How Long Does It Take For SEO To Work?
The rewards of your search engine optimization efforts do not peak overnight. There’s a lot of work involved, with results often taking between two to four months to appear. Even when businesses massively increase SEO their efforts for Google, they might take longer than a year to reach their set goals since key performance indicators (KPIs) vary from business to business. But, if you’ve applied a proper SEO strategy, you’ll most likely see your pages ranking higher, leading to increased page visits, leads, and/or customers in this time frame.
Factors That Affect How Long It Takes For SEO To Work
The time it takes to see progress from SEO is determined by several factors, from your website’s history to the application of SEO techniques. Here are some things to consider:
Website History
The age of a website doesn’t always influence its search engine performance. Though, new websites will take time to find their place on Google. What makes a big difference is the authority that old websites have built up over time. Since they have a treasure trove of existing content (some of which may have been used by other sites as a resource, i.e., already backlinked), they have the advantage of being recognized by search engines, keeping them high in search results.
That said, even newer websites can be on par with well-established websites over time, as long as they churn out high-quality content and build authority through off-page SEO and backlinks.
Competition
Years ago, businesses who were ‘in the know’ used SEO to build their place in search engines’ top results pages, setting them apart from the competition. Nowadays, though, SEO is an integral practice of any online business, which means that more companies are competing over the top spot, making it much harder to rank highly.
The best way to get ahead is to invest in SEO early. The more time you waste thinking about it, the longer your competition will have to improve their on-page SEO and content output.
Keyword competition is also an important factor to consider. High-traffic keywords will take a longer time to see success in. But unique keywords or long-tail keywords will likely yield good results in a fraction of the time.
SEO Strategies
Not everyone can mount comprehensive SEO strategies right off the bat. Small businesses, for example, can’t employ digital marketers, content creators, or teams dedicated to SEO as larger competitors do. The number of resources you can allot for SEO can affect the speed at which you see results.
That said, you don’t need a fully-fledged team to get the basics of SEO down. You can learn about on-page SEO, off-page SEO, and technical SEO from mentors, resources (even online ones—some of which are free!), and paid courses. To get started, you can search, “what does an SEO specialist do?” and see what areas of knowledge you might be lacking in, then build those up.
Content
Content remains one of the most important ranking factors for SEO. But that doesn’t mean that you should be churning multiple average pieces a day (in fact, that might just get you into trouble with Google). What you should aim to do instead is regularly produce high-quality content that satisfies the search intent of your target market.
Make sure that each piece cements you as an authority and that it answers questions that your audience might be searching for. Once you can do that, apply all the best practices needed for content SEO, such as adding metadata, using keywords, optimizing the content with tools like Page-Optimizer Pro, etc., then you’ll get to the top of the SERPS even faster.
Links
Building links is essential in SEO because it signals to Google that you are an authority—a credible source that even other pages are looking to for information. It also helps Google categorize you into relevant topics that will bring you closer to potential leads. But Building a backlink portfolio takes a lot of time, especially if you have a sizable gap between you and your competition, so know that it’s a long term project.
Can You Speed Up SEO?
SEO is a long and continuous process. You can’t speed it up, especially if you want the results to be consistent and long-lasting. Sustainable SEO, although it takes some time and regular input of effort and resources is worth the wait once it starts delivering results.