You’d have probably heard that SEO is a slow process. So, it’s common to wonder, how long does it take for SEO to work? But the truth is, it can take anywhere from a month to three years to see significant results.

The good news is that once your website starts ranking higher, the organic traffic will continue to swell over time. This means that even if you don’t see immediate results, many positive things are still happening behind the scenes.

But if it’s taking you way too long to see results from SEO, it’s natural to wonder—how long does it take for SEO to work produce results?

In this post, I’ll share all the information you need about the factors affecting the speed of your SEO efforts and answer why the SEO timeline for some websites is shorter than others.

How Long Does SEO Take To Work?

The time it takes to witness SEO success to work can vary a lot. The length is as short as three months for a few websites while some others take years to show visible progress. But it’s not all bad news!

Several ranking factors will influence the timeline to see SEO results. Here’s a look at all these crucial factors:

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Content Quality

The first thing Google looks at is the content on your website. The quality of the content on your site will affect how quickly it starts ranking. If you don’t have authoritative and high-quality content that targets and engages with the right set of users, then your site rankings might continue to drop.

Remember to focus on “quality” content marketing instead of “quantity”. Loading your website with unoriginal and boring content with excessive keyword stuffing will backfire and disrupt your SEO campaign.

Crawlers want unique, high-quality content pages that describe your products or services in detail and inform the readers about their queries. Besides, crawlers value content that users find useful and want to share with others. So, content quality and its relevance to search intent are directly linked with the question of how long does SEO take to show results.

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Links (External + Internal)

Once you have the content ready, the next step is building links for your site. When a crawler comes to your site, they’ll check how many unique sites link back to you i.e. inbound links. More high-quality inbound links can significantly increase your chance of ranking higher in search results.

Generally, the best way to build links is by creating content that people want to share with others.

However, keep in mind that more links pointing to your site doesn’t necessarily guarantee that the crawler will count them all. You need to have a healthy number of high-quality links for this strategy to work. Manipulating the search engines with poor quality link-building schemes can do more harm than good.

Google clearly specifies,

“Any links intended to manipulate PageRank or a site’s ranking in Google search results may be considered part of a link scheme and a violation of Google’s Webmaster Guidelines. This includes any behaviour that manipulates links to your site or outgoing links from your site.”

Besides collecting external links, building internal links is also very important for your SEO efforts. They enhance the user experience by easing your website’s navigation and help in increasing the page visit time by directing a visitor to multiple other pages. You can create internal links from newly published pages to previously published pages within your site.

Technical Aspects

Technical SEO work is all about optimizing your website for search engine crawlers. This involves optimizing the website and troubleshooting errors to allow the crawlers to access the entire site seamlessly.

Google has publicly stated that up to half of the sites they find in search results don’t meet their technical SEO requirements, which can seriously affect how quickly your site ranks.

So, what are the elements that you should pay significant attention to? Here are the important ones:

• Broken Links (404 Errors): Broken links can definitely hinder your site from ranking higher. Think of it this way—if you don’t care enough to ensure all your links work properly, why would Google think otherwise?
• Mobile Sites: Even if your website is already mobile-friendly, it’s important to ensure that Google and other search engines know about it. Google wants to make sure that if users access your website on their phone, they can see what they need to see without any issues.
• Slow Loading Speed: Site loading speed also affects SEO rankings, so it’s important to make sure your site loads quickly. Not only will visitors appreciate the faster load times, but it should also positively affect SEO rankings.
• Technical Duplications: Duplicating content in a way that can’t be traced or tracked isn’t allowed and will likely affect your rankings. Examples include copying content from other websites, even if you link back to them, or having multiple pages with similar/the same content on your site.

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• Redirect Chains: If you have redirects on your site, they must be clean and free of errors. This means no loops or chains of redirects – each page should be accessible through a direct link.
• Site Architecture: You need to have a consistent architecture throughout your entire site. If you decide to add or delete pages, make sure you organize them in a way that doesn’t affect crawler access.  For instance, don’t change your URL structure (i.e., delete the home page) without redirecting users to the new location of that page or update your robots.txt file to block access to the old version of the page.
• Misimplementation of Hreflang: Hreflang is used to specify language and regional URLs, so that engines can show the right results for users searching in different regions. This tool can help you with international SEO campaigns since it allows you to identify different target audiences. This attribute must be implemented correctly not to affect your search rankings since incorrect implementation i.e. using this tool on the homepage only can cause crawlers to ignore all other languages/regional pages, even if they’re correctly set up.

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Competition and Niche

While there’s no set time frame to answer exactly how long does SEO take to work, the level of competition in your niche will play a part. In other words, the more competitive your niche is, the longer it’ll likely take to rank higher. 

For example, if you have a news blog about current events, it might be exceptionally challenging for you to rank right away. That’s because you’d have to update your content regularly and outrank other news sites with a lot higher authority and domain age.

On the other hand, if you have a blog about monthly finance tips for freelancers, it might take less time to rank because fewer publications are out there that target this niche specifically.

So, the easiest way to know how long it takes SEO to work is to look at the strength of your competition. If you find hundreds of similar websites covering similar topics as you, then it’ll take longer for you to rank.

Keyword Research

Keyword research is the holy grail of digital marketing and SEO. If you don’t spend enough time finding the best keywords, it can take longer than usual for your site to start ranking.

Keywords are like little puzzle pieces connecting you to your ideal customers—by not picking the right keywords, you’re making it difficult for them to find you. So, get a pulse of your target audience and perform extensive keyword research based on their preferred keywords.

For example, if you run a website about Mexican cuisine and want to rank for “Mexican restaurant”, it won’t fetch the best website traffic. The reason? Generic keywords don’t tell users anything about your restaurant’s services or products—they just drag them to many different results.

Instead, you should choose low-competition but high-potential keywords that specifically describe your business. For example, “Modern Mexican restaurant” or “Best tacos in London”. These keywords are more specific and will help users directly find the services and products they need.

SEO Strategy

If SEO companies tell you that they can get your page to rank #1 in Google overnight, take whatever they say with a grain of salt. SEO success doesn’t happen overnight. Many short-sighted SEO strategies can take you to a good rank for a few weeks. But you need to focus on building an SEO strategy that works in the long run.

For the SEO strategy o truly work, you need to build your online presence little by little. Treat it as an investment in your business or career and focus on things that’ll benefit you long-term.

Don’t Worry if SEO Takes a While!

The bottom line is that the more ambitious your goals are for SEO, the longer it can take before your efforts start to pay off and organic visibility kicks in.

Ranking locally or getting on page one for your city can happen much sooner. However, if you’re trying to be on the top rankings for high-competition keywords, it might take several months before your SEO process and campaign fetch the desired results.

In all cases, remember that there are no shortcuts for SEO activities. It takes time and consistent effort before you can expect to see any results from SEO.

So, it’s important to invest your time and money into a realistic SEO strategy that focuses on long-term growth instead of short-term gains. If you put the time and effort into improving your website slowly but surely, you’ll see better SEO results in the end!

FAQs

1. How do I know if my SEO Efforts are Working?

You can measure several metrics to see if your SEO efforts are giving the expected results. Look at how many new visitors you get from search engines or other external websites. If the numbers are going up every month, then this tells you that your SEO campaign is working.

Perform a website audit and check your ranking. For example, if you’re trying to rank for “SEO agency” and notice that your page keeps moving up in the SERPs (search engine results pages), then this means that your campaign is working.

2. Why Does SEO Take So Long to Pay Off?

Unlike regular forms of marketing, SEO digital marketing takes time because Google’s search engine algorithms are constantly changing. These algorithms are designed to weed out low-quality websites and reward those following Google’s guidelines.

Those guidelines incorporate many factors, so Google needs time to collect data and create a full picture of your website. Once Google has this data, it can determine which websites are high-quality and deserve high rankings, so it might take several months before your site starts to move up in the SERPs.

3. Why Does Search Engine Optimization Work Differently for Each Site?

The answer is simple: due to the differences in competition, keywords, and overall website authority. Even if you do the same as someone else, your results might be different – it all depends on your website and its ranking potential. Accordingly, it’ll take SEO more or less time to work for you, depending on these factors.

4. Why Does SEO Fluctuate?

SEO can fluctuate for several reasons, but the main one is the competitiveness of the query (queries with a high search volume). If the competition is very high, it means that many websites are ranking for that query, and Google has to crawl them often to figure out who deserves to rank where based on authority and relevancy.

This is why you might find your rankings fluctuating – Google keeps crawling your site and checking how it’s ranking against other websites for the same query.

Are you a business owner trying to outrank your competitors on search engines? Why wouldn’t you! Higher SERP rankings can multiply organic traffic, discoverability, and ultimately, your conversion rate.

It’s simple—more search engine traffic equals more leads, which in turn, increases your sales numbers. That’s what a professional SEO consultant can do for you.

But what exactly is SEO consulting?

SEO consulting involves seeking expert advice to create a winning SEO strategy for your brand. Once you have a concrete strategy and fixed targets in place, you can work on executing this plan. This post will help you understand the nuances of SEO consulting, the role of an SEO consultant, and why is it essential for your company website.

What is SEO Consulting Services?

SEO consulting entails seeking the counsel of an expert SEO consultant to audit your website and create a feasible roadmap to achieve the desired results. It’s a complex process comprising detailed analysis of your website, competitors, and niche—that culminates into the SEO strategy development process. All of these efforts are aimed at improving your website’s ranking for relevant keywords.

Now that you know a little about what is SEO consulting, let’s get into depth of it and understand more. A professional SEO consultant will typically analyze the following aspects of your company:

• Website
• Blog
• Social media presence
• Digital marketing channels
• Advertisement strategy
• Keyword research practices
• Targeted traffic
• Current search engine rankings

In a nutshell, the consultant will review the ongoing SEO practices, spot the shortcomings, and create a blueprint to fill the gaps. This blueprint will spell out the digital marketing services that can help your search engine campaigns.

When Do You Need SEO Consulting Services?

Now that you have an idea of SEO consultant services, let’s dive deeper into why you need an SEO specialist.

You may have an online marketing game plan in place to build and improve your brand position. However, that’s not enough. SEO involves several technicalities that only a specialist can look into.

An SEO expert understands the intricacies of search engines and knows the functioning of algorithms that you might not be aware of. Check out a few instances when you need a professional SEO consultant for your business.

Low Search Engine Traffic

Has your website been experiencing low traffic lately—despite all your digital marketing efforts? Well, it’s not easy to beat the Google algorithm.

SEO specialists are well-versed with all the technical requirements of all major search engines. They’ll analyze your current online performance and formulate solid campaigns to maximize organic search traffic. It’s also cost-efficient since you don’t have to invest in paid advertising.

Website Redesign

If you’re planning to revamp your website, it’s an excellent time to understand what is SEO consulting and seek the services of a professional SEO consultant. The specialist will provide visual design assistance and deal with technical SEO issues—giving your new website the edge to easily beat your competitors and help you stay ahead in the SEO game.

Link Building

If you need quality backlinks to boost organic traffic, SEO specialists have you covered. These experts focus on quality over quantity—developing SEO campaigns to gain backlinks from the top websites. Planning these campaigns requires profound industry research and a concrete plan for building links.

SEO Auditing

An SEO specialist can also conduct a thorough website audit to help you level up your SEO effort. The process will include looking for off-page search engine optimization opportunities. Besides, it also covers on-page SEO practices like site structure, tags, and link building.

A professional SEO consultant will conduct an SEO audit to spot foundational issues and devise the required SEO strategies.

Competitor Analysis and Reporting

Believe it or not, your top competitors already have an all-inclusive SEO strategy in place. An SEO specialist can break down these strategies and ensure that your website ranks higher than theirs in SERP results.

By analyzing your competitors’ SEO approaches, a professional consultant can spot the gaps between your current and the required SEO practices. The specialist will then leverage this information to improve your site’s search engine rankings.

Search Engine Optimization for Mobile Devices

You’d be surprised to know that almost 58% of all Google searches come from mobile devices. So if your website does not already follow the search engine optimization rules for mobile devices, it’s time you reach out to an SEO company.

An SEO expert will create a tried-and-tested strategy to make your website mobile-friendly. You can then hire SEO services to bring proven techniques into practice.

What does the SEO Consultant Job Description look like?

So far, you’ve received an overview of the importance of a professional SEO consultant. Still, you may wonder about what is an SEO consultant and what are the core functions related to this role.

Do you think the job of an SEO specialist is limited to gaining backlinks and boosting your site search engine rankings? Yes, to a great extent, but there’s a lot of background work to this. From performing on-page technical SEO techniques such as optimizing the content, tags, site structure, etc., to off-page practices—there’s a lot. Let’s get to the core of it!

On-Page SEO

• Title Tags: Any professional SEO consultant will ensure your site has a well-optimized title tag. Including relevant keywords in the title tag will ensure your website ranks well in organic search.
• Meta Tags: These tags provide short descriptions of your website to search engines and individuals searching for keywords relevant to your site.

• Latent Semantic Indexing (LSI): It is a process wherein the search engines’ bots scan the LSI keywords to understand the content present on your webpage. The bots will then rank your page according to relevancy.
• HTML Markup: Apart from the meta and title tags, an SEO specialist will add other HTML tags like the alt tag for images, graph tags, etc. These will help the pictures and graphs rank well for the keyword.
• Quality Website Content: Apart from the technical aspects, a professional SEO consultant will also ensure your website content meets the quality standards. It must be original, relevant to the topic, and value-packed.
• Local SEO: If you have a physical office space, your hired SEO consultancy will ensure your company site ranks for the location. The SEO specialist will ensure your office appears on Google Maps, add keywords relevant to local business, and create content around local events.

Off-Site SEO

• Link Building: It refers to getting backlinks from authoritative websites. It’s a crucial SEO technique to improve your ranking as search engines will consider your site more credible if it has backlinks. An SEO expert will ensure your website gets links only from reputed sites.
• Content Marketing: While traditional internet marketing practices are slowly dying, content marketing is here to save the day. Your SEO specialist will create a solid digital marketing strategy with content that is attractive and useful enough to convert leads into prospects.
• Social Media: Are you posting enough content on your company social media handles? A professional SEO consultant will incorporate this aspect as a prime SEO and digital marketing practice. The more engagement your content gets, the higher traffic your website attracts.

Other Responsibilities

• Keyword Research: It is a process of finding the relevant keywords that individuals may enter to find products or services offered by your company. An SEO specialist will perform in-depth keyword research to optimize your company website.
• SEO Tools: A professional SEO consultant will have in-depth knowledge about SEO tools. The expert will enlist the necessary ones to ensure a smooth search engine optimization process.
• Marketing Analysis: SEO specialists use the top strategies and tools like Google Analytics to conduct meticulous SEO and marketing research. It will help you gain business insights into the current SEO standing of your site and that of your competitor’s.

How to Find A Good SEO Consultant?

After having decent knowledge about what is SEO consulting, it is now crucial to understand more about finding a good SEO consultant. Whether you own eCommerce websites or other products and services sites, a professional SEO consultant got you covered. However, how to find a good one and what to ask SEO consultants? You can start with important questions like how much experience they have and how vast their SEO skills and knowledge are.

Demonstrated Expertise

While you may come across plenty of SEO specialists, not all of them will be well-equipped for the role. When looking for a professional SEO consultant, ensure they have 1-3 years of hands-on experience and a set of SEO projects with proven results.

Ability to Analyze and Make Long-term Plans

An important skill that every SEO specialist must possess is expertise in analytics and planning. These include understanding Google Analytics, Google Ads, and its likes. Additionally, SEO specialists must create a long-term SEO campaign for your business.

Customized Strategies

SEO does not have a one-size-fits-all strategy. Your business is unique and requires an SEO approach tailored to your product or service offerings. An expert SEO specialist will know how to create a custom strategy that suits your business model instead of following a preset template.

Profound Search Engine Optimization Knowledge

Another skill that you must look for in SEO specialists is comprehensive SEO knowledge. This includes know-how about SEO tools, technical SEO aspects, and other intricate information. Mere keyword research and optimization are not enough.

Conclusion

In a nutshell, search engine optimization refers to the process of increasing the organic traffic of your website. It requires conducting a thorough analysis and implementing multiple strategies that only an SEO expert can perform.

SEO consulting is a process where expert SEO consultants create an all-inclusive SEO plan for your business to rank well on the major search engines. For this, they conduct a detailed assessment of your existing practices and develop a long-term customized plan for your website.

Now that you are well aware of what is SEO consultant services, what’s the hold? Hire a professional SEO consultancy to ensure your website is not hidden on the second page of search engine results.

FAQs

1. How to become an SEO consultant?

One of the best ways to become an SEO consultant is by taking an all-inclusive SEO training course. Such training courses include explicit SEO knowledge like analytics, rankings, keyword research, and link building, among others.

2. Is SEO a good career?

If you wish to become an SEO specialist, know that it’s an excellent career for 2022. With every business owner looking for expert SEO services, you can easily secure high-paying clients and work from home. Moreover, you can also optimize your own website for search engines.

3. How much do SEO consultants make in the UK?

The average salary of a professional SEO consultant in the UK is around £32,000. However, it may vary according to the location and responsibility set. For example, an SEO trainee can earn about £18,000 while SEO specialists at executive positions can earn up to £50,000.