If there is one thing that businessmen and women and entrepreneurs want to know when they start their SEO journey, it’s how long it takes until they get results. You are probably the same because, in your excitement to rank and boost traffic, you’re impatient. Unfortunately, SEO length is very difficult to judge.
Think of it as a tree – you wouldn’t expect a full-grown oak to grow overnight. You wouldn’t even expect a couple of shoots within the first couple of weeks. Search engine optimisation is the same as there are a handful of different factors that affect timings.
Therefore, the key is to focus on the elements you can control to try and leverage them in your favour. Once you do this, you will see the fruits of your labour and reap the rewards. What are the dominating factors? You can find four of the biggest and most influential below.
Competition
As a rule, the more competition you face, the longer it takes to rank highly on search engine results’ pages. Of course, you could sell a product or service that has little to no rivals, yet they are few and far between. The odds are high that you’ll have to deal with local, national, and international interference as your company expands.
The pertinent point to remember is that it gets more challenging the further up the SERPs you go. For instance, jumping for page 10 to page 2 is relatively straightforward as you’ll easily outrank the companies that aren’t utilising SEO correctly. However, when you get to this point, every step is tougher.
As a result, you need to do two things. Firstly, keep calm and carry on, even if it’s hard work. Secondly, plot your journey. The latter will highlight how far you’ve come, giving you the validation that your SEO length strategy is shortening and the motivation to continue.
Inbound Links
It’s no secret that links still play a considerable role in the SEO journey. In the beginning, businesses focused on acquiring as many as possible to shorten search engine optimisation length, but Google caught on. So, you have to be careful about attracting attention from algorithms that think you’re cheating as they’ll dock the site.
Alternatively, you should factor in the role of high-quality links. Mentions from authority sites are much harder to secure, which gives them some envious advantages. They are:
- They make it tougher for rivals to compete as they are more challenging to obtain
- They appear natural and organic
- They last longer than paid or automated methods
Your link-building plan must follow Google’s guidelines, or else black-hat tactics will make your SEO length even longer.
Content
There is a debate within the SEO world over quality versus length. The first thing you need to understand is that the former beats the latter every day of the week. After all, content, whether written, video, or broadcast, needs to solve the problem for the reader. It’s all about adding value.
That being said, you don’t need to write 10,000-word essays to rank on SERPs. The reality is, you can do it in under 500 words if your message is clear, concise, and succinct. The trick is to stop bombarding your audience with posts they don’t want and to concentrate on topics that improve engagement.
Also, you shouldn’t stuff keywords and phrases into the text. This is easy to do when you have a long-form piece, yet the links should remain organic. Otherwise, they’ll affect the readability, and search engines will dock your article’s points. The quicker you figure out how to curate top-class content, the faster your SEO will work.
How Are You Supposed To Know What Works?
This is the hardest part as it’s challenging to quantify results when you don’t know what you’re looking for. Plus, you have the added hurdle of quick results. As always, your success depends on your research. With high-quality keywords and phrases, and content that is shareable and well-liked, you should see more authority links and a trip to Google’s better pages. However, research can only take you so far since the SEO industry is incredibly complicated and difficult to understand.
The Website Space – Simplifying Search Engine Optimisation
At TWS, we are committed and passionate about SEO in Surrey and the surrounding areas. If you have any questions or need help getting your search engine strategy off the ground, we are here to help.
Contact us now to start creating your online success together.
