How Long Does SEO Take

The honest answer is three to six months before the numbers move in a way you can trust. A crowded search takes closer to a year, so the range is wide for a reason. Anyone who hands you an exact date is guessing, because it depends on what your competitors do next.

A brand new site usually runs something like this, month by month. In the first month Google finds the pages and stores them, so almost nothing shows anywhere. By months two and three, long and very specific searches begin bringing one or two visitors a day. Between months four and six those same pages climb from page four up to page two. The enquiries that actually pay for the work start somewhere between month six and month nine.

An established site moves much faster, because Google already trusts an address it has read for years. Fixing weak titles, joining thin pages together and answering a question properly can lift a page within weeks. We watched one clinic page go from position nineteen to position six in eleven days after a single rewrite. That site was eight years old, and its age is the only reason the jump was possible.

Four things speed the whole process up, starting with publishing often about the work you actually do. Choosing a smaller market helps as well, such as one city or one trade. So does a site that loads quickly and is easy for Google to read. Three things slow it down instead. A new domain nobody has linked to is one, and a crowded market like insurance or travel is another. The worst is a rebuild that changes every address without sending the old ones to the new. That last mistake alone can cost half a year, which is why Linkysoft keeps the old addresses alive during a website design and development project.

A promise of number one is a warning sign, because nobody controls that page, not even the people who work on it every day. The results change by country, by phone and by person, so a serious supplier promises the work instead of the position. That means so many pages, so many fixes, a report every month, and your own access to the numbers. Linkysoft writes the month by month plan into the contract for every digital marketing project, and the accounts stay in the client's name. If a proposal names a position and a date, ask what happens when the date passes and nothing has changed.