Debunking the Myth of the One-And-Done SEO Project

Debunking the Myth of the One-And-Done SEO Project

Sadly, Adam Savage and Jamie Hyneman hung up their myth-busting hats in 2018 when the final episode of Mythbusters aired. Since then, we’ve been in a lawless wasteland of wild speculation in their absence.

And while I might not be able to answer if a boat made of duct tape can float or if being slapped in the face can sober you up, I do like to think I’m qualified to go face-to-face with SEO myths.

With that, let’s tackle one that I’ve seen bouncing around in a couple of places: the myth that with a couple of months of SEO and a solid foundation, you’re good to go and never have to worry about it again.

And to test it, let’s look at three aspects of SEO we know to be true, starting with:

Keeping up with Google’s algorithm updates is a never-ending climb

Once you’re at the top of the mountain, where do you go? Google’s team of search developers spit at the idea of becoming complacent despite the company’s overwhelming market share. Instead, the team is consistently working on ways to make the metaphorical mountain even bigger.

This means they’re constantly testing ways to improve the algorithm—something we value at Perfect Search. Several times every year, Google releases a Core Algorithm Update, often shifting the SEO landscape drastically and reimagining how domains and URLs are valued and ranked. If that wasn’t enough, they also release 3-5 updates every day, usually without any fanfare or announcement. 

If you decide to try and go with the one-and-done SEO approach, you’ll find yourself behind as your optimizations will inevitably become outdated. What Google is looking for one day won’t be a priority the next, and a good SEO campaign stays up-to-date and adjusts accordingly.

All in all, with Google’s constant changes to its search algorithm, marketing leaders must stay vigilant with their SEO efforts. Or else they may summit one day only to find that Google has moved the goalposts and added a new peak.

SERPs don’t age like whiskey

As an extremely amateur whiskey connoisseur, I can tell you that newer isn’t always better. There’s a reason the bottles on the top shelf were distilled closer to prohibition than today, while the age of the stuff at your shins can be counted in years on one hand.

But on the other hand, we have SEO. And on the SERPs, newer is usually king.

Search engines recognize that when users are looking for information, they’re not looking for something old and outdated. Information moves fast on the web in the 21st century, and websites need to keep up. Your blog might rank first today, but what happens in six months when you haven’t touched it and your competitor has a newer, fresher blog with links to new resources?

SEO marketers monitor how pages are ranking. They’re actively monitoring and are ready and waiting to spring into action when performance starts to slip by making technical updates, improving existing resources, and creating fresh content.

Showing the search engines you’re committed to keeping your site updated and in the know makes it more likely you’ll keep those top rankings and hold off the competitors gunning for your spot.

How to stay ahead with never-before-searched keywords

On Feb 15, 2022, Google tweeted a fun fact—15% of all Google searches have never been searched before. Curious that there was no mention of my birthday, also on February 15, but I’ll save that vendetta for a different blog.

What this means for SEO is that every day, there are 15% more keywords that we can target. How many of us had thought to optimize our blogs for “COVID-19”,  “murder hornets”, or “Armie Hammer cannibal” before 2020? Think of how many new keywords will be searched this year and the potential opportunities that exist.

While we’re waiting for those new keywords to arise, let’s not ignore the keywords that already exist and have been searched. Your target audience is on Google, regardless of how niche or broad.

Unless you have hundreds and hundreds of articles in the blog on your site, you’ve probably not answered every question people may have searched. And if you do have hundreds of blog posts, when was the last time they were all updated? I hope you haven’t forgotten about the importance of keeping your articles fresh, which was highlighted a few paragraphs back.

If you’ve read this far, I think you know where we stand on the myth of the one-and-done SEO project:

BUSTED.

For your entertainment, the aforementioned clips:

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