What Happens When You Stop Doing SEO?

seo spelled out with scrabble pieces

Search Engine Optimization (SEO) is one of the best ways of building an online business presence.

When thinking of SEO, many small businesses tend to overlook the significance of generating an online business presence. The truth is that in today’s world the web is more prevalent than ever, meaning that the best growth for local businesses is to expand through the web. Many of the top organically-searched businesses will receive the highest amount of visibility. These top sites will have the greatest click through rate and will generate the most accurate site traffic for their website.

SEO utilizes this concept thoroughly as it can boost business search rankings, which can lead to more leads and customer traffic. By removing SEO out of your business, it will have a significant impact. These include:

table of different mobile devices

Without consistent content creation, your website will struggle to appeal to your target market.

  • No Content Creation
    • When you stop creating content for your website, it can harm your online business presence. The immediate effects include less web traffic and lower keyword rankings for your business. The number of links on your web page will also decrease with the lack of content creation. The ranking of your linking numbers will drop due to this.
    • Even if you try to use other marketing strategies, you will struggle to gain the same number of visitors that you could gain from SEO. For example, email lists and directly phoning customers one by one will not give you nearly as many leads as SEO would. The ranking of your master pages will be affected, as the content of your site is more unlikely to fit consumer searches.
    • The loss of content creation will limit the share potential of consumers on social media platforms. Social media traffic will drop due to the lessening of shares of your company. As a result, people will rarely return to your website to view new posts. The searches made for your business will decline, resulting in the drop in your Google My Business (GMB) ranking. This demonstrates the importance of content creation for the online search presence of your business.
social media apps on phone

Your business presence on social media will diminish without SEO.

  • Linking Profile 
    • The linking profile is another component that plays a role in your online business presence. By cutting off SEO from your site, you will get many more spam links on your website. Your Google search ranking will drop as a result. It will also be easy for others to steal your site content. Duplicate site content is one of the most disliked things by the Google ranking algorithm. Consistently creating original content for your business, as Google will boost your search ranking.
  • Technical Issues 
    • Without SEO, your website will run into many different technical and performance issues. Websites with SEO already experience some technical issues, so imagine a website without SEO. Websites without SEO have significantly more technical problems than those that use SEO. These issues may start small but can become big problems if they are left unresolved. Some of the technical problems that your site could experience include a malfunctioning development site, duplicate content creation and your website possibly getting blocked due to Google recognizing the site as a bot site. 
    • This makes SEO crucial to avoid and resolve technical issues. By keeping your site up to date with content and with consistent maintenance, you can avoid these technical issues.
page full of coding

Without SEO, your website is more prone to technical issues.

  • Cyber Security
    • When utilizing SEO with a reliable company, the management of your website is simple. Site management goals become easier to manage and your website becomes more appealing to potential customers. While generating leads and gaining customers is significant, the security of your site is just as important. If your site can withstand cyberattacks, then it will be able to continue working. Your site should contain security features that can counter potential threats. If this is not the case, you should try to implement these features as soon as possible. With SEO, your managing company will be able to keep you up to date with the condition of your site. SEO will also further strengthen your site, allowing the site functions to continue to work at a successful level. 
cursor over security button

Your website is more secure when it is monitored consistently with SEO.

  • Refreshing Pages
    • When refreshing a page, an increase of traffic of up to 30% can appear in your site. Google will view the updated content of your website, increasing your page’s ranking based on it. There are a variety of factors that can cause a page to refresh. This includes:
      • Updating site information, dates and content
      • Adding a FAQ section
      • Changing the page’s template
      • Adding article links
      • Adding schema
    • By refreshing a page, the content of your page is more likely to match the search intentions of consumers. This can further boost your ranking on a Google search.

What effects does removing SEO do to your search traffic?

When you stop utilizing SEO, your search traffic will begin to decline. This decline is not immediate, but it can affect the position of your website throughout a couple of months. The key factors that create this decline are due to:
  • Lack of Website Improvement
    • When your website stops improving, through the lack of optimization and content creation, it can cause your site traffic to plummet. When being active on your website, you encourage search engine bots to hover around your website. Without SEO, search bots will stop coming to your site, resulting in lowering your Google ranking. To avoid this, you should create consistent site content, optimize your titles and create meta descriptions that fit your site.
  • Loss of Trust
    • When you stop implementing SEO for your website, its trust factor could begin to diminish. What is the trust factor? The trust factor referring to how trustworthy your site appears to consumers. If people lose trust in your company, then your Google ranking will be negatively affected. Through SEO, your website can boost its trust factor resulting in more potential leads and customers.
online shopping with credit card

Without SEO, your company will struggle to build leads and gain customers through its website.

  • Competitive Disadvantage
    • Believe it or not, many of your competitors are utilizing SEO to grow their online presence. So by taking SEO away from your website, it will automatically put your business at a disadvantage. Some of the competitors on the 3rd page of Google Search results can work their way up to the top of the search rankings through SEO. Meanwhile, a business that is at the top of the search rankings can be overtaken if it stops implementing SEO for a long time.

If some businesses can succeed without SEO, why can’t mine?

You may believe that SEO is not needed to grow your business. This is mainly false, as having a strong online presence is one of the major ways of expanding your business in today’s world. The only exception to this is with top brands such as Apple and Coca-Cola. These brands are among the best among their competition, meaning that they already have a competitive advantage in their industries. While these top brands may not utilize SEO thoroughly, they consistently update their website content and continue to optimize their website content. On the other hand, almost all of the smaller businesses will require SEO to grow their business. By utilizing SEO over the long-term, your business will be able to shine over the competitors in its industry.

coca cola can

Today, Coca-Cola has remained at the top of its industry partly due to maintaining its online presence.

Remember, you should try to implement SEO for your business to grow over the long-term. Your search traffic will improve causing your Google Search rankings to rise with SEO. Even if you have a tight budget, make sure to allocate some of the funds to SEO and your website. By doing so, you will be in a better position to build the online presence of your business in the future.