You’ve probably asked yourself, or someone, “How long does it take to get good SEO rankings?”. Even in 2021, there is plenty of mystery that surrounds SEO (maybe more now than ever).
One of the most popular topics of debate is the length of time someone should expect to wait before their website ranks on the first page.
Try not to look at SEO as a sprint to the top of the page, but instead as a grueling marathon that requires dedication and commitment.
There are many factors that play into whether or not Google will decide to rank your site on the first page – proper website structure for SEO search-ability is a great place to start. Further, the interactions that users have with your website influence Google’s ranking of your site as well.
Let’s say that you have a new website that is built with SEO structure in mind and converts visitors into business leads (or paying e-commerce customers). Great, well done. Your next objective is to start increasing traffic to your website.
Sure, you can do this using Google Adwords. However, that can be costly and once your budget runs out, you’ll no longer be ranked at the top of the page. Now what? Well, you should strongly consider organic search optimization, and that starts with good keyword research.
Above is a graph illustrating keyword search volume in relation to difficulty and conversion rates. To explain it further, the search term “herring” is very broad and due to its broadness, it is presumed to be very difficult to rank on page one.
However, at the other end, the “long tail” searches such as “Bob’s Red Herring” are very specific. They typically result in lower competition, making it much easier to rank for those keywords. More often than not, you’re optimizing around the wrong keywords. That’s what is causing your website to rank poorly.
Determining good keywords is strongly related to the level of difficulty in ranking for that keyword. A good strategy is to find keywords that have a fairly high search volume, and then check who is ranking for these terms.
You can do this by simply Googling the term itself and seeing who comes up. Sites that come up have lots of “authority”, or clout, which in the digital world are players like Amazon, Walmart, Forbes, you get the idea.
Don’t waste your time trying to knock down those pages as it is very unlikely. Instead, find keywords that query results with less competitive websites, who have inferior authority.
A great tool to determine this is SeoQuake, but there are other great services out there from Moz, SEMRush, etc. The key: find the long tail keyword that is relevant to a single page, that has relatively low competition.
In closing, SEO should be looked at as something that becomes an ongoing practice or habit.
Think of tackling SEO as if you were training for a marathon. You aren’t going to start off by running 26 miles and feeling great. Instead, you’ll probably equip yourself with a decent pair of running shoes, and then take it a mile at a time.
Slowing increasing your mileage and intensity. Soon enough, you’ll feel like Rocky Balboa on top of the stairs at the Philadelphia Art Museum. But keep in mind, when you stop working on your SEO strategy you’re at risk of letting another competitor outrank you. Just like for a marathon, you need to keep training.
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