Clients often assume that SEO is a one time process, once you’re in the top positions, you stay there too. This is one of the biggest misconceptions in search engine optimization, as it requires constant analysis and movement. To give a peek into the inner workings of SEO, I outline below the hypothetical scenario, what would happen if you quit SEO overnight.
No new keywords are added
An important part of SEO is constantly looking for new keyword opportunities and new content to publish / produce. If you stopped SEO, you would no longer score on new keywords. The website is down and will only score on the keywords it previously scored on. In the long run, your traffic will be reduced and you will no longer attract new visitors. This makes your website a lot less engaging for Google, your existing visitors will also decrease.
TIP! Google is always looking for websites that are engaging for new visitors, A website that looks dead is dead.
What we can learn from this is that if you stop looking for new keywords and stop producing new content, Google finds that your website is no longer as active as it was before. As a result, your website will slowly decrease in value. Therefore, constantly look for new potential keywords and keep expanding your website with new pages, so that Google sees that there is activity.
Existing content no longer updated
Within the optimization for Google, existing pages also need to be regularly updated. This not only keeps your website up to date, but also keeps it moving. When updating existing content, think of updating facts and dates (2020 instead of 2019 for example), but also adding new internal links to new pages. Not to forget, of course, expanding content or changing sentences.
When you do this once in a while and re-index the page through Google Search Console, you will notice that Google sees new content and assigns a refreshed value to it, and you will notice the pages climbing back up in the SERPs. 
This phenomenon also works the other way around. If you don’t regularly update your content, Google will see that the page is stationary, which will eventually result in a lower rating. Always make sure that you continue to refresh your content.
The website is no longer technically maintained
A website is like a computer, sometimes things spontaneously break down. No matter how well your website builder has built the website, technical errors can always occur. Think not only of broken links, but also of a page speed that can slowly decrease, crawlability errors, responsiveness errors and many other parts. Sometimes the mistakes are small, but if they are not tracked and fixed immediately, they can eventually add up considerably. This can be annoying not only for visitors, but also for Google.
The mistakes can be small, but there will only be one of them that will kill you. Therefore, make sure that you regularly subject your website to a technical check and that everything is in order. For these kinds of checks I always recommend the site audit of SEMRush or Screaming Frog.
The authority is no longer kept
If you don’t do SEO anymore overnight, this will also affect the authority of your website. Stopping the production of new content will first of all ensure that your activity on the socials will also decrease. You no longer have anything to share, which will decrease the number of social shares, likes and other citations. Opinions about the exact influence of social media on your ranking in Google differ, but it is certain that there is a certain correlation between social media and the authority of your website.
In addition to reduced activity on social media, quitting SEO also means that you no longer look for new link possibilities and interesting websites to come up with. Just like with content, it is important for Google that a website keeps getting new impulses to be considered important. If you stop this, this will eventually cause Google to see your website as less important.
Besides the fact that you would no longer generate new links, you cannot blindly assume that all existing links will continue to refer to your website. If you suddenly quit SEO, you can say that your website will eventually lose links. It is therefore important to be brief and to check whether you are not losing links via tools such as Ahrefs and Majestic. If this is the case, you can see what it is and analyze how you get these links back.<
The above scenarios are all aimed at keeping existing links and generating new links. But new links are not necessarily good. There may also be bad links between them. Your website can be attacked by malware, competitors can do negative SEO on your website or other scenarios can take place. It’s good to keep an eye on this and update your disavow file once in a while. This prevents bad links from having too much influence on your website and your website will be less appreciated by Google.
Conclusion
All in all, it is not good to stop SEO in any scenario. If you stop doing this, it will ensure that no new content is added to your website and that existing content is no longer updated; your website is down and is no longer in motion. In addition, various technical errors can occur that can eventually blow. Even in the field of link building, you have to constantly monitor things.
A lot of work, I know , but you have to do something to hold the top positions in Google!