How long does SEO take?

Many business owners hold unrealistic expectations when it comes to SEO and achieving a top search engine ranking. More often than not, people expect instant results as soon as their SEO is started on their site and for organic leads & enquiries to start flooding in. However, this is definitely not the case.

SEO takes a lot of time & effort and is never truly finished or completed. Not only do websites need constantly updating and editing to achieve a substantial ranking, even once you have achieved a top ranking the SEO of a site is ongoing in order to maintain the result.

This is not to say that short term ranking improvements are impossible, however Google are quick to penalise sites that it deems to be suspicious due to a sudden increase in rankings, as it automatically assumes that the site is using what are known as “black hat” tactics or that in some way the algorithm is being cheated. Although in the short term the rankings may look good, you need to be thinking long term, e.g. 6-12 months to begin seeing true organic improvements.

Where should we start with SEO?

First things first, before Google or any other search engine can take your site seriously you need to ensure that your sites functionality and site health is as good as it can be. There are many tools and software available to marketers to check a websites overall health; these can be found via a quick Google search. The higher the score out of 100%, the more preferable your site is for Google to give you a high ranking position.

We aim for a score of 90%+ before we start implementing any content strategies, or other on & off-page SEO tasks. This gives the site the best opportunity to rank prior to the following being implemented into the site:

• On-page & Off-page SEO
• SEO Friendly Design, Structure, and Architecture
• Keyword Targeting and Competitor Analysis
• Content Strategy
• Link Building

When can I expect to see results then?

Unfortunately, due to the everchanging requirements and lack of foresight with regards to regularly changing Google algorithms, there is no definitive answer to this. Different sites take different lengths of time to see results based on all of the above. There is no measurement tool for how long it will take or how successful your SEO will be, making it difficult to understand how much time and effort should be invested into it.

It’s important to know that there is no quick solution for improving search engine ranking, and those that do are likely to be penalised and will be difficult to maintain. When working on your SEO, you will constantly be trialling and revising content, page structure and a number of other factors, spanning over months and potentially years before substantial improvements are made. However, consistency and perseverance are essential to developing a successful SEO strategy.

If the above sounds like a burden and too time consuming for you to achieve, get in touch with one of our specialists to see how we may be able to help with implementing an ongoing SEO strategy for your website.