First thought which every client has in their mind is “when I will be able to see my website at number 1 on google?” SEO is not an overnight process and requires lots of patience and careful planning. There is no exact timescale for how long it will take for your website to appear on the first page of Google, not mentioning - the first position. There are numerous factors which influence the time it takes for the website to be ranked on the search engines.

1.  The newer your website is the longer it takes to get it ranked and the more patience you will need.

You have finally got that shiny, new, modern website, even your competitors are jealous… But you notice that no one can find it, now what? The problem with the most of new websites is that their domain trust and authority is not high enough. Worry not, a proper SEO team will get your website under high authority, but once again it will take time, and until then don’t expect to outrank your 10-year-old competitor’s websites.

2.  Content

“Content is the king” - so the saying goes. And it is true, without keyword rich content it is almost impossible to get good results. The content is not only for your customers to understand and process the information on your website but also, for search engines to know what is it you have on the website and how relevant your website is to the potential customer. That’s where SEO steps in, its main goal is to optimise the website so the search engines can pick and locate relevant information on your site and display it in the search results attracting people to your site. And content has to be not only keyword rich, but updated regularly.

3.  All about the backlinks

If you know anything about SEO, you have heard the term “backlinks” and if you haven’t - backlinks are links directed towards your site, also known as Inbound Links (IBL’s). The more backlinks your website has the better, but the quality of the backlinks that counts. The Backlinks are highly valuable for search engines, especially Google. If your website has a great number of quality backlinks, search engines will give more credit and consider it more relevant, leading in better ranking for search query. Good SEO team will take care of backlinks, ensuring that they are high quality and relevant which will lead to better ranking overtime.

4. Search Engine Algorithm Updates

All search engines release their algorithm updates from time to time. When the search engines evolve the SEO strategy has to change accordingly too. Sometimes updates can slow down the SEO process due to new rules or restriction and then all the previous effort can lose the value, changing SEO strategy will get back your site on track and following the new rules, rank it higher.

5. SEO results take time and are not instant

Even if you do changes in content, H1 tags, backlinks and anywhere else, some changes can take weeks or months to be credited by search engines. That’s just how it works.

6. On-site SEO and off-site SEO are necessary.

One cannot work without the other. On-site SEO is as much important as the Off-site SEO and a good SEO strategy will include the plan on how to optimise both to get your website on number 1 of search results. Either On-site SEO and off-site SEO takes planning and time.

And the list goes on… You should also take into consideration the industry your business represents, competitors and how much you are willing to invest in SEO strategy.