During our initial consultations, new clients typically ask the million-dollar question, “When will my SEO be done?” It comes as no surprise that clients want a definitive answer after they spend time, money, and effort optimizing their website. But clients sometimes fail to realize how loaded that question can be, as achieving the results they seek may depend on factors beyond anyone’s control.
Thus, the perception that a website can be 100% optimized hinders many SEO projects from reaching their full potential. In actuality, many external factors and changes may prevent your website from ever reaching 100% optimization. Therefore, SEO needs to be a continual project to adapt to these changes; otherwise, your brand will never achieve the results you desire.
Algorithm Updates
SEO revolves around the rules that search engines create. Simply put, if you want to win Google’s game then you need to play by Google’s rules. Only by conforming to these guidelines can you expect to keep your website ranking as high as possible. Unfortunately, however, Google sometimes throws marketers a curveball by changing the rules. At its core, Google strives to deliver the best results possible to a user, which is why Google constantly changes its algorithm to find the best websites for users’ inquiries. The small tweaks that Google makes to enhance user experience and refine results usually remain unconfirmed until after they launch the algorithm update, making it difficult to implement necessary changes to your website. Most of the time, the updates to algorithms are small and don’t require a complete content refresh or website redesign.
But then there are the more drastic changes to the algorithm, which can completely cripple websites and cause chaos in the SEO industry. For example, think back to “Mobilegeddon” back in April 2015. During this update, Google rewarded websites optimized for the mobile experience by increasing their rank on Google. Meanwhile, the search engine giant punished brands that did not heed the warnings to implement mobile–responsive design to their websites. As a result of this update, many websites had to undergo a complete website redesign if they hoped to salvage the high ranking they once held. Unfortunately, some websites still have still yet to recover from Google’s wrath.
Changes in Competition
Your competitors will always try to outshine you, so you can never stop working to improve your brand’s digital presence. Whether repurposing old content or creating more engaging content, remember that there are always opportunities to expand and grow your SEO efforts. Don’t have the mindset that you have done everything possible to get ahead because your competitors will continue to push forward, taking your ideas and making them better.
Updates to Your Website
When your business grows and you add new areas of development to your business plan, you will need to update your website to showcase these new ideas. The same is true whenever you launch new products or services. It is likely that you will want to increase visibility when users search for these new products. To do so, you will need to create new web pages to showcase your new ideas. More importantly, you need to optimize these new pages with compelling, keyword-rich copy, and other important on-page SEO elements.
How Long Does It Take To Rank on Google?
Even though you can always find ways to improve your SEO, clients still want to know how long it takes to rank higher on Google. To put it in perspective, a study conducted by Ahrefs examined 2 million random keywords, as well as the web pages ranking at on the first page of Google’s SERPs for each keyword. Their findings showed that that average page was roughly 2 years old, while the web pages at the top of Google’s SERPs were almost 3 years old. Additionally, the study found that only 5.7% of all newly published pages would achieve high ranking within a year. Of these web pages, the majority of them managed to achieve their high ranking within 61 to 182 days.
Simply put, it takes time to rank high on Google. If you expect to see instant results, you’re setting yourself up for disappointment. While you may not see results within the first few months, you will begin to see a steady improvement so long as you remain vigilant and keep up your SEO efforts. Be warned that any marketing agency that promises quick results is either lying or implementing black-hat SEO techniques, which will only hurt your brand in the long run.
What Does This Mean For You?
While the study by Ahrefs did not give a definite answer on how long it takes to rank, it did show that almost 95% of newly published pages don’t make it to the top of search engines within a year. So remember that your website is never fully optimized because your SEO needs to be a continual project – adapting to changing business markets and search engine guidelines. Search engines – especially Google – rewards the websites that deserve to be at the top of search results. Therefore, you should focus on delivering the best experience to your users.
Do you want your improve your visibility on search engines? Contact the digital marketing experts at Premiere Creative today to improve your website’s SEO and rankings or talk to one of our experts on hand at (973) 346-8100. Make sure you remember to return to our blog next week as we re-examine some of this year’s top social media blogs.