In July 2014 we were commissioned by the founders of a startup to assist with their search engine optimisation. Their startup was poised to disrupt the events industry and they appreciated how important it was to get their search engine optimisation correctly position right from the beginning. We were brought in and assisted the design and development teams with ensuring that the right matters were in place on the website prior to the official launch. Our first task was to ensure that the foundation was as optimised as possible. We performed an audit on the website as it stood and then guided the developers into making changes that would attract Google and the other search engines. Following the launch of the website, shortly after the initial implementation, we moved into a second implementation phase based on Google's reaction to the website. In the graph below we can see that implementation started towards the end of 2014 and some initial results were seen over the festive season. Our primary focus was on ensuring that the website and all of its parts were being indexed correctly with Google. From there we could affect changes that would encourage growth and an increase in organic traffic. 
By the time 2015 rolled into the picture, iMod Digital was hired for 6 months to get hands on with the website and optimise it on a monthly basis. We commenced work with further implementation starting in February 2015 as indicated by the annotation in the chart below and continued working on the website until the end of July 2015. We set up an incredibly strong foundation for the website and shared a great deal of insight with the team to ensure that they were publishing effectively and not missing anything SEO related. At the end of our 6 month contract, the company was forced to move their budget around into other matters. We explained that they would be alright for a few months because of the strong foundation we'd built and that from this there would be momentum. Unfortunately, after a few months it's very clear that the momentum we created started to lose traction and the organic traffic started to drop. We're often asked about SEO and whether it's a once off process or a continuous one. The answer is fairly straight forward:
By the time 2015 rolled into the picture, iMod Digital was hired for 6 months to get hands on with the website and optimise it on a monthly basis. We commenced work with further implementation starting in February 2015 as indicated by the annotation in the chart below and continued working on the website until the end of July 2015. We set up an incredibly strong foundation for the website and shared a great deal of insight with the team to ensure that they were publishing effectively and not missing anything SEO related. At the end of our 6 month contract, the company was forced to move their budget around into other matters. We explained that they would be alright for a few months because of the strong foundation we'd built and that from this there would be momentum. Unfortunately, after a few months it's very clear that the momentum we created started to lose traction and the organic traffic started to drop. We're often asked about SEO and whether it's a once off process or a continuous one. The answer is fairly straight forward: Google are continually updating their algorithm that decides which website appears where, and because of these continual changes it's crucial to sustain your SEO. There are a dozen other reasons, but this is one of the most important - momentum.
It's essentially that people understand the importance of momentum and sustainability when it comes to search engine optimisation. Embarking on an SEO journey should not be done lightly, there will come a point in many projects where a website carries itself for a certain amount of time provided the company doing the SEO has done things exceptionally well, but this momentum will simply not carry itself indefinitely and without sustaining the work, a website will drop its search visibility as can be seen in the graph above. All too often, companies feel that when the SEO is underway that a website will continue to grow without further work. Unfortunately this is a common mistake and one that results in a lot of companies wasting a great deal of money when their website regresses.