You Must Commit To SEO

As an SEO agency we get asked all the time how long does SEO take? Well I am sure you if you have asked the question you have been told that is takes around 6 – 12 months to begin seeing some really good SEO results. But this depends entirely on the competitiveness of the keywords you are optimising for.

SEO is a very popular internet advertising technique as it provides a very good return on investment once you begin to see results. At BDR the length of time it takes us to get first page rankings varies between clients. This is because some industries are more competitive than others.

How do I know if my industry is competitive?

By now many businesses have been online for a while. This can mean in some industries that you are competing against sites that have been online since as early as 1996. Sites which have been online for a long time have greater authority in the eyes of Google due to the age of the domain. They will also have a head start in terms of the number of links pointing to the domain too.

Generally the number of searches performed each month indicates how competitive an industry is. This is because when lots of people are searching for something there is lots of room in the market for competition. It also generally means that if thousands of people a month are searching for something this is what advertisers are going to optimise for.

At BDR London we use the KEI (Keyword Effectiveness Index) score to determine how competitive a keyword is. The score is worked out by looking at the number of searches for a keyword and the number of search results for that keyword. For a new website or a website who has done no SEO before it is better to optimise for a keyword which has a high KEI score. This means the word is in theory less competitive.

If the keywords which you want to optimise your site for all have low KEI scores it means that your keywords are very competitive and will take longer to rank for. BDR London can get sites to rank for very competitive words however it takes time. This is why I say you must commit to SEO.

When you consider you are often against companies who have been online for years it is unreasonable to think that you are going to be at the top of Google within a few short months. Think of SEO like a journey. If others set of before you then you are going to have to catch up. When you embark on an SEO campaign make sure you are prepared to wait for the best results.

If your SEO agency is good you will begin to see improvements in your rankings from the start. You will see improvements in your traffic levels and you will see the number of terms you are ranking for increase. Don't be disillusioned it is unlikely you will see first page rankings in less than 6 months, if you are a brand new site, unless you are optimising for non competitive terms.

If you have been doing SEO for at least 6 months but have seen no improvements in your rankings then you could be doing something wrong. There are so many things which impact website rankings but competitiveness can determine how quickly results can be achieved. Talk to BDR London if you are unhappy with your current SEO progress.