Search engine optimisation is a great way to increase your brand’s exposure online. In this blog, we’re answering the question, how long does it take for SEO to work?
What is search engine optimisation?
Search engine optimisation is also known as SEO, and it is a great addition to your marketing strategy. It involves a range of techniques to increase the organic visibility and ranking of your website.
Here are some SEO techniques that may be used to increase the amount of organic traffic on your website:
- Including relevant keywords in your website content – avoid keyword stuffing
- Completing competitor analysis – look at relevant websites and what they are doing well
- Obtaining more backlinks – when websites link back to yours
- Creating an internal linking structure
- Optimising new and existing relevant content
- Considering local SEO efforts
- Considering off-page SEO
SEO is a long-term digital marketing strategy that requires revisiting on a regular basis. It may not be the best option if you’re looking for fast results. An SEO strategy requires time and commitment to show the search engines that your website is valuable. If you focus on all of these aspects, you’ll notice more website traffic and boost your website’s authority.
How do search engines decide where to rank a website?
Search engines use many different factors to determine where your website ranks. The search engine results page is also known as a SERP. There are over 200 ranking factors that Google uses to rank websites.
When working on your SEO, you can’t just focus on one aspect and expect great results. Instead, you need to do each element well. When combined, this can help you to achieve some great results. Below you’ll find some of the most important search engine ranking factors.
How long does SEO take to work?
The time it takes for SEO to work depends on many factors. If you manage to cover all of these ranking factors to a high standard, you’ll definitely boost your SEO.
Once your website is labelled as trustworthy, you will notice pages and posts start to rank more quickly. However, they must be of high quality; you can’t just expect everything to rank well. Some websites with great SEO can see posts ranking within just a few weeks.
According to SEO.co, optimised websites could see good quality content ranking within 3 to 6 months. In contrast, websites with poor optimisation and low-quality content may notice pages taking 12 months to rank.
Be aware that if your content doesn’t rank immediately, it doesn’t mean it’s bad, it could be that there is a lot of competition for particular search queries. If you keep working on your SEO and create great content, you’re sure to experience some fantastic results, but you must keep at it for SEO to work. Using high and low-competition keywords within your SEO strategy is a good idea.
Google’s algorithm is always changing and updating, so you’ll need to keep up with this to ensure your SEO efforts work. You may need to adjust your SEO campaign – we can support you with this. Discover how we can help you empower your UAE business with SEO.
Domain authority
Your domain authority can also indicate how trustworthy your website is to the search engine. Some factors that will impact your trust score include: how long visitors spend on your website and if people visit more sites after yours.
Older, more established websites will likely have better domain authority. This can make it harder for newer websites to rank higher too soon. However, there are many things you can do to improve your ranking position.
Generally, 40 – 50 is an average score for domain authority, 50 – 60 is a good score, and anything above 60 is a great score. Over time, with a great website, you should notice your domain authority getting better.
Content quality
When creating content for your website, it needs to be of great quality. This content can be for your web pages or for a blog post. If you don’t have a blog on your website, you should think about creating one. Platforms like WordPress make adding a blog section to your website very simple, and they’re great for SEO. Read more about what a CMS is in web design.
When beginning a content strategy, ensure that you conduct keyword research. Knowing your target keywords will help to make sure that the content you create is actually relevant and valuable to your potential customers. You want your high-quality content to be engaging so that users stay on and interact with your website.
Linking strategy
When building your content strategy, you also need to consider a linking strategy. Linking throughout your website will teach the search engines that your website content flows and is all relevant to your industry.
This leads us nicely to the next way to improve your website’s SEO.
Gain high-quality backlinks
Backlinks can show the search engine that your website can be trusted and has good-quality content. Backlinks are links from one website back to yours. They can be very useful, but only when they are from reputable websites. If you choose to request backlinks from spammy websites, it’ll have a negative impact on your website’s trust score and will diminish your SEO efforts. It’s best to avoid spammy websites when requesting backlinks.
Website responsiveness
Your website being responsive is also referred to as being mobile-friendly. This can really help you to appear in the search results. This means that your website offers a great user experience and works efficiently. This may include the website re-sizing to fit the screen it is being displayed on or images loading when they are expected to. Find out more about responsive websites.
Website structure
Having a great website structure is also concerned with your website’s responsiveness. You’ll need to ensure that your website is easy to use, and to achieve this, it will need to have a smart website structure.
Your website’s navigation needs to be easy to use. This will give users a smooth user experience, as they can find where they need to go on the website. Users visiting your site, going to one page for a while and then leaving signals to the search engine that your website is valuable.
You’ll also need to consider how easy your website is to find off-site. This will include ensuring that you have a great URL structure. Social media management and marketing can help you to increase your website’s visibility.
Website page speed
The faster your website, the better. Users will likely become irritated if your website takes too long to load. This will lead to visitors leaving your site quickly, which will not help to boost your SEO.
There are some things that you can do to improve your website’s speed. For example, you could consider making images smaller on your site and choosing a great hosting provider. We provide fast and secure hosting solutions for your website. Find out more about our hosting and security service.
Website security
Your website’s security is very important and can help to keep users on your site. If visitors find your website insecure, they won’t want to input their personal information. Our hosting service helps to keep your website secure. We offer regular backups, website and plugin updates and technical support.
How can we support you with your new SEO strategy?
We consider all SEO techniques to provide you with a high-quality SEO service. Our SEO specialists conduct a technical SEO audit of your site to identify successes and where improvements can be made. We create high-quality content to drive relevant traffic. Read our blog on SEO ranking factors.
We stay up to date with all SEO advancements so that we can continue to improve your strategy. Tools such as Google Analytics and Google Search Console can help you to see what’s working well. You should always track your website analytics.
SEO strategies are not quick fixes – they take time and commitment. SEO isn’t about reaching the top spot and then stopping the hard work. Instead, you have to continue working on your SEO to ensure that you remain in a great ranking position. So if you’re wondering, how long does SEO take to work? The answer is that it depends on many factors. SEO takes time, but it can be a huge success. We can offer you a free website audit.
Want to know more? Contact us – we’re more than happy to help with your SEO strategy.