Your brand’s keyword strategy will likely evolve over time, as you incorporate new products and offerings into your business, and as your branding and marketing messages evolve. But even if your business’s positioning and products remain the same for years and years, it’s still important that you update your keyword strategy.
So, how often should a brand update its keyword strategy? The short answer to our question is at least once every 3-6 months. That being said, there are some factors that you should consider before finalizing your keyword update methodology.
Keyword Strategy Explained
As you continue to monitor the data from Google Analytics and Google Search Console, keep track of your top-performing keywords on each page. If some keywords are generating less traffic than others, it may be time to revise your website’s keyword focus.
This usually involves adding new keywords that are either more relevant to your brand or more prevalent according to Google’s keyword data. By realigning your brand towards words and phrases that you want to rank for on search engines, your website will see improvements in organic web traffic and conversion rates.
After arranging a new strategy with keywords frequently searched by your target audience, your website can be reoptimized. Try adjusting title tags, meta descriptions, headings, and on-page content to include the preferred keywords. Depending on the keywords, it’s also worthwhile to consider how they can be highlighted in your next blog article.
Soon after you optimize your pages, Google will crawl the website and algorithmically reconsider your place in the rankings. Keep in mind that keyword-optimized content needs to be relevant to real humans, as well as Google. Stuffing keywords into every sentence will actually harm your search engine rankings in the long run.
Refresh after Changes to Your Brand Identity
When you make adjustments to your business model or brand identity, it’s also a good idea to revisit your keyword strategy. Changes to your offerings could mean big things for your keyword focus. For example, if your lunch restaurant starts offering breakfast, it’s a good idea to add breakfast-relevant keywords to your strategy, alongside the lunch keywords. This way, Google can help you start building rapport among the breakfast crowd.
Keep in mind that SEO updates don’t need to be reserved for major changes to your business. Keyword updates can also be implemented after smaller-scale changes to your business or when adding new pages to your website.
Revise after an Extended Holding Pattern
Even if there aren’t any major shifts to your business, it is still important to update your keyword strategy on a fairly regular basis. As mentioned above, you’ll want to try refreshing your content about once every 3-6 months with a new set of keywords found in your keyword research.
If your keyword strategy is left alone for too long, you’ll start seeing a gradual decline in ranking. This happens when your current keyword strategy has become less relevant to consumers that are finding new ways to search for a product or service. Keep an eye out for the following:
- Keywords you’re using now that are no longer relevant to your business;
- Keywords you’re using now that have fallen out of favor with your target audience;
- New keywords that your target audience is now searching more frequently.
By revisiting your keyword strategy on a scheduled basis, you’ll be able to integrate new keywords that generate more clicks and conversions from your audience.
The key to retaining strong organic search results lies with your team’s ability to identify and optimize for the most relevant keywords for your brand. Keep in mind that adjusting keywords too frequently will make your rankings unstable, so don’t go overboard on the changes.
