Content is also an element of SEO that needs to be maintained over time. Your content should change
regularly. In some cases, that means every day; in others it means once a week or once a month. Even
more important than the schedule with which you change your content is the content itself. Over
time you should be adding to your collection of relevant, useful content. If what you have on the site
isn’t relevant or useful, then replace it. And don’t put any piece of content on your site that doesn’t
give your visitors something useful.In the same category as content is adding new pages to your web site. If you have an active site,
over time it should grow. And search engines will take note of the number of pages included in
your site each time you’re crawled. Landing pages, articles, blogs, newsletter archives, and site
maps are types of pages that will cause your site to grow, so if you’re maintaining your SEO, site
growth will be a natural extension of that.If you’re adding new pages, you should also be adding internal page links. Link every page on your
web site. And use a comfortable linking structure. The main links for your site — to pages like your
home page, the contact page, or category overview pages — should appear both on the top or side
of your page in your main navigational structure, and they should be repeated at the bottom of
every page.Also remember that if you are using PPC ads that lead to landing pages, the landing pages should
be added to your navigational structure as well. People don’t like to be dropped in the center of a
jungle and left to figure out how to get where they want to go. Instead, provide a clear path for the
next direction your visitors would like to take.Finally, if you haven’t already done it, now is the time to rename pages and images that don’t include
keywords. Using the default titles created by your web-site design software won’t win you any points
with search engines. Instead, change those page names to reflect the keywords that you’ve chosen.
Ideally, the page name will be the same as the page title. And if possible, it will also contain relevant
keywords.Your images may also need to be re-tagged. There are image-specific search engines that index your
images for display. So, if you run a custom stationery company, having pictures of your stationery
that are labeled with keyword-rich names may help you rank better in image searches as well as in
general searches. Keep your image alt tags updated, too.If you change your relevant keywords, don’t forget to also replace meta tag keywords or update meta
descriptions as your page changes. It won’t do you any good at all to have one set of keywords in
your meta tags and another one used on the customer-facing portion of your web pages.In short, the basic elements that helped you reach the top spot through your SEO efforts need to
be ongoing. Even the competitive research that you did back in the beginning needs to be updated
regularly. Your competition will change. If you don’t stay on top of those changes, you’ll find that
you fall behind the competition and will have to fight your way back to the top again.267
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