Practitioners across all areas of digital marketing spend a lot of time monitoring the latest industry trends and developments, and SEO is no different. It’s not unusual to come across search engine specialists debating the latest news on things like Google updates, and how they could impact rankings.
Remaining up to speed on these changes can require a lot of effort, which might appear exhausting on the surface, but doing so is absolutely paramount to your long-term success. In fact, there are a few reasons why ignoring these changes and sticking to your current approach can be disastrous over time.
Here’s why monitoring the latest industry changes is critical to SEO success.
An ever-changing landscape
In SEO, you can’t just blindly label industry trends as fads and then ignore them until they die out, because there’s a good chance that they’re here to stay. SEO is an ever-changing landscape, and things like Google Updates, algorithm changes and shifts in consumer behaviour can completely rewrite the parameters on what works and what doesn’t.
Think back to the early days of SEO, when practices like keyword spamming and link farms were effective tactics. Google rightly put a stop to all of that, and such strategies can now result in significant ranking penalties. If you hadn’t followed those updates back then, your SEO efforts would’ve been completely destroyed.
You don’t have to look that far back to find other examples either, with Google updates factoring in things like duplicate content and relevance to the user over the years. Simply put, if you keep playing the same way when the rulebook changes, you’re not likely to see much success going forward.
Preparing for the future
Keeping up with the latest trends isn’t just about maintaining your current rankings, it’s about preparing yourself for the future, too. If you keep an eye on what’s happening, or about to happen, in the industry, you’ll be in the best place possible to act when certain updates come into effect. This can actually help you to get ahead of the competition.
Google’s new AI Overviews are a great example of this. There’s no proven method for optimising for these yet, but there are plenty of techniques that could give you an advantage for when these summaries become more widespread.
Plus, SEO is a long-term strategy. Getting your site to the top of the rankings doesn’t happen overnight, so unless you’re able to adapt your strategy over time, it’s unlikely that you’ll ever achieve the desired results.
Falling behind the competition
This is perhaps the most critical reason for staying on top of the latest SEO trends. If you don’t keep up with the newest updates, your competitors will, meaning they’ll be able to adapt quicker and more efficiently than you. Sooner rather than later, you’ll begin to see the effects of this on the SERPs, and you’ll notice yourself slipping down the rankings.
If you’re not basing your strategy on the current algorithm, you’re unlikely to regain that ground. If you want to stay in that top spot, or reclaim it from your rivals, then you need to react to the latest developments quicker than them.
Find out more
For more helpful SEO insights, take a look at another of the helpful posts on the It Works Media blog or explore our free resources page. Alternatively, get in touch to find out more about how our team can help you achieve your SEO goals.