I want to protect your investment. To put it simply, if you do SEO for anything less than 12 months, you’re just burning your money. So don’t start.
When you rank higher with SEO, you are giving your business its best chance to reach more of your targeted audience, supporting increased conversions in pursuits of a fatter wallet.
The most important factor to SEO success? Realistic expectations. Search engine optimization doesn’t happen overnight. Even the best SEO campaigns take upwards of a year to show initial growth. Read on to learn why.
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Quality SEO is a Long Game
If some guy with a hammer knocked on your door and offered to build you a two-story addition to your house that he could complete by the end of the day, you would be (rightly) skeptical of the quality of that work. The same goes for quality SEO work.
As Google’s algorithms have evolved, quick hacks are now penalty territory, while search engines reward the patient ones who didn’t cut corners.
A real simple way to look at SEO is who makes Google look good?
Google does not want to have a first page full of spammy sites. That’s bad for users, which would negatively impact their ad revenue. That’s why Google wants to present the best options. So you need to become the best option, and that takes (you guessed it) time.
SEO companies that promise overnight results are not going to hold up over time. Which would you prefer–a short-lived jump in rankings followed by a penalty, or a consistent spot at the top of Google’s first page, year after year?
Finding the Money
Can’t make money unless you know where the money is. After all, what’s the point of optimizing keywords that your targeted buyer isn’t searching for?
Keyword Research (1-3 weeks)
We research your market, competition, and ideal customer to make sure that your campaign is targeting keywords that line up with buyer intent. We use a suite of specialized tools to find words that are high on buyer intent and low on competition, opening up the opportunity for you to capitalize.
Content that Attracts the Right Buyers (3-5 weeks)
You can only rank for what Google can read. So a strong content strategy is a must. Just like we want to align your targets with what resonates, your content that supports those targets should do the same. Your content should be the bridge that closes the gap between your customer’s needs and the solution that your product offers.
My team usually maps out six to twelve months worth of content ideas, and doing it right adds to the time frame. How long? Digging through the data of your competitors, customer pain points, the market, etc. alone can take 3-5 weeks. Skipping this is like setting sail without a compass. One wrong step in the beginning and you’re off course by miles shortly later.
The calendar is strategic with topics that maximize exposure to your target keywords while staying relevant to the audience you are trying to convert.
Laying a Strong SEO Foundation (5-10 weeks)
You could have the world’s best article, but if it takes 10 seconds to load no one will stick around long enough to read it. That’s why your website needs to be built on a proper technical foundation. Otherwise, you can have a site full of quality content, but if it’s built on a website with a poor foundation it dilutes the value of it all.
The good news is that the fundamentals of a solid website are pretty straight forward. We audit your site’s usability right off the bat. In addition to loading times, we also make sure that your website is:
- Mobile friendly
- Easy to navigate
- Free of broken links and dead pages
- And look to beef up thin or low-quality historical content
Essentially, we give it a behind-the-scenes facelift.
We’re nearly three months into the SEO campaign just to lay the foundation for the recurring work ahead. Now you’re starting to understand why SEO takes time.
Feed the Algorithms (weeks 10+ recurring)
The algorithms’ goal is to help internet searchers find what they need. They are not designed to undermine you. If you want to be the result that search engines provide, you must show them you have the information they want. And how do you build that? Through consistent, quality content on your site that establishes you as an authority.
Your credibility and authority are built one blog, article, interview, link, and connection at a time. As you implement these things, they begin to add up, and the more you do, the greater your momentum.
If you post for a few months and then stop, search engines don’t consider you a trustworthy industry expert. Someone who is authoritative in a subject consistently delivers relevant content. The content is not keyword-stuffed (which search engines penalize), salesy (which drives away readers), too short (are you really an expert on it if you can fit all your knowledge into two paragraphs?), or too long (ain’t nobody got time for that).
Progress vs Monetization
THIS is the biggest reason why you should not sign up for SEO unless you’re willing to give it time.
Let’s say that you’re months into SEO. You’ve jumped from oblivion in the results all the way up to $15 on Google. Amazing! Except, no sales? That’s because 90% of the traffic on Google is on page 1. The first 10 results.
Can investing in quality SEO have a ROI that will make it worth it?
Absolutely.
Will you reach that ROI if you stop your SEO prior to hitting page one?
I wouldn’t bet on it. In fact, I’d bet against it.
That’s the difference between progress and monetization. You can make major progress, but you won’t monetize until you hit page one.
Average click through rate based on position is as follows (source):
- Position #1: 39.8% of all clicks
- #2 = 18.7% (see the massive drop off already?)
- #3 = 10.2%
- #4 = 7.2%
- #5 = 5.1%
- #6 = 4.4%
- #7 = 3%
- #8 = 2.1%
- #9 = 1.9%
- #10 = 1.6%
SEO is a long game. And if you’re in a saturated market, it will take more work to elbow out the competition for those top spots.
It is a process of building your business in a way that feeds the algorithms what they are after. If you are patient enough and do it the right way, you will be rewarded. Cutting corners, especially those that require time, will not get you the results that you want.
Instead of the hammer-wielding man offering a quick house addition, think of a quality contractor who gives you a reasonable timeline for your home. Would you stop him partway through his work to tell him you’re not pleased with it because you don’t have additional square footage yet; instead, you just have a bigger mess with a giant hole in your backyard?
Instead, you would understand that what he is doing is part of a process. He’s following steps to make sure what is built on top will last. You trust him and his professional approach.
Our minimum contracts start at one year because the work we need to do to create momentum for your campaign takes time. You might not be able to see it right away, and we don’t want you to be discouraged if you meet the six-month mark without tangible results.
One year can feel like a long time when you’re staring ahead. But do you want to be in the same place when that year passes either way?
