taking a more DIY approach, there is no way to get around it. It is a requirement for any website or business looking to have a successful presence online. It is an unavoidable part of your monthly expenses. But an investment in SEO guarantees the success of your business and website, which is a huge payoff. There is really no excuse for ever stopping SEO.
