Does SEO Work Instantly?

Does SEO work instantly? This is a question that those with a limited amount of knowledge on the subject tend to ask as well as those that are having a website designed and have heard about this wonderful thing called Search Engine Optimization.

But here’s the thing.

A number of people are being misled in that they are being made to believe that brand new SEO campaigns are going to result in instantaneous results. However, this is not true.

People also make the mistake of believing that just because their website has appeared somewhere on Google that it means SEO is working. Instead, it basically means that Google has sent their spider to the website and indexed it. This is something that is completely different, but those companies that are providing SEO in a shady manner and are best to be avoided.

So, How Long Does it Take?

The answer to this question is like the proverbial ‘how long is a piece of string?’ because if you spend some time conducting research into this, then you will see that people do differ with their opinions. However, if you are willing to keep to the rules, and not everybody does, then in order to rank high up for various keywords can take somewhere in the region of six months.

Now, we know that six months sounds like an eternity, but there is a very good reason for that as we will now explain.

Why it Takes so Long.

There are several things that contribute to the length of time that it takes SEO to show some kind of returns for the work that is carried out. First, you need to grow various aspects of it slowly and in a more organic fashion. This was certainly not always the case in the past, but Google then clamped down on those individuals that sought to break the rules.

Also, if your website is brand new with no history, then it takes even longer to then build up those all important backlinks and the various other aspects that are attributed to a successful SEO campaign. This is because the work that is carried out has nothing to build upon. It has to start from scratch and involves pretty much baby steps to get the absolute core of the campaign correctly established.

If you are involved in things such as keyword stuffing or throwing a huge number of pointless backlinks to your website, then this is going to get you nowhere. Sure, Google might at first rank you higher up than you expected, but that is not something that will last.

In other words, it takes so long because Google have designed their algorithms in such a way that you need to play the long game. You need to be prepared to work at slowly building those quality links and adding more and more content that is seen as being beneficial to your website and those that visit. If you suddenly appear on their radar with a brand new domain and yet you have the same number of links as an established site, then the alarm bells are going to be going off.

So Can You Speed it Up?

We understand that there will be people out there that are frustrated and annoyed at the idea of it taking months for results to be noticed, but you have to remember this one thing. The results that you see after say six months are going to pale into insignificance to the results that you will have in 12 months if you keep the campaign going.

This is because it is an organic thing and because it is organic then you can try to do several things, within the rules, to speed it up.

For this, you can make sure that your campaign covers all of the different aspects of SEO. This means making sure that you have your keywords contained in quality content, meta tags, alt tags, build those quality backlinks, social signals, the list goes on. It makes sense that if you use the different aspects of SEO that actually count for something and do so on a regular basis, then you will grow faster than you otherwise would.

So what’s the point in all of this?

The point is to try and steer you away from those companies or individuals that claim they can achieve these amazing things in a few days when it comes to SEO. They will try to charge you a fortune for this as they attempt to sweep you up in this tidal wave of enthusiasm and the belief that your website is going to become famous overnight.

Don’t fall for it. Patience is indeed a virtue and when the potential future of your website is at risk then surely it is in your best interests to ignore those false promises and look at the long term?