How long does SEO take to work in 2023?

Your businesses SEO efforts should produce results within a 6 to 12 months, providing you have an effective SEO strategy and you are working with genuine SEO experts such as Make Space Marketing. To clearly define what we mean by results, to us it means a tangible increase in organic traffic culminating in leads  conversions.

It takes time to improve your search engine optimisation; Google wants to show the best results for the searched keywords. Consequently the content has to be relevant, quickly obtainable (site speed) and of sufficient quality to rank, and beat your competition. To do this it requires a high degree of effort and skill delivered for prolonged period of time.

With an ethical SEO strategy, 6 to 12 months is a good period to be able to assess the impact of the SEO campaign and to be able to judge the worth of ongoing investment in the search engine optimisation campaign. If you are not seeing results in this time frame it could be due to several factors that will be discussed later in this blog.

The factors that determine how quickly SEO strategy will work

Website authority and domain age

Google states that there is no connection between domain authority and SEO, but SEO experts still agree that it is a valuable metric that plays a crucial role in a sites ability to rank.

Websites with an older domain typically hold more backlinks than new domains. The amount and quality of backlinks will gauge the authority and trust of the website. As a website domain ages, backlinks are naturally built over time from building quality website content and also from adding directory citations.

Keyword competition influences how fast you can rank in 2023

One of the most critical aspects of SEO success is knowing your target audience and their keywords. Leverage those insights and craft content tailored to those specific search terms for maximum visibility. Research other businesses in your niche and use keyword tracking tools like Google Trends to find which words are typed when seeking similar services.

To boost your chances of showing up on the search engine results pages (SERPs), tailor your content to match the rising trends in your target industry. A great way to determine trends and the most popular keywords is by utilising keyword research tools like Ubersuggest or Keywordtool.io. These tools can generate thousands of relevant phrases and get you ahead of the competition by creating content that matches up with user queries!

Long tail keywords are essential to any keyword competition strategy. Long tail keywords are typically more specific, longer phrases that users might use when searching for a product or service. Utilising these two types of keywords within your content is essential for showing up in SERP rankings and getting ahead of the game. Latent semantic indexing (LSI) keywords (or related search terms) can help ensure that you appear above your competition even if they submit the same content.

Trying to rank a website for highly competitive keywords could take up to 24 months or more to earn page rankings. On the other hand, for local competition keywords, it's possible to show positive results within 3 to 6 months. This can be achieved sooner is some cases by targeting the right long tail keywords.

Quality content is key to SEO and ranking faster

It is well known that good content is key to ranking high in search engines; good organic content is still one of Googles main ranking factors and is essential for successful SEO. Good content helps a website rank higher and faster in search engines, providing more exposure to potential customers and bringing more traffic to the website. Google aims to give the best results for each keyword searched and only quality will rank.

Content with more than 1,500 words is considered more comprehensive and interesting to read. Increasing your word counts with high-quality content will help you get higher rankings on SERP search results. Moreover, the longer you write about a particular keyword or subject matter, the better the chances of featuring it in the SERPs for that keyword. When writing long pieces of content, however, you stick to the topic at hand and provide valuable information to readers.

To build a high-quality content strategy that will help you grow your SEO performance, you must know what methods, strategies, and types of content your competitors are using. You can use tools from Ahrefs, Moz or SEMRUSH to check out your competitor's backlink profile, see how often they post new content and analyse the topic of the content they produce. All this information can give you an edge when planning a successful content marketing strategy.

Rank faster with an ethical backlink strategy

Ethical obtained backlinks are one of Google's ranking factors; these are strong signals of trust and can increase a website's rankings. A good backlink profile will boost your website's authority and credibility and will help you achieve higher rankings in search engines faster.

You can do this by building backlinks from other authoritative websites. However, earning good backlinks takes time and requires building relationships and creating great content readers link to.

Not all links are ethical backlinks. Poor strategies or a lack of knowledge may tempt people to buy poor-quality backlinks for sources like Fiverr, damaging your online rankings. Quality content is the foundation of any link-building strategy. Creating engaging, informative, and valuable content for readers naturally attracts more links. Make sure your content is unique, original, and easily shareable on social media. This will help increase the visibility of your content and create opportunities for others to link to it – adding credibility and authority to your website as a result. Additionally, look for guest posting opportunities to gain a broader audience for your work.

Achieve faster results with local SEO

One of the quickest ways to see SEO results is with local SEO. Local SEO involves optimising your Google My Business profile and website for local keywords and targeting customers in proximity to your physical location or area of service. 

Local SEO campaigns can be launched in a few days, making them ideal for businesses looking for fast results. Additionally, local citation building, which involves adding your business information to authoritative directories, can boost local search rankings.

Google My Business is also a very effective tool that you can use to rank for keywords locally. The map pack is essential. It's all about location services; being visible on Google Maps is vital to making sure people can find you when they search for businesses like yours nearby. As well as having a good location and great reviews, adding your business address will help customers find you quickly and efficiently when they're looking for something nearby.

Optimise your site for performance and speed

Google uses over 200 signals when ranking websites in their search results pages (SERPs). Some of these signals include keyword usage, content length/quality and social media engagement metrics such as shares. However, page speed or lack thereof can influence not only the ranking of your site but the user experience.

Optimising your website for performance and speed is essential for SEO success. Search engines like Google factor page speed into their ranking algorithms, so ensuring that your website runs quickly and efficiently is key to getting better search engine rankings. To improve site performance, consider compressing image files, configuring browser caching, and optimising HTML and CSS code.

Enhancing your website's layout and design elements plays a crucial role in improving its user experience, which is essential for SEO success. For example, by using sections to separate visual content from written content, you can make it easier for search engine crawlers to understand the context of your pages. In addition, place calls to action throughout your pages and use clickable buttons for easy navigation so that users can access critical information quickly and easily.

Summary

To rank your website in 2023 will typically take between 6 and 12 months; however, in this blog, we have identified several factors that can speed up the process. 

Producing quality content, speeding up your website and developing a solid backlink profile are some prominent factors that can speed up SEO efforts. But all of these things require skill, time and effort. This is why companies often choose to outsource their SEO efforts.

Make Space Marketing is one of the leading SEO companies in the UK, and we can help you to outrank your competitors through our industry-leading SEO expertise. To validate this claim, just Google SEO and insert your town or county, such as SEO Norfolk. We will typically appear in the top 3 results, and so can you with our help.

Contact us to find out how we can support your business through SEO and digital marketing strategies.