We explain how long your strategy can take to show results
In simple terms, SEO is the set of optimizations that you must make to your website so that search engines (such as Google) show you in their first results when users do a search. However, this positioning does not happen overnight. The precise time can vary according to many factors. Here we explain how long it takes to position yourself on the first page of Google and what are the possible causes of a greater delay.
How long does it take to rank on the first page of Google?
Before that, it is important to answer: why do we focus on Google and not on another search engine? The answer is simple: Google is used by 90% of the market share, according to figures from Statista 2019.
An SEO strategy focused on Google algorithms can take an average of 6 months to start showing results. And when we say "on average," we mean a website with neither too high nor too low competition.
There are very, very specific niches that take less than a month to position themselves. And also, very general and competitive niches that can take more than a year. For example: positioning a web page about recipes can take a long time, but another segmented to a more specific audience, such as only grills or barbecues, can show results in less months.
For this reason, any professional who knows at least 20% about SEO will answer you with a solid and non-negotiable "it depends". Mainly because this is not controlled by the SEO analyst, but by the 200 ranking factors that Google has to choose which content to show first.
So... how do I evaluate the performance of my strategy?
There are very basic indicators in SEO that show you clues about the effectiveness of your strategy. Your main ally in this process will be the Google Search Console.
This tool will show you for which keywords you are having impressions on Google , that is, for how many searches your content appears. Beware: having impressions does not necessarily translate into traffic, but it is an indication that Google likes your content and wants to see how the audience evaluates it.
With the information provided by the tool, you can update your content to improve the click rate. And the more clicks you earn, your CTR improves and consequently you climb positions.
After impressions, two other important metrics are bounce rate and dwell time . You can see this in Google Analytics. If your stay is minimal and your bounce rate is very high, something is wrong. This means that the audience is coming to your website but leaving in a short time, which Google interprets as "non-valuable result".
This can happen for many reasons: loading speed delays, broken links, non-responsive website, unreadable text, bad content, and a long etcetera of reasons that affect the user experience. Search Console itself helps you spot these flaws so you can fix them in time.
So, if you have an impeccable user experience, good impressions and good CTR, do not doubt that your website is on the right SEO path.
My user experience is optimized... why don't I position myself?
It may happen that your web page loads in less than 2 seconds, you have a super intuitive menu, the web design is adapted to mobile phones and you have updated your security certificates but... you don't go up in Google!
Many other external factors come into play here, which are closely related to how competitive your market niche is. The more competing domains you have, the more consideration factors Google brings to the table. We tell you the most important:
The first of all, are the backlinks. The more links you have from well-ranked websites, the more reputation your website earns. For Google this works like a referral system: if my VIP portals say you're good, then you're good. So while there are web pages with more backlinks than yours, the lower you will be in the list of results.
The second is domain authority , which is the score that Google gives your website. This rating is measured on a 1/100 scale. The closer you are to 100, the more Google loves you.
The third factor is the quality of your content. It may surprise you at this point, but there is very good content from web pages that do not have good domain authority or many backlinks, in the first place of Google.
A good SEO strategy combines technical optimizations with good content, one does not exist without the other. What Google is looking for is that users feel comfortable in the web pages they visit, from the technical to the informative. So, if your technical side is fine and you don't position yourself, maybe the problem is your content.
How do I improve my content so that my website ranks faster in Google?
This is where your strategy should start. The first thing you should do if you want to put together an SEO strategy is Keyword Research . Everything else comes from there: formats, categories, tags, internal link structure, pillar pages: EVERYTHING.
In case you are not familiar with the term, a Keyword Research is a study of the keywords most used by your audience on Google. This report shows you local and global search volumes, search trends, and ranking difficulty.
In this way you will be able to know what queries they make about the products or services aligned with your brand. If you know how to use this information wisely, you will generate a lot of content of real interest to the audience.
If this is your first time doing Keyword Research, we'll help you with our guide: how to do keyword research in 4 steps
SEO tips to improve your positioning opportunities
If you are looking for how to optimize your content, we recommend our SEO Copywriting Guide . But right now, we are going to give you some off-record tips, so you can also take them into account.
✔ To improve your click-through rate, optimize your SERP Snippet. Evaluate your competition, add more keywords to your meta descriptions, check if any key phrases are cut. You must stand out when you have impressions to attract more clicks.
✔ Constantly check the load time of your web page, especially from mobile devices.
✔ Make sure content reads well from any device.
✔ That your URL structure has two levels, maximum three. And that all your URLs have the keyword only once.
✔ Update your popular content from time to time, Google loves updates.
✔ Make sure you don't have broken links on your web page.
✔ Do not generate duplicate content.
✔ Pass the information you publish on your blog through an anti-plagiarism detector. Google doesn't like pages that have a lot of matches with other pages.
✔ Make sure your content has more valuable information than your competition.
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