Why SEO Isn't Something You Set and Forget

Every time we launch a website, I run it through a checklist. Right now it's 36 items long. In the next month or two, it'll probably be at 40. 

That checklist changes because Google changes. The way search works in 2026 isn't the way it worked in 2024, and it certainly isn't the way it worked in 2014 when I started PlusCode. What ranks today might not rank tomorrow. What used to be a nice to have is now a must have. What used to be standard practice can actually hurt you now.

So we keep adapting. That's the job.

The checklist is a moving target

Here's what people don't always realize when they hire someone to build a website. The technical decisions made on launch day affect how you show up in search for years. Page structure, URL formatting, schema markup, image handling, internal linking, mobile performance, accessibility, content depth. Every one of those has a right answer right now, and that right answer keeps shifting.

When I find something new that Google is rewarding, I add it to the checklist. When something stops mattering, I take it off. When something starts actively hurting sites, I flag it and we fix it. That's not glamorous work, but it's the difference between a site that quietly performs for years and a site that quietly disappears.

You don't see the checklist. You see the result. But the checklist is why the result happens.

AI search is already changing the game

I was at The Owl last week talking with Ryan, the owner. He told me that a few people had recently come in saying they'd asked ChatGPT for fun things to do around Milan, and The Owl came up in the answer. People walked through his door because an AI recommended him.

That's a real shift. It's not theoretical anymore. People are asking AI tools for restaurant picks, service recommendations, weekend plans, and home repair help. The businesses showing up in those answers aren't the ones with the loudest ads. They're the ones with clear, well-structured websites and a strong local presence that AI tools can actually understand and trust.

A year ago, optimizing for AI search wasn't on most checklists. Today it is. A year from now, the criteria will probably look different again. That's the pace.

What a professional actually gives you

When you work with someone who does this for a living, you're not just buying a website. You're buying the years of pattern recognition that go into knowing what to do and what to skip.

You're buying someone who reads the changes, tests them on real sites, and updates the playbook so your project benefits from everything we've learned on the last fifty.

You're buying someone who notices when your traffic dips and knows whether to wait it out or dig in.

You're buying someone who is still paying attention six months after launch, when the people who built a site and walked away have long since lost interest in whether it's still working.

The truth

You can build a website yourself. The tools to do it have never been better. But a website that's just there is different from a website that's actually working for you. And the gap between those two outcomes usually comes down to whether someone is paying attention to the parts you can't see.

That's the part I love about this work. Not the launch day excitement, though that's fun too. The long quiet work of keeping your site ranking, showing up, and pulling its weight, year after year, while Google and AI and the whole internet keeps reshaping itself underneath it.

If you've got a website that hasn't been touched in a few years, or if you've never been sure whether the SEO you're paying for is actually doing anything, let's have a conversation. I'd rather you know exactly what's working and what isn't than guess.