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by Katherine Genske
So, you’ve invested in your company’s online presence and SEO services – congratulations! Your well on your way to growing your business. Now, the first question that pops in your head is, “When will I see results?”
The complicated, frustrating answer is two simple words: “It depends.”
How Long Does It Take to Get Onto Page 1 of Google, Organically?
You’ve heard organic is best – organic meat, organic fruit, organic honey, and organic search results. (It’s even gluten free!…I’ll move on.)
Organic search results, the search results below paid ads, are different from PPC (pay-per-click). Organic search results are not instantaneous.
Related: 3 Common SEO Misconceptions You Need to Understand
When you’re on page 1 of Google, you are more reliable to users, because Google chose your site as one of the most relevant search results. This isn’t something that happens overnight, and it takes time to build that authority.
The First Steps in Your SEO Campaign
The beginning of your SEO campaign requires research and clean up. Your SEO team needs to understand what your current online presence is and what users in your area are searching, to move your campaign forward. Your Digital Specialist needs to put your business in the best position possible. Townsquare starts by cleaning up any directory errors and duplicates, claiming your Google Business listing, and making sure your website is mobile-friendly.
Google Needs to Crawl and Index Your Website
Even after the initial changes and edits are complete, it takes Google time to crawl your site.
As Google explains: “Crawling is the process by which Googlebot discovers new and updated pages to be added to the Google index. We use a huge set of computers to fetch (or “crawl”) billions of pages on the web. The program that does the fetching is called Googlebot (also known as a robot, bot, or spider).”
As explained, crawling is a process done by a machine. So the time frame of when Google will notice your SEO edits varies.
When you will see results also depends on your definition of ‘results’. How long it takes to get to page 4 is different than how long it takes to get to page 1. From there, it also takes time to see new business coming in.
The best way to be sure your SEO investment is a success is to have realistic expectations. Keep in mind that SEO is an ongoing process and an investment. It takes time, patience, ongoing maintenance and updates, and quality content to achieve results.