How Long Does SEO Take To Show Results?

How long does it take before SEO shows results?

I hear this question so much, especially with new SEO (Search Engine Optimization) clients because they have never purchased any kind of digital marketing campaign before and have no idea what to expect as a first-timer.

Paid ads are often very different from SEO because companies can actually almost immediately see the results of their campaigns and see the success of their ads by gaining more leads, more customers, and increased revenue.

SEO is often misunderstood because of the difficulty of being able to gauge the effectiveness of the campaign immediately, however, these campaigns require patience on the client’s part since there are so many factors involved in this intricate and delicate dance of a process.

It is vital that you understand that SEO is a long-term game and you have to be in it for the long haul. SEO does not occur overnight and this is what many people find frustrating with the SEO process. Expect to see results for your website within 4 – 6 months especially if you have a brand-new website.

And what do I mean when I say results? Results are tangible occurrences that can be measured in your Google Analytics data report, such as your organic website traffic, leads, or conversions and let’s not forget your most important goal such as a ‘Thank You’ page because a customer placed an order.

Brand new sites haven’t earned Google’s trust yet and it will take much longer for that site to rank especially if it hasn’t been around for at least 12-24 months. New sites have no domain authority since no one has linked to them yet so Google considers these sites irrelevant.

It’s almost as if Google sets them in the penalty box, isolates them from the other sites, and is kept farther away from page one because they are thought of as suspicious. Google makes sites earn their search engine ranking and it takes time to earn top search visibility, therefore, this is the reason why only the best match is shown to visitors.

So how long does Google say it takes to see results?

Google’s Maile Ohye shares her advice for hiring an SEO agency and what to expect when beginning an SEO campaign and how long it may take before you see success. This video explains what influences your SEO strategy and why it takes time to rank on Google after beginning an SEO Digital Marketing Plan.

What to do before hiring an SEO Agency?

Apply these steps in your SEO hiring process:

· Conduct an interview with your potential SEO agency to see if they are genuinely interested in you and your business.
· Make sure you check their references.
· Request a technical and full search website audit
· Then decide how you want to move forward with hiring this company

What are the Top 3 ranking factors you should pay attention to?

These 3 factors will propel your site to better visibility and better ranking when they are implemented correctly.

- Technical SEO

If there are technical SEO issues present on your site, they will need to be fixed before you can expect to see any growth from a digital marketing campaign. This is a major ranking factor that resides on the back end of your website that your visitors will never see.

Some examples of technical SEO issues include:

Site crawling and indexing – ability for Google’s bots to crawl and index your site
Site speed – site speed should be less than 3 seconds to load
Canonicalization – tags that tell Google the URL is the original not a re-direct
Thin/Duplicate content – duplicate pages with the exact content or thin content
XML sitemaps – Google reads files that list all pages, posts and images on a site
Mobile-first indexing – search engines prioritize mobile versions of sites
And more

- Content

Im sure everyone is familiar with the slogan that ‘Content is King’ but did you know that it remains one of Google’s top 3 ranking factors?

Google prides itself on only displaying the best results for a user’s keyword search because giving poor content to visitors will only cause them to use another search engine instead. Because Google has made this a priority, they now make up 95% of the marketshare in search engines used by visitors globally.

- Backlinks

Backlinks are the number 3 ranking factor for appearing on page 1 for your services and products. Why are backlinks so important to earning your place at Google’s high table alongside your competition? Backlinks are votes of confidence between 2 websites and therefore, Google recognizes that trust and popularity by supercharging a website’s ranking allowing the higher ranking site to share its ‘link juice’ with the lower ranking site thus increasing its ranking in the process.

This is why it takes time to effectively rank and we must not forget that our site needs to have compelling content which can be accomplished by simply publishing informative blog articles at least once a month with at least 1000 words. The idea here is to create content that your visitors want to link to and this is how you naturally gain backlinks.

I must reiterate that obtaining backlinks is crucial for your site’s progress, however, quality outranks quantity in your backlink profile. If you just get as many links as you can pointing back to your site, Google will penalize your site’s rankings since this technique is spammy, dishonest and so 1999-ish.

Only backlinks that are non-toxic, niche-related and belong to sites with high domain authority will help boost your site over time. So do be careful about the link-building techniques you implement for your business site as you want to keep your website as healthy as possible.

What to do if your Google rankings arent increasing?

Here are a few reasons why your site’s ranking has not improved even after SEO techniques and strategies have been applied.

You have over-optimized your anchor text
You have under-optimized your anchor text
Keyword density is too high – The natural flow of text is interrupted by too many mentions of your targeted keyword and Google has become aware of it, and has consequently penalized your site.
You don’t have enough citations for your business
You don’t have enough online reviews

Monitoring your SEO strategy after it has been implemented is extremely crucial because you can find it out early on if some tweaking is needed to make your campaign more effective. Keep in mind that SEO is not a one-time set it and forget it tactic.

A strategy requires frequent monitoring and tracking and of course, maintenance. Staying focus with implementing the correct resources will help you reach your expected results much quicker and strengthen your website profile.

Conclusion

So don’t lose faith in SEO techniques that are white-hat friendly but are still not causing your website to budge or just seem to be plain stuck. So how to fix that? This is unfortunately the nature of implementing SEO and don’t let Google release an update that further knocks your ranking down even more. Feeling frustrated doesn’t even begin to cover the multitude of emotions that arise.

Even though this may seem pointless to continue with your SEO efforts, however, there is something that can be done to get your rankings moving again.

Sometimes, it can be just a simple re-evaluation of your current strategy to locate gaps that exist since an SEO strategy usually covers a lot of ground and some techniques may not be effective anymore or are missing.

Contact us so we can develop an effective SEO strategy that includes adding niche-related content for your blogs as a monthly service that Google will absolutely love. Effective Search Engine Optimization Services for your business website will not only improve your site’s ranking but get your site the attention is deserves.

Until next time…