How long does SEO take? 3 months, 6 months, or 1 year? Follow us until the end of the article to find the answer to your question.
How long does SEO take? Different articles talk about different website SEO methods. Among them, some are related to internal SEO (on-page) another category is related to external SEO (off-page), some are related to internal link building and the other is related to technical SEO. But the topic that is less discussed is the period that we have to wait after performing these actions so that we can reach our desired and desired result.
In this article, we have asked 40 digital marketing and SEO experts: “How long should we wait for SEO to produce results?” Each of these people has expressed their opinion on this matter and addressed the factor that they have identified as more important in determining this time frame. In addition, they have suggested solutions for faster ranking. In the world of SEO, countless questions may arise in your mind, and many problems that you may encounter while working. However, the issue of time is a discussion that you need to have enough information about to be able to implement your planning more accurately. Some experts relate the time required to bear fruit and see the results of their SEO actions to the organization’s SEO strategy, while another group may not have an exact answer to this question.
In this article, we intend to answer these questions comprehensively and in detail once and for all. In addition to that, we also mention 7 points in this regard so that you can do the SEO process faster, of course, SEO has no endpoint and is like a competition that you must always think about working on to stay ahead of your competitors. So do not miss reading this article.
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Determinants of success in SEO
The success of the SEO strategy is not accidental, and planning an inappropriate strategy will not result in anything other than wasting time and the financial and human resources of the organization. On the other hand, there is no miracle and magic formula in SEO that you want to use to get higher ranks quickly. If you want to increase your chances of winning this competition, you need to pay special attention to some key indicators that we mention below.
What factors are effective in determining the effectiveness of an SEO site?
- Competition;
- the budget;
- Authority domain of the website;
- incoming links to the website;
- website content;
- targeting long-tail keywords;
- structuring the website;
In the following, we will explain each of these items:
1- Competition
When it comes to SEO, competitor analysis is always very important. One of the most basic steps in marketing is knowing the competitor and being aware of the activities and projects that are being carried out. Therefore, in SEO, it is also necessary to check the industry, know the competitors, and according to their progress, make the necessary decisions to take the market share for yourself.
The importance of competition in SEO can be understood from the words of Marie Claire Novak from the g2.com website:
“Deriving results from SEO depends on the popularity of the website’s main keywords and the amount of competition there is for ranking in that phrase. Most researchers consider a 3 to 6-month time period to receive significant traffic for a website, but this period is for websites with high-quality content and authority. Along with things like content relevance, factors like URL structure, page keywords, input and output links, and user experience are also effective in determining the success of your website’s SEO process.
Also, according to Blaze Bullock of Blazedigitalmarketing.com: “The SEO process depends on the level of competition in your market and the experience of the organization’s SEO team. If your team has little experience and has never managed a website before, you will most likely need between three and six months. But if your organization has already launched a website and an experienced team is working behind it, you will probably see the results after one to two months.
But suppose you have identified your competitors, what characteristics should you look for in them? What things should you check in your competitors and optimize in your business? Janice Wald of mostlyblogging.com has raised several points in this regard: “Sometimes it may take months or years to reach your desired rank because it depends on many factors.
For example, you need to examine the level of competition in your industry online. The lower this amount, the easier it is to get higher ranks. Also, how is the quality of online competition in your field of work? For example, if your competitor’s blog contains very high-quality content and has a strong domain authority, it will not be easy, if not impossible, for you to get a ranking.
Harik Basic’s opinion from the Pricelisto.com website is also worth thinking about: “Most of the time, the SEO process of a website takes about three months for the initial results to blossom. According to the keyword difficulty index, you can get an estimate of how long it will take to rank. If you are looking mostly for long tail, low competition, and niche keywords, you can achieve the desired ranking in a few weeks. But if you are looking for more competitive and original words, you may need several months or even years.
2- Budget
Now that you have designed your SEO strategy, do you have enough budget to implement it? Having the required financial resources can sometimes help speed up the process. For this purpose, we have the explanation of Kelia Moore from theloopmarketing.com website: “Businesses should feel the beginning of changes after a period of six to twelve months, such as an increase in traffic and the number of leads and consequently an increase in sales. As for financial resources, the more funds an organization allocates to its SEO process, the stronger the output it will receive (meaning the faster results will be visible).”
Some teams may not consider a specific budget for their SEO, which can lead to problems later on. In this regard, Katrina Rushtillo from Greennice.net says: “If you start the project from scratch, at best you will see the results within three to six months. This number is obtained from the experience of me and my colleagues who are working in this field. But in general, the more financial resources you inject into the SEO project, the faster you will see results.”
3- Authority domain
The next indicator that we will address is domain authority, which will play a prominent role in your SEO, especially when your project is for a newly established website. This index was designed by Web Maze, a trusted authority in the field of SEO, which aims to score domains on the ability of websites to rank. This index is divided between 1 and 100, and the higher it is, the higher the probability of your success.
Regarding the same issue, Tyler Tafelsky says: “Depending on the website’s domain authority, SEO results usually take two months. Of course, this is for typical competitive markets and medium domain authority websites. If you add a strong linking strategy or a higher authority domain to this combination, the waiting time can be increased to a month.”
Also, regarding the importance of domain authority, we can refer to the words of Antonio Wells from namynot.com: “If a website has just been launched, it will take between six and eight weeks, and if the website has already been designed but its SEO is weak, A period of three to six weeks can be considered suitable. But if your website has strong SEO, the process can be completed within a few hours or several days.
Jordan Shinder of soundstripe.com comments on the impact of domain authority: “If I were to introduce one effective factor in SEO, it is none other than domain authority.” So, if you have recently designed a website, compared to the website that was designed before and there is a strong link-building plan behind it, you will have a tough competition ahead and you will have more time to reach the desired result.
What makes your website’s domain authority so critical, as well as complicated, is that it’s hard to change. In this regard, Camilla Ride of livelifebig.net explains more: “I believe that the lifetime of a domain is the biggest factor that can accelerate the process of a project because time is one of the things that cannot be changed in SEO.
You can get a lot of backlinks and produce quality content by paying a fee in the shortest time, but you cannot change the lifespan of your domain. Of course, you can buy older domains, but the time index is still one of the things that cannot be changed.”
According to Tommy Landry of returnonnow.com: “There is no single answer to this question and no specific formula that can be applied to all individuals. Domain authority is one of the main factors of SEO, domains with high authority can only expect results by relying on internal SEO, while newly established sites need more effort and work on external SEO to achieve the same results. to receive Depending on how much the domain authority of the website is at the beginning of the work, the expected period can be several days, several weeks, or several years.
4- Input links
One of the other important factors in SEO is the inbound links to your website. Having a link-building strategy will speed up your ranking process, but it won’t be easy. We see the importance of backlinks in the words of Beyonce Ward from essaywriterfree.net: “In general, SEO takes at least three months. According to my five-year experience, I can say that backlinks are one of the most important indicators. In this situation, it is important to be able to get backlinks from websites with high authority.
More important than how many backlinks your website gets is how you get them. According to Janelle Owens of testprepinsight.com: “There are several factors that determine how long it will take for your results to appear. However, under normal conditions, it takes between four and six months. Although internal SEO has a high impact, it seems that backlinks are more important. Of course, building quality links takes a lot of time.
Also, Ray Blakeney from livelingua.com says: “One of the main points to get ranked quickly is to link regularly.” This will prove to Google that you are developing your links over time. In addition, receiving links should be slow and continuous. Receiving hundreds of links at once may cause risks for you from Google. However, if you do the internal SEO of your website, which includes website speed, structuring and optimizing your keywords, and try to build your links with great care, in my opinion, you can see tangible results in four to six months. get it”.
If you think that you can succeed in SEO by relying only on content production and ignoring link building, you are very wrong! “We started our blog on a new domain in August 2020 and started producing content periodically and regularly,” says Dorka Kardos Latif of copyfol.io. But we didn’t get a special rank until we started building links. With a few quality links, we managed to get to pages four and five in late November, and for the first time in January 2021, we were able to reach the first page. So, in my opinion, it takes about 6 months to be able to be on the first page with low-competition keywords with a new domain.
Abdul Qanae Shiho’s point of view from the website yourcontentmart.io also expresses the importance of this issue: “Based on my personal experience in recent years, it usually takes between three and six months for SEO results to appear, of course there are factors There are also those that accelerate this process. For example, be sure to pay special attention to the link-building of your website. As soon as you can, think about building backlinks for your website. The faster you do this, the faster you will be displayed on the results page. Links play a prominent role in SEO and are very valuable in ranking for Google.
5- Content
We have all heard the phrase “content is king”. This statement is correct and if you want to be organically displayed on the first page, having quality content will undoubtedly be one of the main factors. Jerome Williams from the Jworksstudios.com website says about this: “The most effective factor in SEO in my opinion is quality content.” You should create content for your audience, not for Google robots! If your content has a proper structure and establishes a strong connection with the audience, the robots will pick it up and place it in the place it deserves.”
Producing quality content is only half the battle. You need to ensure that the content is published consistently. Rachel Gekko from lakeonedigital.com explains more about this: “Technical issues are important in SEO, but the first step to start a website is content creation. Your content production depends on the strategy and competition in the industry. A delay in content production will result in a delay in being seen on the results page.
The importance of content in SEO can also be understood from the words of Moses Gomes from the docmode.org website: “Usually, for words that do not have much competition, SEO of websites takes between 90 and 140 days. The most important SEO factor for displaying your website in high positions is the quantity and quality of content published on websites. After we produced 600 pieces of content, it took about 200 days to show the first results.”
6- Long tail keywords
One of the principles that the person in charge of content production should check when publishing content is choosing and targeting suitable keywords for the website.
In the same case, Nick Markatelli: “The rise of a website in the results page depends on many things. One of the things that has recently become more important is the website’s ability to respond to long-tail keywords. With the addition of the people also asked section to the results page, Google showed that the algorithms pay more attention to answering user questions. Therefore, websites that pay more attention to answering user questions and long-tail keywords will receive more attention.
Corroborating this statement, Kathryn McNeely of reviews.org: “In my experience, the payoff of your SEO efforts comes down to keyword competition and whether or not you use long-tail keywords.” Paying attention to long-tail keywords is very important, not only to get on the first page but also to ensure that the questions that the user has are answered.
Long tail keywords can generate longer content and you can work on different topics. Also, by developing your blog and writing various articles on various topics in your field, you are sending a signal to Google that you are an expert in your field. Finally, there is less competition in long-tail keywords, which means you can get results more easily.”
7- Website structuring
The last thing to consider when designing an SEO strategy is the proper structure of your business website. Anders Osa from the website mundago.com says about this: “We recently decided to rank in the top three on our website for keywords with a high level of competition in the field of logistics. Together with the SEO department of the organization, we did this project in about nine months, and we focused on things like website speed, keyword optimization on landing pages, and content quality.
However, none of these strategies will work unless you can convert the user into a customer. Google wants top websites to be ranked higher, so having a website with a strong structure that can convert users should be one of your work priorities.
How long does SEO take to produce results? How long does SEO take?
How long does SEO take? In the previous section, we expressed the opinions of various experts about the steps you should take for your website’s SEO. But if you apply everything, how long will it take to see the effect? If we want to answer in one word, three to six months can be considered appropriate… but it is better not to be satisfied with this answer and ask the opinion of experts about this question.
The first person I asked this question to was Bruce Hogan of softwarepundit.com: “In some cases, the impact of content creation may be seen within days, but in general, overall changes take between three and six months to appear. Also, the most influential factors in determining this period are domain authority, backlinks, and SEO technical discussions.
Emanuel Petrescu of emanuelp.com also agrees: “In my opinion, no guarantee can be given for SEO, but usually the results appear within the first six months, even sooner. There is a long list of things that you should pay attention to, but I believe that if you have enough experience in this field and you have optimized your content to meet the needs of the user, you can easily win this competition. Google is always looking for user satisfaction and for this purpose, it has set its goal to meet the needs of this group. Focusing on this point, optimize the content of your website for the user so that Google will place you at the top of the results page.
If you are still not convinced, consider the theory of Crystal Diaz from lightsoncreative.com on this topic: “In my opinion, it usually takes between three and six months for the major changes in your work to show. Of course, in the first months, you may get some traffic from scattered words, but more general changes (like reaching the first page) usually appear after several months.
As a final comment, we refer to the expert of brandextract.com, Chris Wilks: “Like most questions related to SEO, the answer to this question is “it depends”! But I usually consider three to six months to reach my goals and see the results. However, you may see changes sooner than that. Minor changes may occur in the early days or weeks.”
7 actions that must be taken to see SEO results
By doing the 7 points mentioned in the previous section and going through the period of three to six months, you can expect changes in your SEO situation. However, it’s not bad to learn a few additional strategies to increase your chances of success by following them.
When developing your SEO strategy, always keep these points in mind:
- Make sure the website has no technical problems;
- Plan to improve your website speed;
- Optimize to get results sooner;
- Don’t forget EAT;
- communication with the user;
- Implement your SEO strategy as quickly as possible;
- do not give up!
1- Make sure the website has no technical problems
Assume that you perform all the actions mentioned correctly. However, if your website has technical issues, it can seriously reduce your chances of ranking high or being on the first page. Frank Olivo from the sagapixel.com website points to the same issue: “The rule of three to six months is a general rule, and in the real world this period can be shorter or longer depending on things such as your goal, the market, and the competition in the market. It has the industry and the challenges you face.
For this purpose, if your website is facing technical problems, you can avoid more serious problems by adding the canonical tag. As a result, websites that fix their technical issues can expect to see results much faster. Recently, we had a client who was in the home services industry and was able to improve their ranking from page 5 to page 1 by adding breadcrumbs and improving internal links on all of their website pages. He was able to do all these actions within three weeks.”
In line with the same discussion, Moiz Parada from fidelitasdevelopment.com: “Each site is different, and according to the situation and the conditions it has when the website starts working, the interval for the results to appear varies. In my experience, it usually takes between three and six months after implementing a white hat SEO strategy that benefits the site and does not threaten its health. Ensuring that you have a standard structure is a very important factor in your ranking. You should also note that your website is not defective in terms of technical problems. Then you can start from the ground up, analyze the basic parts of the website, and then revise your content.”
Finally, let’s take a look at the opinion of Zach Duncan from rootandbranchgroup.com: “If a website has technical problems, it can be fixed in the first month and expected changes can be measured through the entries that the search console shows. be What is meant here is 404 errors, duplicate tags, and placing tag titles on important website pages. Fixing these issues can have immediate and visible feedback.
2- Plan to improve your website speed
Another solution that you can use to improve your SEO strategy is to improve your website to increase its speed. Rob Howard of howarddc.com: “There are many things you can do to optimize your website. However, increasing the speed score of your website pages can be one of the premium options. By doing this, Google will periodically index your pages.
3- Optimize to get results sooner
If you are preparing a list of the tasks of your SEO and digital marketing unit, make sure that you put website optimization in the priorities of your list. Mikael Hojtas from autopi.io explains more about this: “SEO depends on several indicators. In my opinion, it takes anywhere from two to six months to get real results and for search engines to crawl your pages and website. However, always remember that the more attention is paid to optimizing a page, the sooner you will see the result.
4- Don’t forget EAT
Did you know that EAT is part of the Google algorithm? (Expertise, Authority, and Trust) We asked Hannah Brown from smartjobjunt.com about EAT and its meaning: “According to my observations and the experiences I have gained in recent years, it takes between one and three months for SEO changes to emerge.” Do not neglect the factors that accelerate the process of reaching your goal. One of them is EAT, which stands for Expertise, Authoritativeness, and Trustworthiness.
Acknowledging Hanna’s opinion, exaweb.com.ph’s Patrick Guard explains: “Based on my experience and my team’s, it takes at least one to three months for your efforts to yield measurable results. For industries or words with high competition, this period should be increased to four to twelve months. If you want to rank faster, the most important things you should pay attention to are domain authority, backlinks, and content. These factors determine whether your website is strong enough in terms of EAT or not.
5- Communication with the user
If you have entrusted part or all of your website SEO to a digital marketing agency, what you can do now is respond and react quickly to suggestions, events, ideas, plans, and comments that users make for you. hit
Matt Janaway says: “During the implementation of the project, we usually see an improvement in the results page after six months. Of course, in some cases, this period may decrease or increase. Another thing that can accelerate the display of results is customer behavior, which means that if the customer is active and shows a positive reaction to your recommendations, it will facilitate the purchase process.
6- Implement your SEO strategy as quickly as possible
You’ve probably heard the phrase “SEO is like two marathons, not double-speed.” The best thing you can do for yourself and your organization is to start this marathon and start as soon as possible. David Gusick of housemethod.com explains: “An SEO project can take anywhere from three to six months to come to fruition because the process requires a lot of data gathering and observation. Also, the result of your work depends on topics such as competition in the industry, the difficulty of keywords, and your persistence. However, it is better to start implementing your SEO strategy as soon as possible without wasting time.
7- Don’t give up!
When you are in the SEO marathon, always keep one thing in mind: never give up! Even if you have tried for several months and feel tired and disappointed, do not give up! Consider the words of Christian Velitchko of twiz.io: “The first thing you need to pay attention to is that SEO is like a tree, so it grows. But the important thing is that in the beginning, it is not more than a seedling and to reach the stage where you can take its fruit, you need to take care of it and suffer a lot.
You can make a long list of effective factors in SEO, which includes the internal structure of the website, inbound links, outbound links, optimization of images, technical problems of the website, keyword research, content creation, and planning for content updates. Finally, here’s Andy Gerstodina of orbitmedia.com: “Ranking with your brand name usually happens automatically and can take up to a week after the site is designed. Low-competition words may rank earlier.
It may take two to three months to move to the front page with quality, well-planned content. Getting on the first page of results for high-competition keywords can take two or three years, during which time you need to produce specialized, quality content focused on your target keywords. Also, during this period, other websites should consider your articles as references (link to your website) and also update your articles regularly. The more competitive your words are, the more time it will take. But don’t give up, because you will get a high return from this work.
Rome did not become Rome overnight! Remember to consider all the factors mentioned in this article when developing your SEO plan and don’t forget that it will probably take you between three to six months to reach your goal, so be patient!