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Why Does SEO Take So Long?

If you take a keen look at the graphical illustration below, you can see that SEO is still the best digital marketing strategy when it comes to customer conversion.

why does seo take so long graph
SEO a key Factor in Ranking by Rankwisely

So, if you’re looking for customers for your startups or looking to gain more for your existing brand, look no further than SEO. It’s a tested and proven marketing strategy.

Brief about the topics we covered here which describe why and how SEO takes time

The Expert’s Viewpoint on SEO Time-Frame

  • Website Audit: First Step to Analyze
  • SEO depends on Content Marketing
  • The Impact of the Competition
  • Quality Backlinks are not Easily Obtained
  • Conclusion

But before you get too carried away with how much SEO can do for your business, bear in mind that its results won’t come overnight.

I’m sorry you have to hear that, but SEO is no quick-result scheme. It will take time before you start seeing your brand climb up the search engine rankings. But once its results are set in motion, it will reap the dividends for a long time. You might question how long SEO takes to start working. It’s difficult to answer in one sentence but step by step guide to improve SEO in 2023 would be the best strategy to apply for long-term basis results.

What do the experts say about the SEO timeframe?

Everyone screams, “SEO takes time,” but how long exactly? Here’s what the experts have to say.

  • According to SEO Mechanic: Website owners can start expecting to see results within 4 to 6 months.
  • According to Forbes: They haven’t put an exact number on it because SEO results grow over time.
  • According to Search Engine Journal: You will start seeing results for low-competition keywords in a matter of weeks. But moderately competitive keywords might take months.

But why will it take this long?

Let’s find out in the next frame.

Why Does SEO Take So Long?

A thorough website audit is required

Before any SEO updates are made to your website, the first task that needs to be done is an SEO Audit. There is no telling how long the SEO audit might take because it depends on the current condition of your website. It could be days, weeks, or even months in some cases.

The primary goal of this Technical SEO audit is to find any existing flaws in the website (both on-page and off-page) that are preventing it from climbing up the Search Engine Results Pages (SERPs). When merely looking at your site, you might think there’s nothing wrong with it. But when a proper technical audit is conducted on it, you’ll probably see that a million things are wrong with it.

why seo take so long website analysis technical seo by rankwisely
Technical SEO Audit by rankwisely

Here’s a list of things that a typical SEO audit aims to fish out:

1. Crawlability: For search engines to rank a site, they need to understand what the site is about. They do this through a process called crawling, which examines a website’s title tags, content, internal links, and URLs.

Unfortunately, when you have broken links, copied content, poor meta tags, etc., it becomes difficult for search engines to crawl your site appropriately. A proper technical audit will allow you to analyze your site’s on-page SEO and discover if any of these problems exist.

Now, imagine if your site has lots of pages, content, tags, and links. How long do you think it would take to analyze each one of them?

PRO TIP: Companies like Rankwisely, which offer SEO services in Fort Lauderdale, are particularly good at this type of audit.

2. Usability: During the audit, the specialist will also examine the site for relevant UX details, such as its bounce rate, site speed, mobile responsiveness, etc. You won’t notice these things by merely staring at your web pages. You need tools and experience to figure out and understand where your site stands in relation to these details.

According to SemRush, the usability factor is one of the most important ranking factors used by Google. So, you really cannot afford to joke about it.

For example, don’t think because your site loads fast, you have decent site speed. Your site could be several milliseconds behind your competitors without knowing it. But when you invest in white-hat SEO with a reputable company like Rankwisely, you can be sure that your site speed status will be figured out and adjusted appropriately.

3. Code Quality: Every single code on a website’s backend contributes to its potential for ranking in search engines. An audit will examine the entire site’s backend and look for any signs of poorly written codes. Since most sites have dozens of pages of code in their backends, you can imagine how long it would take to vet each one of these code pages.

4. URLs: Broken URLs or too-long-to-read URLs are all culprits of poor rankings. During the SEO audit, the specialist will analyze the readability, as well as the functionality of all internal and external links.

SEO depends on content marketing

Another reason why the SEO campaign you paid for might be taking too long is that SEO relies solely on content marketing. By content marketing, we mean the creation and publication of blog posts, guides, infographics, white papers, etc. These things take time to create and publish.

content marketing contributing factor for SEO time frame
SEO depends on Content Marketing by Rankwisely

Obviously, you cannot publish all the possible blog posts that you’d need to climb up the SERPs in a single day. It takes time to achieve a higher rank. The more blog posts you create, the more relevant keywords you can target, and the higher your chances of being recognized by Google for these keywords.

You need to build authority in your niche, which takes time as well. To speed up the process, most businesses invest separately in on-page and off-page SEO, while targeting as many keywords as possible.

The good news?

The emergence of several affordable SEO services in the USA like Rankwisely, which offers both off-and-on Page SEO, means that businesses no longer have to waste time or money in separate SEO efforts.

The Impact of the Competition

Just like you probably have them around your immediate locality, competitors are there on the digital landscape too. And for every SEO stride you think you might be making, they’re probably ten steps ahead of you.

Competition in SEO by rankwisely
The Impact of Competition in SEO by Rankwisely

That is why any proper SEO campaign has to feature a detailed competitive research stage, wherein the specialist analyzes all the possible competitors out there. They look at their strengths, weaknesses, and shortcomings to figure out areas where your website can improve on them.

Now, depending on the number of competitors, you can expect the competition-research stage to last for weeks, if not months. Typically, the specialist will analyze businesses like yours for their content, existing rankings, sites they’re linking to, authority in the industry, site speed, and several other factors.

Even if they’re trying to analyze just five competitors in a day, you can imagine how long it will take to pull together all these pieces of data.

It is not a surprise that backlinks are the pillar of search engine rankings! If you want to rank higher, you simply cannot do so without linking to other sites. However, the quality and authority of your backlinks will determine where Google puts you on its SERPs.

Quality backlinks not easily obtained by Rankwisely
Quality Backlinks: Best Off-Page SEO Technique by Rankwisely

Unfortunately, high-quality backlinks are not found by the riverside. They take time and lots of effort to secure. And depending on the requirements of the sites in which the links are coming, backlinking could take weeks to months to secure.

Now, considering that you’re going to need more than one backlink to build your industry authority and boost your search engine rankings, you can imagine how long that’s going to take.

The amount of investment on the table

Finally, SEO takes a long because it depends on how much money the site owner is willing to invest. In other words, the amount you pay a specialist is what determines the speed at which they work and the areas they decide to focus on.

For example, if you’re only able to pay for on-page SEO at a given time but cannot afford to pay for off-page techniques like guest posting, then you will not enjoy the combined effects of both techniques. Although your on-page investments will surely pay dividends, the results will be pretty much slower than if you had invested in off-page too.