How long does SEO take to work?

We all know SEO is a tough nut to crack. Between Google algorithm changes, strong competition, and a very thin window (between pages 1 and 2 of SERP) for SEO to drive significant results, it can be a long and frustrating journey. I will share with you my journey of getting this site to rank on google, and how long it took for SEO on this site to start ranking on Google’s SERP pages. A quick search on “how long does it take to rank on google” will return a typical 4 to 6 month period before you start to see returns.

This is also very much dependent on many variable factors, such as the niche of the site, strength of the content and how competitive the keywords are. Here’s a sobering fact for you.

91% of content gets 0 organic traffic from google! This was from a study by ahrefs where they looked at ~1 billion pages and analyzed their organic traffic. In fact, out of ~1B pages, only 1.54% of them got more than 100 visits per month!

If, by this point, you’re close to reaching for your SEO certificate to burn and considering a career flipping burgers, stay with me. I will share with you how I got started on this site from scratch and managed to get myself in the 9.12% of this equation.

4 to 6 months to get SEO started

So, I started this blog late in November 2018 from scratch. Then, I’d been interested in the intersection between exploring side hustles to unlock passive incomes, in the pursuit of FIRE (Financial Independence, Retire Early).

That sounded like an interest that I can sustain a blog with, along an intersection of corelated topics that should be plenty to write about. I was aiming for at least 1 post a week, so it’s not a blog that would grow exponentially, but take its time to accrue content and reputation.

With that context laid out, below is my monthly SEO traffic growth chart.

Given the site went live November 2018, and my first organic traffic came to my site in May 2018, it took me almost exactly 6 months to drive my first organic SEO traffic to my site.

What’s really interesting and cool about SEO however, is that your efforts are additive. Over time, as you accrue content on your site, your SEO will almost certainly improve. You will build upon your keywords, and you’ll have more and more keywords ranking on google, bringing you more traffic as you grow the site.

If you don’t see results in the first 2 or 3 months, it’s crucial to hang in there. The web is a HUGE place. You’re competing with over 500 million blogs, and over 2 million blog posts going live per day.

You’re not going to see results on day 1. Screw that, you’re probably not going to see results on day 90!

But build a plan, stick to it, and slowly but surely, your SEO fruits will be harvested.

Build up your content

I’m no Neil Patel. I’m just your everyday blogger. So if I can get some stuff to rank on Google, so can you.

How did I do it?

The underlying strategy to get ranked on google is to answer questions your readers are asking. After all, that’s what you go to Google for, to get your recipe instructions, to get blogging tips, to find out how you can buy crypto etc.

These are all pain points that people all over the world have.

Find out what the pain points are in your niche, and formulate content to answer them, or at least direct them to a solution. Do this many times over for many different questions, and provide good, honest, complete answers, and Google will notice.

Over time, you should start to see some impressions of queries ranking for your site. These may not yet bring traffic to your site, because although you may be ranking, you may not be on the first or second page to bring you traffic.

How to improve SEO ranking

For me, my first 6 months was focused on the content pipeline. I wanted to write content that resonated with people, and content that was interesting to people, with a little personal perspective thrown in.

I wrote from a perspective I thought I would find interesting myself.

Once there’s enough good content, and the site is old enough for Google to know that this is a site that I’m not going to abandon, the site started ranking for certain keywords.

Now, ranking is the easy enough part. The hard part is improving those ranking, and getting your ranking up to page 1. This is because people, when searching on Google, hardly ever go beyond page 2 of the results. So, if you’re ranking for a query, but you’re in position 90, you’re not going to get traffic.

Take a look at the table above. In the last 3 months, I have 7,598 keywords on my site that are ranking. Out of these 7,598 keywords, only 249 of them are bringing me traffic. That’s 3%!

But here’s the good news. Once you start ranking for certain keywords, you can start optimising toward them. Look at the queries that are coming in and see what you can do within Google Search Console, and see how you can incorporate them (if you haven’t already) into your posts, or have them in a more prominent position within your articles.

Get your SEO basics right

There are certain things within your control and certain things that aren’t. Things like the age of site cannot be controlled. But you can definitely get your SEO basics right.

These include:

• figuring out how and what your audience is searching in relation to your site
• optimise your content for those keywords or phrases
• have an optimum url structure and make sure your target keyword is in the url
• make sure to index your site on Google so that it can appear in the SERPs
• monitor monitor monitor your results

Other factors impacting organic ranking

In this age of mobile and instant gratification, it is not enough to have compelling, complete and great content and information to answer the user’s query in order to rank.

Your site needs to load fast. This was why I implemented AMP pages on my site, and you can see how Google AMP increased my SEO traffic after that.

Another way to help improve your SEO presence is to use Structured Data. Structured Data is a series of microdata you can add to your html in order to improve the way search engines read your page and surface it in the results. This shows up as rich snippets in the SERPs.

Conclusion

It’s easy to get disheartened when you pour in so much work and effort, and for 3 to 6 months, you literally see nothing coming from it. But hang in there. Organic traffic is a long game, and my site proves that you don’t have to be an expert with a huge team to tackle SEO.

I’m a one-man passion blogger just shouting my thoughts and perspectives into the wind. If you only take away one thing from this post, it’s this: If I can get organic traffic, so can you.