Business is a commitment. Once you have decided to own a business, you are making a commitment to yourself that you will protect your business at any cost. Of course, you protect your business by making the efforts. There are many ways to manage a business, increase sales and boost promotions, starting from social media campaign, financial calculation, networking, even to using SEO services. Now with the vast development of technology, businesses are expected to grow and follow the trends but still being relevant to what their business is about.

Business and SEO have been integrated to increase the possibility of people to find you. Most business owners now hire an SEO company to use SEO service to increase their business’ online visibility. However, some business owners thought that doing SEO only took a week or two to see the results. Is that true? How long does it take for us to see the results, actually? Find out the answers in this article!

Although the proper SEO results may give your business a huge advantage, the process itself is a tough road only the patient ones can overcome. Yes, the truth is; it takes time. It can’t be done overnight and you can’t see the result in just a week. If there is any SEO company promising you that, chances are, they are using black-hat SEO techniques that will cause nothing but damage to your company. Well, to answer the question “How long does it take for SEO to finally make effect?” here is how the real SEO process goes:

• The first month

In the first month, you will have to do some research and discovery, website audit, keyword strategy, and planning. If you can finish the research quickly, then you can start seeing technical changes being made to the website within the first month. If you do a thorough research and discovery, it may take more than one month.

• The second month

In the second month, Technical SEO work begins to take place. Basically, you will be modifying the website according to site audit results. Usually, the website has to be inspected and that can take months. Also, you need to do other SEO activities that can boost your SEO performance, like forming the link profile and building content can also be done during the inspection. Therefore, while your SEO process seems to be taking place, you still won’t be seeing results anytime soon.

• The third month

At this stage, content creation should be started. You will start writing articles (blogging), making FAQs, whitepapers, expanded product and company information, etc. In this third month, usually you will be seeing some improvements in rankings. However, don’t expect leads or sales yet, because basically, results won’t be clear and certain in the third month, but if those rankings are giving signs to leads or sales; that would be even better.

• The fourth month

In this month, after you have high quality content creation, technical optimisation of the website, development of a good quality link profile, you can expect some changes that include a marked increase in rankings, traffic, and lead generation. Although it is not the same as the improvements of 12-month SEO efforts, the improvement is still significant enough to be said that the SEO is working.

• The fifth month

In the fifth month, you will start using social media for better results, as social media can boost your brand awareness and increase direct traffic to your website. This way, you can have a healthy, natural link profile, and of course generate more leads. Remember, this can be effective if you continue and improve the quality of your content creation and maybe engage in some PR or media outreach. Basically, you will see more traffic coming in from SEO at this stage, and this can also grow more leads.

• The sixth month

Pay attention to details. See if you have reached 5,000 visitors from traffic per month. If you have reached this point, by adding conversion rate optimisation to your SEO process as a way to improve the possibility to turn your traffic into leads and sales, you can benefit more from that. Therefore, in this month, you should be focused on content creation and promoting the content. Make sure each of your content is made with creativity.

That’s the SEO step from month 1 to month 6; keep in mind that the sixth month’s stage is only where you are starting to see results, but not of big significance. Even though in six months you can see some results, that will be nothing compared with the 12-month SEO efforts. It takes time, but it grows with time as long as you keep doing your best in improving your SEO progress. Remember, high quality links mean high quality content. If you need more information about SEO, do not hesitate to contact us and our team will gladly help you.