Trying to get your business seen on Google? If so, you’re not alone. While Google doesn’t make its search data public, experts estimate that the tech giant processes around 63,000 searches per second for a total of 5.6 billion per day.
While those searches offer a lot of opportunities for brands of any size, they also mean a great deal of competition. When searchers jostle for visibility over a single keyword, the competition can grow fierce!
As a result, you can be forgiven for thinking, “How long does it take for SEO to work, anyway?”
If you’re beginning to wonder when your efforts will get you the boost in visibility you’ve been striving for, we’ve got you covered. Let’s take a look at the typical timeline for SEO results, the factors that affect it, and what you can do to speed things up.
How Long Does It Take for SEO to Work?
There’s no single clear-cut timeline for success with Long Island SEO for businesses. Your results will depend on a number of factors—which we’ll discuss below—as well as the approaches you choose.
Even experts debate the usual timeline for seeing results, as seen in The Hoth’s answer to the question, “How long does SEO take to start working?”
On average, you should expect to wait between three and six months before you start to see any measurable increase in traffic, leads, or conversions. In some cases, you might have to wait for a year or longer to see results from certain long-term strategies.
This doesn’t mean you’ll see zero results in the time you spend waiting, of course. One of the benefits of SEO is that even a minor uptick in traffic can have a huge impact on your brand.
What Factors Affect How Fast Your SEO Starts Working?
The reason it’s so hard to give a straight answer about your SEO outcomes is that it’s hard to generalize with so many factors in play. After all, no two brands, websites, or strategies are created equal.
Let’s take a look at the things that might affect your SEO timeline.
Your Competition
This is one of the most important factors when it comes to your long-term SEO success.
If your brand exists in a niche or local market with little competition, you’re more likely to see results in a few short months. If you aren’t struggling to rank for the same keywords as countless similar brands, it’ll be easier to boost your visibility on the search engine results pages.
On the other hand, brands in certain industries may have to struggle for a position on the first page. The legal industry, for example, is notorious for its fierce competition in terms of SEO. While Google Ads aren’t under the SEO umbrella, they can give you a good idea of how much competition to expect by industry—and law firms have the highest cost-per-clicks by far.
Your Chosen Keywords
No matter how competitive your industry is, choosing the wrong keywords can make it harder to gain the visibility you should try keyword research services offered by Victorious. Keywords that describe your product or service well can offer better results than more general keywords.
Your Resources
The resources you put into your SEO affect what you get out of it.
If you struggle to find time to manage your SEO, you’ll have a hard time gaining ground compared to others in your industry. If you don’t have experience, you also may not be implementing the expert strategies of other brands.
Hiring an SEO freelancer or contracting with an agency can help you see results faster.
Your Website
Last, don’t forget that your current website will affect your results.
Sites with a favorable history—and specifically more authority, keyword-rich content, and backlinks—will tend to see faster results than a new domain. On the other hand, sites with an unfavorable history, such as previous penalties or black-hat SEO, may struggle to see results in the same time frame as a new domain.
What Can Get You Results Faster?
Unfortunately, there’s no getting around the fact that SEO takes time to work. Though the right strategies can help you rank faster, no tactic will offer instant results.
That said, there are two main things you can do to start seeing results fast.
First, put more time into your SEO. Whether you’re doing the work on your own or you’ve hired a consultant, your time investment is one of the single biggest things that will impact your success. Though the total time will depend on your goals, experts recommend putting in at least 12 hours a week and up to 104 hours total.
Second, consider hiring an expert. If you’re new to SEO, you’ll waste valuable time seeking out strategies, learning new tools, and trying to implement your new tactics. You and your team may not even have as much time to spend on the project as it deserves!
Instead, leave the work to the experts for faster and more powerful results. These experts will save you time by implementing key SEO tips and tricks on your behalf, including the following:
- Finding the right keywords and improving rankings for low-hanging fruit
- Improving your content quality and creating new content
- Building backlinks and industry relationships
- Removing on-page errors and optimizing your on-page SEO
- Improving your page speed and other technical SEO factors
In short, unless you’re capable of tackling all of the strategies above, working with a consultant is your best bet.
Start Improving Your SEO Today
Given the insights above, you can see why the timeline for SEO is an educated guess! When asking “How long does it take for seo to work?” you’ll need to consider your site’s current state, keywords, and the time and money you can afford to put into it. With the right assistance, you could start seeing results in as little as a few months.
As you work to update your site and improve your visibility online, don’t forget about our other guides. We post content about tech tips and online marketing for small businesses, so check them out for more insights.
