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Expert Answers to Biz Questions

Listen in! Pick up some expert advice to a reader's question that we selected from CyberSchmooz.

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How Long Does It Take to Rank in SEO

 

If you’re running a business, it’s imperative you have a website to promote your company and maybe even sell your products. The question then becomes: how do you attract people to your website? The answer: get your site ranked high up in Google searches. To do that, you need SEO. More specifically, you need professional SEO services.

SEO experts can “optimize” your website, so that search engines like Google can put it in the first page of the search results every time your potential customers use certain key words when searching for products/services you happen to offer. So if you’re running a pizza shop in Chicago, you may want your website to be seen among the top results when a Google user types a phrase like “best pizza shops in Chicago.”

How Long Will It Take?

That depends on what your goals are, but there are several factors in play when it comes to ranking in search engines like Google. If you have a new website that Google hasn’t seemed to notice yet, a professional SEO team can optimize it so that for certain keywords and phrases your website will be listed in the search results pages. Now this may be lumped in the 10thor 20thpage of results, but at least you’re listed.

To see improvements in your ranking, you may have to wait for at least four to six months. So you may move from the 10thpage of results to the 7thpage of results for certain keywords. Your improvements are gradual because Google doesn’t make instant decisions regarding your rankings.

In addition, everyone is taking SEO seriously. So it’s like a race around a track. To maintain your place among your competitors, you’re going to have to run. To overtake some of your competitors, you’re going to have to run harder. This will take time, since your competitors are also running hard.

Getting to the First Page

This is the ideal placement for your website, and ranking first on the first page is the best possible placement. But having your website listed in the first page works, because most people don’t bother checking out the second page of results. One study found that the click-through rate for first page results was 71% in 2014.

Meanwhile, the click-through rates for the 2ndand 3rdpage of results combined for a measly 6%!

Okay, so now we now that getting on the first page is the top priority. How long will that take? The answer is: a while.

On average, when you have a typical first page of 10 Google results, only about 42% of these websites are two years old or younger. For websites that are just a year old, the percentage is only 22%.  Sites that are at least three years old have a 58% chance of getting into the top 1o of results compared to the younger sites.

What Does This Mean for You?

This means that you cannot expect instant gratification from the assistance of a pro SEO team, because other sites may also be using experts as well. However, not all of them are, so you have at least some advantage over your competitors who insist on DIY SEO.

For your part, simply hire an SEO team you trust, and then do whatever they tell you to do to improve your website. Make sure you do have a trustworthy team that only uses ethical means to improve SEO—Google will penalize your site if you use “black hat” tactics.

In the meantime, continue to produce quality content regularly. Google says this is the best way to get noticed by their search engines, and this is a job that you can do better than any SEO team. After all, it is your business and your niche!

Google      

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