5 Reasons SEO is a Long-Term Investment

Optimising your website for search engines is not a quick fix. Rather, SEO is a long-term investment that, when done correctly, delivers incredible returns over time.

If you’re not seeing the results you want, it may be because you’re treating SEO like a box to check, rather than a long-term strategy that requires continuous effort and regular monitoring.

Let’s take a look at five key reasons why SEO is a long game. Our team at Kinetic Traffic has also prepared some tips on how you can improve your strategy to see better results.

#1 – Dirty Tricks Can Land You in Google Jail

Google jail is a real thing. If you try to game the system by using black hat SEO tactics, you’ll end up with a penalty that will tank your rankings.

Black hat SEO refers to any unethical SEO practice that aims to manipulate search engine results.

One common example of black hat SEO is keyword stuffing, which means filling a piece of content with an unnatural amount of keywords in an attempt to convince Google that your page is the most relevant result.

The thing is, the Google algorithm is not stupid. Google did not become the world’s most popular search engine by being easily duped.

In fact, the algorithm is constantly evolving to become smarter and better at detecting spammy content. If you’re caught using black hat SEO tactics – and you will be – your website will be penalised and your rankings will take a nosedive. This, in turn, will cause a significant decrease in traffic and lost revenue for your law firm.

It’s important to stay up to date with the latest changes and only use white hat SEO techniques, which are those that abide by Google’s rules.

Don’t risk your business for faster results. Play fair and you’ll be rewarded in the long run.

#2 – Domain Authority Doesn’t Happen Overnight

Domain authority (DA) is the rating that SEO companies use to measure how reputable and trustworthy your website is.

DA is measured on a scale of 1-100, with 100 being the best.

You can check your site’s score on sites like Moz.com. According to Moz, only three websites in the world have a score of 100 (Google, YouTube and Blogger, in case you were wondering.)

Google exists to satisfy user intent, which means that it wants to direct its users towards authoritative content from reputable sources. Therefore, the higher your DA, the more likely it that your pages will rank for relevant keywords.

You can’t simply create a website and then expect it to have a high DA overnight. Just as it takes a while to build a great reputation as a solicitor in real life, it takes time and effort for your website to build up authority In the online sphere.
You can improve your DA by publishing high-quality content, getting backlinks from reputable websites, and optimising your pages for keywords.

But remember, it’s a slow process that requires patience and dedication. Don’t expect to see results overnight – it could take months before you see significant improvements in your DA.

However, that’s not to say it’s not worth the effort. A website with high DA can bring in a lot of leads for your law firm, so it’s definitely worth your time and investment.

#3 – You Need to Publish Relevant Content Consistently

In order to rank highly in Google, you need to publish original and relevant content on a regular basis.

Google uses spiders to crawl the web and index pages for its search results. The more often a page is updated, the more likely it is to be crawled and indexed by Google.

This means that if you want to improve your rankings for your chosen search terms, you need to publish new content consistently.

If you’re only publishing one blog post per month, you’re not going to see the results you want. In fact, you’ll be lucky if your page appears on the second results page!

However, you can’t publish any old content. Relevance is even more important than consistency.

For example, if your firm specialises in family law, then your content must centre around this topic to show the Google algorithm that you are an authority on the subject.

Trying to be a jack-of-all-trades will only confuse search engines. Stick to your specialisms and focus on creating high-quality content around them to prove that your website is a valuable resource.

#4 – The Google Algorithm is Always Changing

The Google algorithm is constantly changing, which means that you need to keep up with the latest changes if you want your law firm’s website to rank high.

Google is constantly tweaking and updating its algorithm in order to provide the best possible user experience. This means that the tactics that worked last year may not work this year, and the tactics that work this year may not work next year.

However, what will always work is ensuring that your website is relevant, popular and technically sound.

SEO is more than the sum of its parts. Tactics are pieces of the puzzle, but SEO is the whole picture, and you need the knowledge to be able to assemble it correctly.

If you continue to invest in quality, white hat SEO, the results will come – and you won’t have to worry about plummeting from page one to page seventy overnight.

#5 – Competition

Every law firm owner wants to rank at the top of the results pages for their chosen search terms. This means that once you make it to the top you can’t afford to relax and rest on your laurels, because you can be sure that your competitors are still striving to knock you off.

In order to maintain a high ranking, you need to keep up the good work. It’s the same as getting in shape – once you’ve achieved your dream physique, you can’t then quit the gym and start eating McDonalds every day. You need to continue working hard in order to maintain your results.

Final Thoughts

SEO is a long game, and it’s not easy to achieve top rankings. However, if you’re willing to put in the effort and dedication, you can definitely see amazing results over time. Stay focused on providing high-quality content that’s worth reading and sharing, and don’t be tempted by black hat SEO tactics. Patience is most definitely a virtue when it comes to search engine optimisation, but it’s one for which you will be handsomely rewarded.

At Kinetic our mission is to empower law firm owners with our SEO knowledge. That’s why we’ve created a free ebook to teach you what it really takes to build a great strategy for your law firm so that you can receive more traffic, leads and enquiries than ever before. Click here to learn more and download your free copy now.