It’s understandably frustrating for a business to hear that search engine optimisation is a long term strategy. It’s even more frustrating that some websites might not see results for up to a year. Unfortunately though, that is the case. You can’t expect immediate results from SEO, there are too many variables that make the answer different for each site. However, in most cases you can start to see your SEO efforts working after 4-6 months. So, what factors affect the timeline and how can you best prepare for them?
New vs Old Domain
Domains that have been around for a while usually have the advantage over brand new domains. An established domain will have built up some authority over time. New domains need time to establish their authority and there’s no way around it. Google wants to ensure the trustworthiness of a site before ranking it. The only case where an older domain may take longer to see SEO results is when the site has been penalised or has errors that need fixing. If your domain isn’t new make sure one of the first things you do when optimising is to fix any outstanding errors.
How Competitive Your Keywords Are
If your keywords are from a highly competitive industry, it can take longer for your site to rank. For example, if your new website is for car insurance, you need to factor in how many other established car insurance websites there are already ranking for those same keywords. On the other side, if your new website serves a niche market you won’t have the same competition and are more likely to see results from your keyword optimisation quicker. Use Keyword tools to look at the keywords your competition is currently ranking for. And take the time to look for any keyword gaps that your website can fill.
On-page SEO
The amount of effort you put into your on-page SEO will make a difference in the results. A website that hasn’t added any meta descriptions or has used low quality images throughout isn’t going to rank as quickly as a site that has thoroughly optimised each element of on-page SEO. Ensure you add your keywords in all the right places, not forgetting the titles and URLs. Use headings and sub-headings. Add meta descriptions and use a tool or plug-in to check the readability of your content. And link to other pages on your site, where appropriate.
Put real effort into creating high quality content for your site. It will make a huge difference in helping your sites position, as described in my post ’10 Reasons Why Your Website Needs Regular Blog Posts’.
Off-Page SEO
Just as important as on-page SEO is our off-page optimisation. This is ‘behind-the-scene’ work that helps boost your website and online visibility. Gaining links to your website from other established sites helps grow the trustworthiness of your site. The more links, and especially links from the more authoritative sites, the better the chance of getting onto Googles radar. How do you earn these links? Well, you can either naturally acquire them, through high quality content. Or, you can reach out to sites that might be interested in your content and ask them to link to pieces of your content that would complement their own. Never buy links, Google will penalise you for it.
Use your social media accounts to promote your website content. It’s good for Google to see traffic coming from another channel to your website. And the more clicks and backlinks your content on social gets, the more your site authority grows.
Ask your customers to leave a review online for your business. Having reviews on sites like Google My Business or Yelp will also help with your sites ranking.
If you have a physical shop, don’t neglect Local SEO. Add your business to Google My Business and make sure to keep your business information updated.
Page Speed
Although part of on-page SEO, page speed is an important factor that I want to address on its own. Nobody waits these days for pages that are slow to load. There are usually plenty of websites that will answer your search query, so if one site is slow to load, you abandon and move to the next. To avoid this happening, you need to be aware of the time it takes for your pages to load. Use a tool like Google Page Speed Insights to analyse your site. Based on the results, it will give recommendations to help reduce page loading time. Implement changes where you can to ensure your site is not losing visitors due to slow load times.
There is a lot more to SEO than what I’ve just mentioned above, but this should give you an idea of how important it is to have an SEO strategy in place.
If you would like to discuss what SEO steps your business should be taking, get in touch.