Can something change on an SEO Roadmap after it’s Delivered?

How can an SEO roadmap change after it’s delivered?

The short answer to “can an SEO Roadmap Change” is: Yes, things can and do change on an SEO Roadmap all the time. 

The long answer is: Most of the things on a properly prepared SEO Roadmap shouldn’t change drastically, ever.

And as is the case with most SEO specific things: the real answer is: “It depends.” 

So, what can change on an SEO Roadmap?

There are a lot of changes every year from Google on their algorithm. There are probably upwards of a thousand changes a year on minor aspects of how the algorithm works. There are 3-5 major changes throughout the year, or at least updates which change the indexing at least temporarily. In the age of A.I. there are bound to be significant changes, and more rapidity in changes as things mature. 

So, purely from the perspective of SEO as it relates to search engine ranking placement (or search engine ranking pages), there are a lot of things that can change. Fortunately for you, most of those changes won’t drastically affect the way you implement an SEO roadmap, because it’s built off of mostly timeless best practices. 

But there are a lot of ways that SEO can change – here are some concepts:

• Your business goals may change, or your day-to-day workflow may change
• You may start seeing big benefits in one aspect or another in your SEO roadmap, which encourages you to pour some fuel on the fire, and focus on a specific task more than the others
• You may add products, or change the spotlight on certain services or products in your business
• Your underlying technology stack may change and require fundamental structural changes to your SEO work
• Competitors may start pressuring your business with certain SEO goals of their own forcing you to pivot a bit
• You may desire to get broader or more focused on your SEO goals
• Industry or business changes may fundamentally change your SEO direction
• Content may be viewed differently, or may be ranked differently because of changes to an algorithm, which may require some changes to your content delivery and the style of distribution
• Backlinks may become less valuable for one reason or another which can change the amount of time required for outreach

There are a lot of other reasons your SEO roadmap might change a bit as you go, but we reiterate: you will not be in a poor position if the original SEO Roadmap is built with best practices in mind.

How can you stay on top of changes to the SEO industry and SEO best practices?

As a precursory answer: Best practices rarely change dramatically, and if they do change, it’s usually to become more refined or more focused.

We try our best to help you stay on top of the SEO changes and offer a lot of resources to help you to be successful with an SEO Roadmap. Here are some of the ways we push this narrative in theory and in practice:

• We built a robust set of documentation and how-to resources for our clients that Purchase an SEO Roadmap from us
• We offer free coaching hours to you if you get an SEO Roadmap from our team
• We contact you if we notice something egregious (that results from industry or mainstream changes) in your SEO Roadmap that needs your attention as a business
• We have a popular, frequently updated blog that offers a lot of timely, and timeless information
• We host live Q&A sessions both in a group format and in a 1-on-1 setting
• We sell a la carte hourly packages that allow you to call us anytime and ask questions or get consulting to help you succeed

Our team is constantly addressing the changes to the industry and the algorithms and we reach out to clients that may need to act to protect their hard earned rankings or have a specific advantage uncovered by our massive data sets and machine learning proprietary data collection and tracking. 

How can the right agency and a proper SEO roadmap help you stay comfortable even in a changing SEO environment?

We believe we do more than any other Digital Agency for Small Businesses when it comes to support and service. We try our best to charge only for implementation and not for research or stuff we should already be prepped on. We don’t learn on your dollar. We have implemented best practices to the benefit of hundreds of small business clients in the past year, and we are growing solidly year over year and month over month. We don’t waste dollars – we hire the right people, and we invest in our systems and staff more than any other small business digital agency. 

A properly built SEO Roadmap will be virtually immune to the normal day-to-day changes of the SEO landscape because the best practices of business are now integrated in a mature way into the digital spectrum. Of course things will need to be altered over time in slight ways and with some attention to the way content and technology solutions change. 

But there is significant benefit to having best practices baked into your SEO Roadmap and building a brand and a digital presence based on the best business practices from a digital perspective. For instance, with this recent media storm surrounding A.I. and ChatGPT we’ve had negligible ranking performance drops over more than 600 clients. Their business SEO has not been impacted negatively. Our standard growth rates (of the businesses we work with) are far better than industry average over multiple reporting periods. 

Not only that, the A.I. tooling that exists now can properly help them find interesting ways to combat growth hurdles instead of being a tool they are reliant on to write content, because they have been taught how to optimize writing, and it outperforms A.I. assisted/generated content by a huge margin. 

We believe that there are significant reasons you want a consistent and performant SEO agency for Small Businesses to be a partner in helping you achieve your stated SEO and organic traffic goals. Here are some reasons a proper SEO Roadmap and SEO Agency matter:

• An SEO agency that can build custom solutions is the only SEO agency that you should be courting, because they take your business seriously and show they have the resources and wherewithal to provide bespoke solutions – as no two businesses are the same
• An SEO agency that tracks even the clients that commission them for a single SEO roadmap is a valuable partner to have, because they are looking out for you, without costing you a ton of money in the interim between active intelligence events
• An SEO agency that can spend money and time keeping an SEO documentation platform and a robust set of tools and resources up to date is a great partner to find new business growth opportunity, while still servicing your prior business
• A SEO Agency that knows how to audit and track a company properly may give you more input and data points which may seem annoying and might feel like an overload at first, but in the end, you get more ways to improve, and a better channel focus on SEO and organic growth. The agency’s strong commitment to uncovering easy wins should be applauded, not criticized
• An SEO Roadmap can change, but the correctly designed versions offer timeless benefits
• An SEO Roadmap that helps you save money by doing strong keyword research for you can save you hundreds of hours and thousands of dollars a year, ESPECIALLY when changes are afoot in the SEO world – because now you can easily pivot quickly
• An SEO Roadmap that can be changed to meet new product or brand demands is a living and breathing document that does nothing to hinder your performance, and does a lot to enhance it
• An SEO Roadmap with a team servicing it after the fact, especially with a world class team of professionals working with literally thousands of businesses, is a great partner to have. You get data and insights based on a large body of companies and industries which can help you avoid pitfalls that are industry agnostic. 

The bottom line is this: SEO can change. Usually it’s just getting more focused, or it’s eliminating the gaming of the system, and not the best practices. 

But as SEO changes, and search algorithms change to improve seeker results, you can stay abreast of those changes and have actionable intelligence to help you act more swiftly and with better results if you are paired with a digital agency that has the resources and the commitment to making and sustaining and supporting long-term SEO Roadmaps. 

And the right SEO roadmap should be built to accommodate for the short term, the intermediate and the long-term needs of the company, but should also put you in such a position that allows you to focus mostly on the long-term success of the brand and digital presence, by getting you ahead of the curve early on.