One of the main complaints website owners seem to have when doing their own SEO or getting the assistance of an SEO expert is the time it takes to see results. There is no way around it SEO does take a considerable amount of time. There aren’t many quick fixes and you truly need to be in it for the long haul.
It can be frustrating working tirelessly and not seeing the results you deserve. But if you are performing proper SEO methods the results will come, you just have to be patient. There are those in the world however, who are not patient and look for short cuts to quickly boost their SEO rankings.
These tactics fall into the black hat SEO actions and this is something you should certainly be looking to avoid. Not only are the results you receive from these tactics completely unsustainable but also if you are caught by Google you are likely to receive a penalty.
So to ease your frustration and understand just why SEO agencies need some time to get your web to the top of Google. Have a read below at the main points. Remember, SEO is a long term strategy and you should be looking to gain sustainable results while using methods that help you maintain your ranking once your goal is met.
1. Industry
The industry you are in plays a very significant role as to how quickly your rankings will rise in a search engine. Some industries don’t seem to have SEO as a top priority (even though they should) so it can be realistic for you to see results within a few weeks.
Other industries however – like law have a significant amount of competition and SEO is on their radar. Therefore making it increasingly difficult to see fast results for your SEO.
The more competitive the industry, the more competitive the keywords are. This means it will take a much longer time to see positive results for a competitive keyword like “law firm sydney” for example.
2. Results Slow Down Over Time
When you first start SEO and begin to see the results of your work, you may see results jump up from not even on the first 100 listing to lets say the fifth page. This jump can happen quite erratically as Google starts to understand your website and the pages on it better.
But everyone wants to be on the first page and as you get higher and higher up in the rankings you will see your results slow down over time. This is simply because there is more competition for the top positions.
However, you must keep in mind that a position jump from 148 to 43 is certainly not as good as a jump from 16 to 7. So even though the progress towards the first position slows down, it means so much more!
3. Domain Age
How old is your website? If it is brand new, there is some bad news for you. Google seems to favor more established (i.e. older) websites. So if there are two identical sites with the only difference being its age, Google is more likely to choose the older one.
With SEO it is all about establishing your presence and this can’t be done straight away. You can’t expect everything at once and you also need to give Google time to go through your site and actually index it in their ranking.
4. Google’s Algorithm
Unless you work for Google you cannot know for sure what is and what isn’t included in their algorithm. There are however, experts out there who have done a considerable amount of research and can offer a clearer understanding for what is most likely included in the algorithm.
To top it all off as well, Google’s algorithm changes all the time. Therefore making SEO as a whole always changing and evolving with the times. Things that were considered best practice a decade ago could now be thought as black hat SEO methods.
5. Black Hat SEO
As talked about at the start, black hat SEO can provide websites with quick results. Although this is wrong and unethical, some will do whatever they can to beat out the competition and while Google is getting better at weeding out the bad ones, there are still a few that can slip through the cracks.
Don’t be tempted by this form of SEO because it is more than likely that you will be caught and you are likely to receive a penalty. These results are not sustainable either because you need the backbone of hard SEO work behind you in order to keep your ranking up there on the first page.
So while SEO does take its time remember to be patient and if you have done the hard yards you will eventually see the results you have been looking for.
