How long does SEO take? Sprint or marathon?
The common dream of SEO specialists and clients using SEO services is instant SEO.
The result, a top 10 ranking within a month of signing the contract, lasting and "not for millions of dollars"—doesn't that sound great? And is it even realistic? It seems that the answer to the question of how long SEO takes will be very useful!
Starting website positioning
Probably every account manager in the world dealing with SEO services has heard the question "a month has passed since the contract was signed, so why are there no results yet?"
Indeed, it's difficult to expect SEO results within a month of signing the contract. This stems from the nature of this service, which is divided into several stages. In this post, we'd like to explore some of them, showing their order and the intervals between each milestone on a timeline. This isn't a faithful, step-by-step reconstruction, but rather an outline (especially since each website is treated individually).
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In the case in question, we consider that immediately after signing the contract, the SEO specialist received access to the website and this was sufficient, i.e. the SEO specialist did not have to ask for additional permissions or ask the client to implement some of the changes (because the access he had did not allow for this).
- Stage 1: Website audit i link profile – Its duration depends largely on the size of the page and the number of links it has already accumulated. Access to the website is necessary to perform both audits. Audits serve as the basis for further action and the development of a SEO strategy for a given contract. Any issues with the page's structure and/or Google penalties detected during these audits negatively impact the pace of the SEO process.
- Step 2: Website optimization – that is, implementing audit recommendations. Simply put, this means making the website more user-friendly for Google's web crawlers. Because some optimization changes require user-visible changes, we wait for the client's approval before implementing them. The timeframe for this stage depends on factors such as the scope of work, the website's development technology, accessibility, client acceptance of the changes, and so on.
- Step 3: Meta Tag Optimization – a crucial element of an SEO specialist's work. This stage involves preparing and implementing new meta tags on the website. The time it takes to optimize depends on factors such as the website's size, structure, keyword count, and any site redesign.
- Stage 4: New website content – this is also a rather time-consuming element of optimization for effective SEO. The time required for this stage depends primarily on the volume of texts (it's not uncommon for copywriters to prepare dozens of texts for a single contract), the pace of the writers' work, client approval (the sooner the client approves the content, the sooner it can be added to the website), the number of possible text corrections, website access, and so on.
- Step 5: Web crawlers index changes to the website – what takes time here isn't the act of reporting changes via the Google Search Console panel, but the reaction of Google's web crawlers. While there have been cases where a change made early in the morning resulted in a position increase in the evening scan, or a jump in position was already visible the next day, these should be considered rather spectacular and exceptionally favorable exceptions to the rule. Sometimes, Google's web crawlers take several weeks to index the changes, and then you can observe position increases.
- Step 6: Linking – The links used by SEO specialists come from various sources (intentional diversification aimed at increasing the effectiveness of this process). Linking is not a one-time operation – "inundating the website with links once and for all." Linking occurs at intervals necessary for web crawlers to index the changes associated with it.
Summary of information about starting positioning
Once this work is completed, the positioning process cannot be declared complete.
Depending on whether the keywords included in the contract have seen an increase in position, changes are made to the positioning plan, attention is focused on selected keywords and, depending on the positioner's decision, a therapy consisting of optimization changes, additional content, new meta tags or further linking is prescribed for them.
It's also normal for a website to undergo changes (redesign, a completely new page) or to change its keyword set for SEO. This also impacts the SEO process and can lengthen the path to the top 10.
It's important to remember that web crawlers determine the rate at which changes are indexed, and SEO specialists don't have the tools to force them to obey. It's also Google's autonomous decision which subpage (or homepage) to display in response to a given search query.
Summary
The above article covers the following topics:
- SEO is a long-term process, resembling a marathon, not a quick sprint, because achieving lasting results in search engines takes time.
- The positioning process is time-consuming and multi-stage, as it includes auditing, technical optimization, content creation, and link building, the effects of which depend on the indexation rate by Google robots.
- Positioning is a continuous process in which, depending on the effects of keywords, changes are made to the optimization, content, meta tags, linking or structure of the website, and the pace of the effects depends on the autonomous decisions of search engine robots.
