4 SEO practices with diminishing returns

Whether it’s time, money, or expertise, marketing resources are finite.

In today’s world, with advances in AI and more efficient tools than ever, businesses expect better results with fewer resources.

That means every second spent on an SEO campaign matters.

To keep up, SEOs must focus on actions that truly move the needle – without wasting time or unnecessary effort.

This article highlights SEO activities that have diminishing returns – where the effort eventually outweighs the benefits – and offers tips on optimizing more effectively.

1. Page speed improvements

Not long ago, I had a client who was obsessed with page speed. 

The site’s page speed was excellent, with 100% of its pages passing Core Web Vitals on desktop and more than 95% passing on mobile.

And yet, they still wanted every URL to be rated “good” for mobile and every page speed test score to be a perfect 100/100. 

Achieving that would have required painstaking hours digging through code and cleaning up things like unused JavaScript to rework how pages loaded.

Let’s be clear – page speed is important! 

Plenty of data shows that improving page speed can boost conversion rates, especially for ecommerce stores. 

But if a page loads in under two seconds, is interactive quickly, and doesn’t have disruptive layout shifts, a site can gain only minor performance boosts by shaving off additional milliseconds.

Once a site meets Core Web Vitals standards, further page speed optimizations have diminishing returns. 

Unless a business handles a high volume of on-page transactions daily, it’s usually better to focus on other areas for improvement.

Now, if your page takes 10 seconds to load, has poor interactivity, and webpage elements move around while users try to click, then this should be a priority. 

But if most of your pages pass Core Web Vitals and the user experience is solid, agonizing over page speed makes no sense.

The client in the example above had much bigger priorities, like cleaning up rampant over-indexing or pruning their stockpile of old, outdated content. 

Although this was explained to them, they ignored it, despite efforts to prevent them from wasting time on a dead end.

2. Increasing backlink authority

Many businesses fixate on backlink authority, seeing it as a silver bullet for rankings while overlooking issues like:

• Poor keyword targeting.
• Content cannibalization.
• Weak internal linking.

Link building is not dead. Plenty of studies and anecdotal evidence prove it.

Building link authority can be the missing piece that pushes rankings onto Page 1, especially for new websites or brand-new pages on an existing site.

But if your website’s authority is well established and content ranks the second it’s published, then building links can have diminishing returns.

It can even start to work against a site that:

• Chases poor-quality link opportunities.
• Gets overly spammy with anchor text.
• Pursues links from places that aren’t relevant to its content.

Does that mean you should stop link building altogether? 

No! Always take a quality link if you can get it. 

But depending on a website’s level of authority, more success may come from focusing efforts elsewhere – such as content strategy, public relations, or conversion rate optimization (CRO).

3. Publishing net-new content

Another client insisted on producing only new content.

Refreshing old articles or removing underperforming pages was off the table.

For a while, the strategy worked, and the website saw gains in nonbranded performance.

However, there was a tipping point – continuously adding new content eventually led to performance declines.

Why?

Writing only net-new content for years caused internal cannibalization, as multiple articles covered similar topics. 

Relevant topics also became scarce, leading to content that was only loosely related – or even unrelated – to the company’s services.

HubSpot has been in SEO news recently for this exact reason. 

When a marketing automation software company writes on topics around business credit cards, performance starts to move in the wrong direction.

So what does this all mean? 

Writing net-new content can not only have diminishing returns but, if done incorrectly, can actually hurt performance. 

Instead, it may be more effective to focus on:

• Refreshing old content.
• Improving internal linking.
• Promoting existing content.

4. Refreshing old content

I know – I just said refreshing old content is often better than focusing only on new content.

But stick with me.

There’s no debate: Refreshing old content is both a successful and necessary SEO tactic. 

Search engines prioritize fresh content, and some of the easiest and most effective wins come from updating existing content to be more accurate and relevant.

We surveyed about 850 enterprise-level marketers and found that updating existing content provided a greater performance lift than creating new content.

It should come as no surprise that the biggest growth comes from content refreshes. 

As noted in the previous section, creating new content was cited as the largest source of traffic loss between the two strategies.

However, even content refreshes have diminishing returns. 

The Pareto Principle, also known as the 80/20 rule, states that roughly 80% of results come from 20% of the inputs. 

This applies to on-site content – about 80% of traffic or conversions typically come from just 20% of a website’s pages.

Naturally, returns will be much higher when focusing on top-performing pages and gradually decline as you move further down the list.

Does that mean you should only focus on the top 20% of your content and ignore the rest?

Absolutely not! 

But it does help put things into perspective. 

While it may be tempting to squeeze more performance out of every article, refreshing low-volume or low-relevance content eventually will not provide value. 

Sometimes, it’s best to leave an article alone or retire it – and that’s OK.

Dig deeper: SEO prioritization – How to focus on what moves the needle

Where should you spend your time?

Where to focus SEO efforts depends on various factors. 

A newer website, for example, will likely need to prioritize link building and generating new content. 

Meanwhile, a website with a large library of existing content and strong authority should focus more on content refreshes and leveraging existing traffic through UX and CRO strategies.

With so many ranking factors at play, no single tactic ensures success. 

Winning in SEO requires a combination of strategies and tactics. 

It’s on you to allocate resources wisely. Make sure every effort contributes meaningful value, avoiding the law of diminishing returns.

Dig deeper: Prioritizing SEO strategies: Where to focus your efforts