Why good SEO takes time

Many of our clients wonder why SEO is never a quick fix; why do new website designs take time to show up in the listings? Why doesn’t a fresh round of SEO copywriting instantly propel their site up the rankings? And why are some keywords so hard to rank for? Find out why good SEO takes time.

Simply put, search engine optimisation is a long term investment, and one that is always best approached with ongoing rather than one-off work.

New websites

Initially, it can take a little while for search engines to even register the presence of a new website, but after that Google combines a couple of factors when considering the search listings that disadvantage newbies.

At the first stage it looks at the relevancy of on-page SEO, how often keywords appear, how repetitive the website is, the quality of the web design; all the basic essentials every good web designer should provide you with (essentials which we include with all our design services!).

Secondly it considers something called site authority, blocking out spam and cheats by ensuring a website can be trusted. It figures this out by looking at how long the website has been online, by how many other sites link to it, and what the quality and authority of those linking sites is.

Obviously, any new website has very little site authority so it’s very much in the interests of business owners to invest in some ongoing SEO early on to get those third party links built up and boost their site up the search listings.

Recently amended websites

For much the same reasons as with new websites, the recently amended can take time to show you whether the amendments are an SEO improvement or disaster.

It takes Google a while to notice the changes and if you’re targeting new keywords you may have to build up site authority in those keyword areas because they are different from what you were focusing on before. If all your third party links are for car MOT services and you begin focusing on second hand car sales then the old third party links are going to be of limited use and you need to build a bunch of new ones.

There’s also the unfortunate truth that sometimes it takes a little experimentation to get things just right, SEO is often more of an art than a science, plus if you make too many changes too often, Google may treat it as suspicious and bash you down the rankings for a while just in case you’re trying out a cheat.

Competitive keywords

With some keywords, it is simply about competition. Some business types are more common than others or the industry utilises SEO heavily throughout; one of the toughest sets of keywords to rank for are “search engine optimisation” for example.

To rank high here it means lots of ongoing SEO work on everything; the on-page copy, relevancy, keyword choices and the site authority elements such as third party links. Often for smaller businesses it’s best to focus on what are called ‘long tail’ keywords and keyphrases; ranking for “SEO” may be an impossible nut to crack, but getting a good place under “SEO expert Kent” will be far more achievable and still send plenty of business your way with a high search placing.

Search engine optimisation is often about experimenting and trying out a few solutions to discover just the right one. A little patience letting Google and the other major search engines like Bing and Yahoo consider the results, index them properly, and assess the site authority for a while is just part of the process.

We’re currently working on a new search engine optimisation product for our clients providing ongoing work to expand on the on-page essential SEO features we already provide at the initial web design stage, get in touch if you’re interested in learning more!