How long does SEO really take?
Posted on
- 26 February 2025
The truth about how long SEO takes
Video transcript below
The most common question we get when it comes to SEO, how long does SEO take? The real answer is SEO never stops. It is a constant relationship between the content of your website and Google to make you get onto page one of the search results and stay there. Now, getting you onto page one is only half the battle. The real battle is staying on page one, obviously, in the top 10 positions against thousands of other websites.
You are competing with thousands of businesses online offering the same products and services as you
Just to give you a better understanding of the competitiveness of this. Let’s just say you are a NDIS provider and wanting to rank on page one for the term ‘NDIS provider Melbourne’, that keyword alone will bring up hundreds to thousands of other websites, not to mention all the government and health organisations coming up for those phrases. So, getting onto page one will definitely be a challenge, and staying on page one, competing against those big companies will be even more of a challenge. This pretty much goes for any type of decent search term.
Another example, you’re selling beauty products and wanting to rank for buy organic makeup. Same thing. It’ll be challenging to get you there. and it will be even more of a challenge to keep you there.
But you’re still asking how long does it initially take to get onto page one In the first place? That really depends on a number of factors.
- If your website is brand new
- If you’re in a competitive industry
- Has your website been around for a while?
- Does Google know about your website?
- Have you done SEO before?
- Has your previous SEO company messed up the relationship between your website and Google?
As you can see, there are many factors that determine how long it should take to get you on page one of Google for decent search terms. From our personal experience, some of our clients got great rankings within a few months, some within a few weeks and some within a few days because we are the best. Check our case studies. But seriously, all this depends on the industry you’re competing in and your current website strength. Let’s say you have a brand new website and want to rank for a term such as not at fault car accident. You’ll be going up against big insurance companies. Something like this may take 9 to 12 months to be able to go head to head with the big boys, providing your SEO company is doing all the right things. So, does that mean you should give up? No way. Even if you get a small percentage of market share, that will still be quite profitable for you.
As you can see, it will be hard for anyone to answer this question about how long it will take to get you on page one unless they’re full of it and trying to do anything to get your business. If you have a website and want us to have a look at it, send it across to us and we can set the right expectations.
Do I need to keep doing SEO once I get to page 1 of Google?
Now, one more question. I’m ranking on page one of Google. Don’t need to keep on doing SEO? just in case you haven’t got the message yet. Of course you do. What happens if you stop doing SEO when you get to page one? You’ll drop off the first page sooner or later. And what a waste of an investment that was. Once you drop off page one, it may take even longer to get you back there than you did the first time, depending on how long there was no SEO activity.
If you’re running a business, you cannot expect to keep getting new business from online channels if you are not doing anything. Your word of mouth will eventually also dry up. And then what happens? Let’s have a look at a worst case scenario, because I see the worst case scenario happen more than often – You stop your marketing, your business dries up. You want to start marketing again, but now you don’t have enough to invest to get you back to where you were before, and your business goes bust. Unfortunately, most of the time you need money to make money. So even if you are doing great, keep pushing your SEO. You have to. It’s a must. Get as high as possible on page one of the Google search results and make sure you stay there. You might have few fluctuations here and there, which is perfectly normal, but as long as you’re on page one of the search results, that’s fine.
If you have a website and you want to make more money, which every business owner wants to make more money, give us a buzz. We’ll be happy to help. Thanks, guys.
