Climbing up the rankings of a search engine can often seem like climbing Mount Kilimanjaro. Like climbing that mountain, though, patient progress will see you achieve your desired ranking. Also like that mountain, it can be easy to get dizzy and lose your way in the excitement once you’re at the top.

The way to cope with progress after a good hard slog is to keep moving. Sitting down and resting causes things to seize up and stop working. It is the same with SEO. Your SEO consultant will usually have gone through the sorts of things you need to do to touch up your site’s search engine optimisation over time. From this, you should write a checklist that shows you your daily, weekly and monthly tasks. In assigning tasks, pay some attention to scheduling, so that you’re checking your rankings on the right day and so on.

There are some things that aren’t necessarily on a regular SEO checklist that you should also keep an eye on:

SEO news check

The SEO community is very forthcoming with information, news and updates. This may be motivated by the need for sites to provide fresh content (yes, SEOs do follow their own advice) but you get all the benefit.

After the main SEO work of your site has been done, take the time to browse some SEO industry blogs. Subscribe to the ones you like. It’s also good to join some search forums to catch any news that might have snuck under the professional radar. Once you’ve subscribed, ensure you actually read your updates. Scheduling a time is a good idea for such an easily put-off task.

Competitor check

It’s important to regularly check your competitors. It’s important to keep an eye on their rankings and watch new sites as they rise through the rankings, but it’s also important to visit them at home. Check the human side of your competitors’ websites, and check what the search engines see by looking at their source code.

Links check

Checking the validity of your site’s links should be a part of your regular SEO and website maintenance routines. Checking links isn’t just about existing links, though. Whenever you browse through the sites for your industry, keep an eye on who’s linking to whom. If someone starts up a blog in your area, talk to them to see if they want to link to you. If there is a site that has all of your competitors’ links, contact them to see if they would like to link to you as well.

SEO should be maintained just like your regular website maintenance. When maintaining your SEO, it can be good to keep in touch with your SEO firm for help. You can talk to us at SEO Consult about your plans for future and ongoing SEO. If you wish to provide at least some of your site’s SEO maintenance yourself, however, sticking to your checklist is an easy way to keep an eye on things.

Related posts:

1. Staying On Top After SEO
2. What To Look For in SEO Competitor Analysis
3. SEO Content Plan Step Two: Checklists
4. SEO: Help! Google Hates Me!
5. Google and automatic rankings checks

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This entry was posted on Thursday, November 26th, 2009 at 4:05 pm and is filed under Search Engine Optimisation Advice. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.