How long does it take to succeed at SEO?
If you believe those spam emails that probably litter your junk tray then SEO is simple and they can get you to rank number one on Google in no time at all. If you have worked in the industry for any length of time you will be aware of just how spurious those claims are.
The purpose of this blog is to educate you on the realities of SEO and the expected timeframes. You can;t expect overnight success is the key takeaway. Nor can you expect success in a month or even 6 if you are looking for proper success then you should be measuring on the impact of your SEO efforts between 6 and 12 months later.
There is just so much competition for space on the internet now. Imagine how many blog posts are created daily for the terms you want to win. How many videos are filmed, images created etc. What you need to do is ensure all of your content is created correctly and tagged titles and named in the best way possible to win your battles. Make no mistake this is a battle. You are going up against your competitors and most likely if you sell online the likes of Amazon and ebay have reather a lot of cash to spend.
SEO when starting from scratch
If you are building your business from scratch and expect instant ranking on Google then please don’t start. Over the years I have spoken to so many people who have set their website live and expect to be able to search for it in the next hour. It doesn’t work like that, which is why you should add your business to places like Google my Business and LinkedIn straight away. They are far more likely to turn up in branded search results in the first few weeks.
A brand new domain should expect to see results within 9 to 12 months, rather than 6 to 12.
These two quotes are from very respected journals on SEO and make so much sense. So if you are looking for an agency to help with your SEO then think about the long game. It is an investmnet for the future and will remain good work for much longer than some PPC work that is gone with the wind.
For the vast majority, you’re looking at ~6-12+ months of obscurity before a piece of content ranks in the top three for anything meaningful.
