Anybody with a website probably knows they need to optimize their site to rank well in Search Engines. And most people, by now, have already invested some money in having a professional SEO company work with their website. Unfortunately, a majority of those people have gotten burned. They may have spent thousands of dollars for no results, or many thousands of dollars for fast results that ended up getting them banned from Google.
Here’s the thing about SEO that drives some people crazy: Good SEO takes time. You certainly shouldn’t see results overnight, and you probably won’t see results for several months. It can be difficult to justify the expense when you don’t see a meteoric rise in rankings right away. And unfortunately, there is no way to guarantee set results within a set amount of time. So if you’ve chosen to invest in SEO, you better be prepared for a long-term commitment.
Why Does SEO Take So Long?
A true organic SEO campaign requires a lot of hard work. Your site must be analyzed to get a baseline. Your competitors must be analyzed as well. It’s important to know who and what you’re up against in the online marketplace. If you’re trying to unseat someone who has had a stronghold for the last 8 years, you’re going to have an uphill battle. Next, a plan must be worked up for your actual campaign. Keywords must be chosen; content must be analyzed, reworked, analyzed, and reworked. Links must be acquired. Your social presence must be active. None of these things happen overnight, and anyone who says they can make them happen overnight is selling you some serious snake oil.
Take Your Foot Off the Gas Pedal
That being said, there are some things that can improve your rankings quickly, and those mostly involve the coding of your website. Once your site has been optimized on the back end, you could see results for a small number of keywords in a matter of weeks. If your site is already optimized, you probably won’t see much of an initial bump.
Anymore, Google sees speedy SEO tactics as a giant red flag. If you just go out and buy thousands of links and your site goes from 0 backlinks to 50,000 in one month, you’re going to be in trouble, and quite possibly banned. It is important that links are built slowly, organically over time instead of all at once.
How’s Your Content?
The cornerstone of any current SEO campaign should be content creation. Whether it’s words, video or graphics, you should be turning out useful, shareable content. It doesn’t have to be daily, or even weekly, but you should be producing quality content regularly. Not only does quality content help you go get natural links and shares, but it also helps to establish you as an authority in your industry.
Developing good content will require input from you. It’s essential that you know your audience and you are delivering information that they want to have. You can crank out a million blogs or videos a week, but if none of them speak to the problems, concerns, or priorities of your audience, it won’t mean much for your overall SEO campaign.
The Evolution of SEO
Good SEO evolves. Google, Bing, and Yahoo are constantly changing the rules and if your SEO company doesn’t keep up, your website will suffer. It’s important to remain flexible – be willing to bend and change focus if need be. Your internet marketing company should be watching your traffic and results closely, they should know how to capitalize on success and abandon any tactics that aren’t working for you.
SEO isn’t a one-solution business. Every website is unique and what works for one site, won’t necessarily work with another. It takes time, analysis and a little flexibility to see good results, but as with anything, good things come to those who are willing to roll up their sleeves, do the work and not take shortcuts.
Comment (1)