SEO (Search Engine Optimisation) is a must-have for any digital marketing strategy, particularly for web-based companies. It involves both on-page and off-page optimisations, technical fixes and targeted content creation, all of which are designed to improve organic visibility and encourage traffic to your website.
In case we’ve lost you already; organic visibility is a term used to describe how easily your website can be seen through people making appropriate internet searches, without paying to appear among those search results through advertising.
To rank among those results, you’ll need a thorough SEO strategy, but how long does SEO take to work? This is one of the most common questions SEOs get asked from clients. And, unfortunately, it’s not a straightforward answer.
How long does it take for SEO to take effect?
Typically speaking, once initial optimisations have been implemented onto a site, you should start to see the effects around three to nine months.
These effects could be higher keyword rankings, site traffic fluctuations or an increase in engagement. It’s also important to remember that it takes time for Google bots to find, crawl, index and rank pages.
Although three to nine months seems like a big jump, the time for SEO to work heavily relies on several different factors that can impact a campaign’s time frame
- Technical issues – if your site is in a poor technical state, this will slow down the impact SEO implementation will have on your website. Priority technical issues will need to be addressed before any on-page optimisations can be completed
- Website size – If your website is huge it will take longer for effective SEO optimisations to be made and so the longer it will take for the whole website to show the positive effects of SEO
- Competition – if your industry is full of other online competitors, then ranking for keywords will often be more challenging than it would be for a niche business’s website.
- Resources – It’s important to accept that quality SEO takes time. To fully reap the benefits of SEO, investing the appropriate resources and time into an SEO strategy will help to achieve long-lasting results faster
The key for a successful SEO campaign is to not only help your site rank higher for keywords, but to improve your website’s usability and encourage longevity for positive results going forward.
Why does good SEO take time?
Good SEO involves continual updates, research and never-ending optimisations. Essentially, SEO that follows good practices, should never really end. After initial site optimisations and technical fixes are complete, staying on top of updates and evolving search trends is key for maintaining a good performing website.
Online competition is relentless, which is why, even after your SEO campaign is showing good results, investing resources into SEO within your marketing strategy is key to monitoring and keeping up with your competitors.
Ready to start SEO for your business?
If you’re curious about how long SEO takes to work, how it can benefit your business or just how to get started with an effective and efficient SEO campaign, get in touch with Carrington today.
Our team of dedicated marketing professionals and SEO specialists are on hand to provide you with a tailored strategy to improve your site’s organic visibility, engagement and online sales.
