How Long Does SEO Take? (And Why Does It Take So Long?)

 

Why does SEO take so long, though?

Because more than 200 ranking factors power search engine algorithms, and the biggest ones — like your backlink profile — don’t happen overnight but over time as you build your site’s reputation as a trusted resource on the web.

Keep reading to learn more about how long SEO takes, including whether you can get SEO results faster!

How long does SEO take?

SEO typically takes three to six months to work, though some sites require six to 12 months. How long SEO takes to work depends on factors related to the site and business, like whether the site is crawlable and how much time the business dedicates to SEO.

Why does SEO take so long?

SEO takes so long because search engine algorithms have become more complex against an ever-growing internet. With more content to evaluate and more ranking factors to consider, it’s begun to take longer for website owners and SEOs to see SEO results, like increased rankings and traffic.

What determines how long SEO takes to work?

The most influential reasons behind how long SEO takes to work include:

• Business factors, which revolve around your SEO strategy and marketplace.
• SEO factors, which revolve around the factors that power search results.

Business factors

The business factors that shape how long SEO takes to show results include:

Leadership

Does your organization recognize the value of search engine optimization? If leadership doesn’t, you’ll struggle to get buy-in for SEO initiatives, which will have a waterfall effect on other areas, like budget, hiring, and strategy.

The less support you have, the fewer resources you’ll have to invest in SEO, which will often extend how long SEO takes to work. That’s why it’s critical to learn how to explain SEO to leadership teams.

With their support, you can gain valuable resources to jumpstart your SEO program.

KPIs

Organizations measure SEO with various metrics, including:

• Rankings
• Traffic
• Leads
• Phone calls
• Sales

How leadership defines SEO success will define your timeline for SEO results.

For example, if they’re expecting traffic improvements within the first six months, you can likely achieve that goal. In comparison, if they’re expecting a certain number of qualified leads in the first three months, you’ll likely need more time to show that SEO works.

Industry

Just like pay-per-click (PPC) advertising, some industries invest more in search engine optimization than others. For example, searches related to SEO, PPC, and other digital marketing topics are often competitive because everyone in the industry is doing it.

You can gauge SEO’s popularity in your marketplace through competitor research. SEO.com’s free tool provides quick competitor analysis by highlighting the competiton’s traffic, rankings, and keywords — and how those numbers have evolved over time.

For more competitive industries, expect SEO to take longer to work.

You’ll need to invest more time in improving the ranking factors that determine your placement in search results, like your backlink profile, keyword targeting, and content helpfulness.

Budget

Money doesn’t buy better rankings, but your budget has the power to enable your team to build, implement, and manage a better SEO strategy, which can impact your short- and long-term SEO performance.

For example, with a bigger budget, you can:

• Subscribe to SEO tools, which you can use for keyword research, competitor analysis, and SEO audits.
• Hire an SEO agency, which you can use to inform, streamline, and scale SEO efforts.
• Onboard SEO specialists, which you can use to build, manage, and monitor an in-house SEO program.

If you have a smaller SEO budget, that doesn’t mean you won’t see SEO results. Your timeline for seeing SEO results could extend beyond the typical three to six months, though this timeline depends on more than budget.

Resources

When it comes to SEO programs, resources include the following:

• Talent
• Tools
• Time

Lacking in one (or all) will affect how long SEO takes to work.

For example, if you have the talent and tools but don’t have the time, you’ll likely see slower returns from search engine optimization because your team doesn’t have the time to nurture it.

Strategy

When it comes to how long SEO takes to work, your strategy is one of the most influential business factors. Your strategy defines where you’ll spend your time — one of your most valuable resources.

That’s why it’s critical to invest the time developing your SEO strategy.

SEO factors

The SEO factors that influence how long SEO takes to show results include:

Crawling and indexing

First, if search engines can’t crawl or index your site, you’ll be waiting a long time to see SEO results.

That’s because these two steps are the precursor to ranking in search results. You need a web crawler to crawl your site, so you can then enter a search engine’s index. The good news is you can quickly troubleshoot this issue with tools like Google Search Console.

Even if search engines can crawl and index your site, there are additional considerations:

• Your crawl rate settings
• Your XML sitemap update schedule
• Your internal linking optimization
• Your crawl frequency

Building your technical SEO knowledge can help you optimize the above areas on your site.

Backlink profile

Backlink profile is one of the most talked-about ranking factors because it’s one of the biggest.

For search engines like Google, backlinks serve as an endorsement of your content. If you’re familiar with citations in academic papers, this is where Google initially got the idea for backlinks as a ranking factor.

Websites with a stronger backlink profile tend to see SEO results faster because of their reputation.

Search engines know this website is trusted, which makes the site a more reputable source of information. Essentially, search engines are more confident in these sites to deliver on user intent than other unknown sites.

SEO will likely take time if your website is still growing its backlink profile.

Domain history

Your domain’s history can also influence how long SEO takes to work.

Typically, older domains perform better than younger domains in search engine optimization because of their age. That’s because older domains are often more established, meaning they have a longer history with search engines and a more extensive backlink profile.

This doesn’t mean you should purchase an older vs. younger domain.

Expert Insights From

“As long as you’ve been around for at least a couple of months, you should be able to make sure that you can show up in search results.”

Matt Cutts Source

According to Matt Cutts, a former Google employee, “As long as you’ve been around for at least a couple of months, you should be able to make sure that you can show up in search results.” Some SEOs disagree with this sentiment, but remember, search engines use 200+ factors to generate search results.

Our advice? An older domain is nice, but one relevant to your business is better long-term.

Keyword competition

“Why does SEO take so long,” says the webmaster looking to rank for “hotels” with their brand-new site.

Keyword competition also plays a role in how long SEO takes to work. Shorter keywords (think one to two words) with higher search volumes are typically more competitive than longer keywords (think three to four words or more).

That means you’re competing with some big-name sites to rank for a keyword like “hotels,” and if your website doesn’t have the backlink profile (and other SEO ranking factors) to compete, you’ll likely see little traction in your SEO results.

Target a long-tail keyword, though, like “kid friendly hotels with activities in ca,” and you’ll likely see results faster because the keyword contains less competition. Keep in mind that “faster” doesn’t mean overnight results.

Search intent

Search intent is another influential factor in how long SEO takes. If your website’s content doesn’t match a user’s search intent (AKA, the problem they’re looking to solve), it won’t drive the rankings, traffic, and sales your business is expecting.

You can take these steps to ensure your content meets search intent:

• Look at the top results for your target keyword
• Determine the common threads between these URLs
• Outline the search intent based on these common threads, like “Looking for a list of kid-friendly hotels (along with their pros, cons, and average cost) in California that also offer kid activities”
• Develop a content outline based on this search intent

With user-first, SEO-friendly content, you can improve your chances of SEO results.

On-page SEO optimization

Along with meeting search intent, there are also several on-page SEO optimizations to consider, like:

• Title tags
• Meta descriptions
• Keyword integration
• Header tags
• Internal linking

If your content isn’t optimized according to search engine optimization best practices, it’ll likely take SEO longer to work for your business. For example, your target keyword should appear in your title tag and throughout your content to indicate to search engines and users your content’s topic.

Core Web Vitals

Hate slow websites, especially those that shift once they load? You’re not alone.

Google created Core Web Vitals to target page speed elements that affect the user experience like:

• How long until users can interact with the content
• How long until the content responds to user interactions
• How long until the content displays its largest element in the viewport

If your site delivers a poor experience based on these metrics, you’ll likely see slower results from SEO because of the user experience. You can work towards resolving this issue by working with an SEO and development team to improve your site’s speed and responsiveness.

You can test your speed by using Google’s PageSpeed Insights tool. If you’re wondering how to use Google’s PageSpeed Insights for SEO, all you need to do is visit the tool, enter your website URL, and click analyze.

How to optimize your SEO timeline

Compared to PPC advertising, six months is a lifetime to wait for results. If you’re wondering what you’ll do with all that time, we’ve compiled an example SEO timeline below to show how SEOs spend their time.

Note: The below is an example. Every website is different, so your timeline will likely look different, and that’s okay!

Month 1

Consider the following focus areas in your first 30 days:

• Set up necessary tools, like Google Analytics 4 and Google Search Console
• Verify crawling and indexing
• Audit the site’s SEO to determine site- or page-level opportunities
• Evaluate competitor performance

Month 2

In the next 30 days, consider the following focus areas:

• Fix the most serious SEO issues based on your audit
• Claim or set up a Google Business Profile and Bing Places listing
• Research and add relevant keywords to your most valuable URLs

Month 3

In month 3, consider these focus areas:

• Map and implement keywords on other key URLs
• Research topics for building backlinks and start developing this content
• Continue resolving SEO issues based on severity and impact

Month 4

In the following month, consider these focus areas:

• Continue resolving SEO issues based on severity and impact
• Evaluate SEO performance
• Outreach to relevant sites with your content from Month 3

Month 5

In month five, consider these focus areas:

• Continue optimizing your most valuable URLs
• Develop new content topics for reaching users via search

Month 6

Finally, in month six, consider these focus areas:

• Evaluate six-month SEO performance
• Determine strategy for the next quarter

How can I get SEO results faster?

Let’s be clear — you can’t wave a magic wand (or use black-hat SEO) to get SEO results faster.

You can, however, invest the time in building a trusted site with a reputation for producing helpful content that serves users and their needs, along with following the best practices search engines share for SEO.

Do that, and you’ll likely see faster SEO results than a brand-new website with no history on the web.

Should I stop SEO if it’s not working?

Like we mentioned before, there’s no reason to fear SEO if you don’t see a return immediately because it can take time to see SEO results. So don’t stop your SEO efforts if your site isn’t ranking right away.

Make your SEO efforts worth the investment with SEO experts

With more than 200 ranking factors powering your placement in search engine results, you need all the help you can get. From on-page to off-page to technical SEO, our search engine optimization experts can make optimizing your site as easy as 1, 2, 3.

At WebFX (the team behind SEO.com), we can provide the exact support you need:

1. Need professional help? If you are looking for top-notch SEO firms in Chicago, Austin, or digital marketing companies in New York, and other U.S. cities, look no further! We also provide professional SEO services, too 😉
2. Need DIY help? Use the SEO.com app, and start streamlining your day-to-day. From keyword research to competitor analysis, it’s the tool that helps you do more in your day.