How long does it take to see the results of SEO?

The contract with the SEO company is signed, and you check daily whether sales are increasing. You glance to see if the number of subscribers is increasing and verify the position of your website through various tools. You look forward to the results and expect them with increasing impatience. How long will it be before your website's positioning has an effect?

A week, a month...a year?

Getting an exact date would be ideal, but there are so many factors influencing how quickly the first effects appear that it is impossible. One thing is certain - if the statistics do not change for six months, something is wrong. Six months is a sufficient period to see the first effects of SEO. Initial results do not mean meeting all conversion targets. These include:

• higher search engine ranking for given key phrases
• increased website traffic
• more customer enquiries/contact form submissions/newsletter sign-ups.

Competitiveness

If the chosen phrases have very high competition, ranking the site will be difficult. The more websites focus on SEO for these phrases, the stronger they become. This means that a few links from other websites and a good text containing the keywords are not enough. Much more complex measures are needed. The less competitive the phrases, the easier it will be to rank a website. This is perfectly illustrated by local SEO or long-tail phrases. Making a website rank high in the search results will not be so difficult due to low competitiveness.

The initial state of the site

If a site is very far down the organic search pages, it can take a very long time to reach the Top 10 under specific phrases. Such a distant position is proof that there are many neglected elements. This is why you will first need to perform an audit and create a strategy to plan specific actions. The actions performed by the specialists vary not only by the site's place in the search results but also by how its code, structure and technical elements of the site itself need to be changed.

Sometimes you may find that a site that has reached the 200th position in search results will see an improvement in position faster than a site in the 50th place. Why does this happen? The higher the ranking, the more elements of the site need to be worked on. With a site in a distant position, sometimes a few things need to be changed to get it 50 places higher. However, the closer to Top10, the more work will be required. Those whose sites are in 7th, 5th, and 8th place in the search results for given key phrases should be patient. Higher positions will be extremely difficult to achieve, not only because Google's requirements are higher for sites that want to rank higher. It is important to bear in mind that competitors are constantly monitoring their position and, the moment they feel a threat, they take immediate action. Their aim is to make it as difficult as possible to leapfrog them in the search results. While we are working on the SEO of the site, the competing sites are also doing the work.

Costs

The cost of SEO also has a big impact on the speed of results. Paid SEO, but also organic SEO, depends on the budget. The bigger the budget, the more activities can be carried out by specialists. How much a company is able to pay for SEO depends on what types of actions will be taken. Whether it will be just some strategies using SEO or techniques related to content marketing, UX and others will be launched. In addition, Google is constantly updating and changing its algorithms. This involves changes in the rankings of sites when it comes to search results.

Summary

It is not possible to assume in advance a specific time frame after which specific SEO results should be expected. However, after six months you should see some changes in the statistics. There are situations where the statistics will increase after just a few weeks, but in some cases, you will have to wait a few months. It is worth monitoring statistics in Google Analytics and checking traffic and conversions.