Big Plum Digital
Home
Products Contact Request a diagnosis Digital audit Plum Notes
ESENDA

Plum NotesSEO

How long SEO really takes.

It's the question we're asked most. The honest answer is “it depends”, but it depends on specific things that can be measured. We tell you what they are, what shows first and what comes later, which promises should make you wary and how to tell whether you're on the right track.

Published
Reading time
4 minutes
By
The Big Plum team

In short

  • You usually start to notice SEO between the third and sixth month; in very competitive sectors, longer.
  • The technical foundation shows first; content and authority, later.
  • Nobody can guarantee the top spot: no one outside Google controls its algorithm.
  • It's measured every month with data, long before the sales arrive.
In this note
  1. 01Why there's no single answer
  2. 02What shows first: the technical foundation
  3. 03What takes longer: content and authority
  4. 04A realistic timeline
  5. 05The promises that should make you wary
  6. 06How to tell you're on track before you see sales
  7. 07SEO and ads, together

01Why there's no single answer

Saying “SEO takes six months” is like saying a building job takes six months without having seen the house. It depends above all on four things:

  • The competition for what your customers search for. Ranking for “made-to-measure kitchens in Málaga” is not the same as for “car insurance”.
  • Where your website starts from. A website with years, content and links moves faster than a brand-new domain.
  • Its technical condition. If Google can't read it properly, everything else waits.
  • What's invested in content. Every useful page you publish is one more door through which people can find you.

With those four facts a realistic timeframe can be given, and it's the first thing we do in an audit.

02What shows first: the technical foundation

When we fix the technical side (pages Google wasn't indexing, crawl errors, a slow website, missing structured data), the effect usually shows in weeks, not months. Google has to crawl the website again and notice the change, but as soon as it does, pages that didn't count before start to count.

The first thing to move isn't sales but impressions in Search Console: the number of times you appear in the results, even if people don't click yet.

03What takes longer: content and authority

A new page has to be discovered, indexed and earn Google's trust against the ones that were already there. That takes time. And authority (other websites talking about you and linking to you, your reviews growing) builds up little by little.

The good news is that it really does build up. Every page that ranks helps the others, and growth isn't linear: the first months are hard and then it speeds up.

SEO is slow to start for the same reason it doesn't stop later: everything you do stays.

04A realistic timeline

For a business website with normal competition, this is the pace we usually see:

  1. Month 1: audit. How Google sees you today, what your customers search for and where your competitors are.
  2. Months 1 and 2: technical foundation. Speed, indexing, structure and data.
  3. Months 2 to 4: content. The pages that answer the searches that bring in business.
  4. From month 4: authority and measurement. Mentions, links and reviews, and a monthly report.

The first clear rises usually come between the third and sixth month. In very competitive sectors, or with a new domain, it can take longer, and we'll tell you before we start.

05The promises that should make you wary

If someone promises you any of these things, ask how they plan to achieve it:

  • “Guaranteed top spot”. No one outside Google controls its algorithm. Google itself warns about this in its guide to choosing an SEO: no one can guarantee the number one position.
  • “Results in two weeks”. Unless you're starting from a serious technical problem that can be fixed quickly, it isn't realistic.
  • “Thousands of links for very little money”. Links bought in bulk are exactly what Google penalises. What you gain today you can lose tomorrow, with interest.
  • “You don't need content”. Without pages that answer what your customers search for, there's nothing to rank.

06How to tell you're on track before you see sales

SEO can be measured long before the enquiries arrive. These are the signs we look at every month, roughly in this order:

  1. The important pages are indexed and error-free.
  2. Impressions grow: Google shows you more often.
  3. Positions improve, first for long, specific searches, then for the more contested ones.
  4. More clicks arrive from Google.
  5. And, finally, more enquiries and sales coming from organic search.

If the first signs move, the last ones will follow. If they don't move in three or four months, something needs to change, and a good report has to tell you so.

07SEO and ads, together

While SEO gathers strength, ads can bring in enquiries from day one. They don't compete: they complement each other. Ads switch off when you stop paying; SEO stays.

On our SEO page we explain how we work on it, and on the digital advertising page, how to combine it with campaigns.

Keep reading

All notes