A solid SEO strategy can take 6-12 months or more to achieve results. For firms, that timeline is a tough pill to swallow. We all want results yesterday, but when it comes to SEO, you cannot rush the process.
So, why can’t CPA SEO go faster? Can you do anything to get results faster?
Here’s Why SEO Can’t Go Faster
There are several factors that will come into play when trying to improve rankings for a website or web page. Many of those factors are out of your control and part of the reason why the process takes so long.
But it also takes time to build credibility. Search engines want to provide users with the best results for their queries – results that will help answer their questions and solve their problems. You can’t trust just any website to do that, right? They want to recommend websites that have a track record of providing valuable information and/or services.
SEO is all about helping you build that track record, which comes in the form of valuable content, backlinks from credible sources and a variety of other things.
Some reasons SEO can’t go faster are:
Keyword Difficulty
Keyword difficulty is a metric that many SEO tools use to estimate how difficult it will be to rank for a specific keyword or search term. Several factors can make a keyword easier or more difficult to rank for, including on-page and off-page factors.
The more often a keyword is searched, the more likely it is to have a higher difficulty rating. Why? Because other businesses and websites will be targeting the same keyword to try and grab as much traffic as possible.
If your firm is targeting high-competition keywords, then it may take longer to build links and create content that surpasses the competition.
Unfortunately, a keyword’s difficulty rating is something that is out of your control. If you want to rank for some of these higher-competition search terms, then you cannot make the SEO process go any faster.
The only workaround here is to target keywords with a lower difficulty rating. While you may potentially see results faster, you won’t necessarily get the traffic you desire. Targeting a mixture of both difficult and easy keywords can help you start seeing some results earlier on while working on harder keywords.
Inbound Links
An inbound link, or backlink, is a link that points from another website to your website. Backlinks have great value in SEO because they give your website credibility. However, not all inbound links are created equal.
The best backlinks – the ones that will likely have the biggest impact on your rankings – are those from sites that are:
- Relevant to your industry
- From a trusted source
Proper link building takes time. It involves outreach to other site owners and creating great content. You can’t rush this process, and there are no effective shortcuts. Buying a dozen websites and adding links back to your website likely won’t budge rankings. In fact, it will probably have the opposite effect.
In the SEO world, link quality is more important than quantity.
Fewer links from high-authority sites can be more influential than dozens of links from irrelevant or low-quality sites. But high-authority sites don’t just link to any website. They have a reputation to protect. Securing links from these sites means building relationships with site owners and providing them with relevant and unique content their audience will enjoy. This is a process that takes time.
Domain Age
Another factor that impacts SEO and cannot be rushed is domain age. Search engines like domains that have been around for a while. A new website is like a rookie on the field. It has no reputation or credibility yet. But as the domain ages, it will gain more clout in the eyes of search engines.
Search engines can determine a domain’s age in a few ways:
- Using WHOIS registration data
- Checking when the website was first crawled
Unfortunately, you can’t make a domain age faster. While this factor may not greatly impact your rankings, it does play a role. The older the domain, the easier it will be to see results with SEO.
You can buy an aged domain, but it’s important to remember that it will come at a higher cost and won’t be branded.
Domain age, link building and keyword difficulty are three factors that can have a big influence on SEO and can’t be rushed.
Sometimes, SEO is Quick
SEO will always take some time to see results. You can’t build a site today and rank #1 tomorrow. But in some cases, you can start seeing improvements in your rankings relatively quickly.
Here are some factors that may speed up results:
- There aren’t many competitors in your industry.
- Your competitors aren’t actively trying to improve their SEO.
- Your content and backlink quality surpasses the competition.
Some firms see results in just a few months because their competitors aren’t really doing much to improve their SEO.
It’s important to remember that websites typically rank for many keywords, both intentionally and unintentionally. It may take some time to rank for your main targeted keyword, but you may start getting traffic from other keywords that are easier to rank for. These visitors may very well turn into paying clients.
In cases like these, results may come quickly, but they won’t necessarily last if you stop your SEO work.
SEO is an Ongoing Process
It can take several months to see notable improvements in rankings with SEO, but it’s important to remember that this is just the start of the process.
SEO is like any other form of marketing – it needs to be ongoing. To sustain your rankings, you need to continue putting out great content, building quality backlinks and providing a great user experience.
The truth is that SEO is a complex process, but it’s worth the effort to attract more targeted leads to your website.
If you’re not sure where to start with your website’s SEO, we can help.
