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Investing money in SEO can feel like pouring money down the drain. The results may not come as fast as planned or expected based on the costs involved.
The first thing to know about SEO is that it is a marathon, not a sprint, but the rewards that come with it are worth the wait. This guide looks into how long you may expect to wait for SEO to work and what you can do to shorten the wait
What Are SEO Results
SEO results refer to achieving your goals. The only metric you need to measure the success of your SEO strategy is success with your intended goal. For example, if the goal is to have more traffic flowing into your site, you will need to measure the difference in traffic flow to determine if your efforts are worth the investment.
Almost every other marketing goal is achievable if more visitors come to your site. For example, if you hope to achieve more sales, more visitors to your site will translate into more profits. Of course, you must tailor your program to converting sales, which can be a little different from the strategy for increasing organic traffic alone.
How Long Until You See Results
There is no definite time between when you start working on your SEO and when you see results. According to Google, it can take several months to a year.
A poll by Ahrefs showed that up to 46.6 percent of sites started noticing results after three to six months and 17 percent after one year. Factors that affect the duration of your wait include your actions, your website, and how well your competition is performing.
Your Actions
“You can hire the best SEO experts and have them create a winning program for your site. But, you will not see any results unless you implement the program,” says Seth Price, DC based Digital marketing expert.
There are many reasons site owners will sit on a good program without implementing it, such as where implementing it involves spending more on SEO buy-ins or requiring massive updates and changes on your site.
Your Website
The deeper in the hole your site is, the more time it will take before you can see any tangible results. Examples of being in a hole can include having too many unresolved technical issues, applying manual actions on your site in the past, or being affected by a recent Google Core update.
Another challenge could be if you have a relatively new domain. If it is infected with viruses that block crawling bots, you could stay in the hole much longer.
Your Competition
Most site owners focus on beating the ever-changing Google algorithms. While it is a great thing to do, you can keep it up. What you need to focus on instead is beating your competition’s marketing strategies.
Size doesn’t matter, so even when your competition has a deeper pocket, you can be creative to slowly eat into their market share. For example, rather than looking to rank in the most competitive short tail keywords, go for less competitive long tail keywords.
It is unlikely that you will see results in less than three months, and you will be lucky to see them in six, but if you work with an expert in the field, you can expect to see results sooner or later.
Also read: Comprehensive Brand Visibility: From Physical Signage to Digital SEO
Image source: elements.envato.com
