It's been repeated endlessly and yet the message seems to never get through! A website is not a one time, one-off project just to get to a permanent position of Google PageRank One. Visitor traffic and search engine indexing are constantly changing. SEO is an ongoing process reflecting movement and performance, which constantly modifies website ranking.
It's unsurprising that website owners become a little confused and distrustful when web designers promise all manner of magic bullets, reinforced by long held SEO myths to get a website to No.1 overnight! It may be one of the reasons why around 40 per cent of websites have no SEO keywords at all. The process appears to be constantly shrouded in mystery in a world where the workings of Google cannot be easily grasped and site owners, inevitably, shy away.
The key principle to understand is that the Google PageRank algorithm changes how it indexes website relevance on an irregular basis and no one knows exactly when or how will it change in the future. This is the reason why a website is never 'done' and why keyword optimisation and fresh site content should be frequently updated as part of a company's online marketing schedule.
Page ranking is always unconditional, keyword modifications have a limited shelf life and 'organic' natural results can change overnight. Site owners need to understand that a website design, optimisation and performance may be tuned to a prevailing online human search culture of a specific market niche impacting SERPS results but the situation is never permanent.
Today's Google algorithm evaluates both on-site and off-site factors. Site optimisation for targeted keywords is a part of the process of establishing credible and trusted brand identity and consequently, without doubt, inbound link building is now of vital importance. Essentially, Google values websites with many incoming links as possessing 'higher authority' on a specific subject than another site with less links, resulting in a higher 'organic' position.
Remember - rank is not an absolute! Appearing to respond to the widespread influence of social media and local search relevance, Google may show relevant search tweets and take into account many more personalised profile needs than former basic keyword mechanics. Both Google and Bing have begun changing their page layouts to be more locally focused and are more likely to now include the most relevant search results for a geographic area showing a map of related local businesses.
Website design and performance is a moving dynamic seen in relation to the bigger web picture. Change is the only constant, and keeping web presence optimised for driving traffic should be a regular activity.