How Long Does SEO Take Before You See Results?
How long does SEO take to produce “results?”
Search engine optimization is an absolute necessity if you want your business to succeed online and in the real world. It’s always a primary function of every marketing strategy, yet there’s a lot of mystery surrounding it.
Many companies seem to think that with a few master strokes (read: changes to keywords and whatnot), they’ll see huge results right away. This is simply not the case. That’s why we’re going to spend some time talking about several of the factors that determine how long results are likely to take and then break down a potential timeframe.
Factors That Determine How Long Results Will Take
Before we get into the nitty-gritty of how long it will take before you begin seeing results from a new search engine optimization strategy, it’s important to understand that there are multiple factors involved. These factors should give you an idea of why SEO success doesn’t happen overnight:
Website Authority
One of the best things you can do for your website’s organic traffic is to show Google that you’re an authority in your industry. This takes some time through the use of blogging, customer reviews, social media, and other types of content creation.
Link Building
Link building can be a real pain in the neck, and it’s definitely time-consuming. But Google insists on it, so what are you going to do? This consists of creating high-quality content and using social media to cross-promote the content to encourage audience engagement.
Errors and Issues
Errors and other issues such as SEO mistakes, 404 errors, broken links, Google penalties, and unreliable website hosting can slow down the results of an SEO strategy. A marketing team will go through your entire site bit by bit to correct any of these problems so that you’ll rank more quickly.
Mobile-Friendly Design
Mobile responsive design refers to how well your website looks and operates on a mobile device such as a smartphone or tablet. This is especially linked to SEO through Google, which uses mobile design as a primary factor to determine your website’s ranking.
Targeted Keywords
The use of keywords and key phrases is a driving force behind effective SEO. If you want your SEO to succeed in the shortest amount of time possible, then you must research relevant, targeted keywords that users are likely to use when searching on the web.
Competitor Analysis
Paying attention to what your competitors have been doing can reduce the time that it takes for your own SEO to be effective. We’re not talking about stealing their secrets. We’re simply saying that there’s nothing wrong with emulating a competitor’s strategy if it’s worked well for them.
On-Page/Off-Page SEO
To help ensure that search engine optimization is successful as soon as possible, you need to focus on both on-page and off-page SEO. On-page SEO is basically any site content that attracts potential customers, whereas off-page SEO works outside your website to redirect them to one of your landing pages.
Core Web Vitals
Google recently added Core Web Vitals as a ranking factor. You’ll need to focus on three primary metrics: Largest Contextual Paint (page’s loading time), First Input Delay (time it takes research to be usable), and Cumulative Layout Shift (how much a page moves after loading).
How Long Does SEO Take Before You See Results?
Search engine optimization is an extremely powerful tool for building your business and brand. The general consensus among most marketing companies is that a new SEO strategy will take approximately 4-6 months to start seeing tangible results. In some cases, depending on the voraciousness of the marketing campaign, competition, trending topics, and a variety of other factors, this could stretch out to a full year.
To give you a better idea of what you can expect, here’s a brief month-to-month rundown of how a professional marketing agency’s SEO strategy is likely to unfold:
- Month 1 — This is the research and discovery phase, which includes a website audit, keyword marketing strategy, etc. Certain changes to the website may be made during this time to kick things off.
- Month 2 — A deep dive will be done where changes are made based on the website audit results. If any phase causes the overall plan to be stretched out, it’s this one because a complete overhaul of a website could take a few months.
- Month 3 — This is where content creation really kicks into gear through web pages, blogging, image text, white papers, FAQs, product descriptions, etc. Depending on when everything can begin, you may see some small improvements in rankings by the end of the month.
- Month 4 — During this phase, content will continue to be created and the website will be further optimized. It’s common for companies to see a noticeable increase in rankings, traffic, and lead generation.
- Month 5 — If social media hasn’t already been incorporated into the marketing plan, this is when it will happen. Either way, marketing experts will continue to create content while possibly engaging in either public relations or media outreach to help gain attention.
- Month 6 — By this point, you should see a steady stream of organic traffic going to your site. Once things are flowing quite nicely, the main focus will be to create continuous content and promote that content to keep your higher ranking intact.
Contact P3 Agency for Search Engine Optimization
The professionals at the P3 Agency are experts in digital marketing and web design in Clearwater and the nearby communities. If you have any questions about our strategies employed for search engine optimization or would like a free, no-obligation website analysis, give us a call at (727) 474 9064 today.