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What Are The Best Social Media Sites For SEO?

Two words: social media. Two more words: love hate.

Whether you love or hate social media, the fact remains that out of a total worldwide population of 7.710+ billion (according to Worldometers, June 2019):

3.499 billion active social media users.

What’s more, the average time those 3.499 billion active social media users (we can’t stop saying it) are spending on social media every day? Two hours and 22 minutes. 142 minutes. A lot of time. (Digital Information World)

What this tells us is that, regardless of SEO considerations, your brand can’t afford to not be on social media. About those SEO considerations, though, social media can help there too – although it might not be in the way you think.

Let’s dive into how (spoiler alert: or even if) social media affects search rankings; why you should use social media as a part of your SEO strategy (regardless of the answer to the first question); how to optimize your social media sites for SEO; and, finally the top 10 social media sites for SEO.

Does Social Media Affect Search Rankings?

Back in 2014 Matt Cutts, then the head of Google’s web spam team, released a video saying that social signals – things like FB page likes and Twitter followers – didn’t matter a jot in terms of search rankings.

Then, in August 2015, Google’s Webmaster Trends Analyst John Mueller released another video in which he stated, categorically, that Google does not use social signals in its search ranking factors.

Let’s spell this out for you then: social media in and of itself is NOT a direct ranking factor.

Google has told us this numerous times.

That doesn’t mean it can’t help with SEO, though. As John Mueller went on to say: “What you do sometimes see, however, is that the social posts do show up in the search results. They can be content like any other piece of content, and they can rank for keywords, they can rank for your product names, so they can show up in the search results as well, which in turn maybe gives you a little more presence, maybe provides some context for users as well in the search results.”

The key here lies within that little word, “content”. As we’ve explored in numerous other blog posts recently, SEO these days revolves around quality content. Authentic content. Content which earmarks you as an authoritative voice on your subject of choice. And this is where your social media can boost your efforts.

Start there on your social media sites. Make them yet another portal for quality content related to your product and brand, and the rest will follow.

Why use Social Media for SEO?

So, we’ve established that you need to think of your social media accounts in terms of content if you want them to help your marketing, and SEO, efforts.

By thinking of your social media accounts, and the content thereon, as an extension of your brand, your voice, and your website, only on a much more personal, approachable level, you can really leverage the power of social media as the tool that garnered a new user every 6.4 seconds between April 2018 and April 2019. (Hootsuite, We Are Social – The Global State of Digital in 2019 Report)

Well-managed social media accounts can boost your SEO efforts in a number of ways:

1. Social media sites can build your audience

Long gone are the days when “Build it and they will come” was considered a good business, and marketing, motto. With 4.4 billion internet users, searching 1.94 billion websites (the number of websites on the internet as of January 2019, according to WebsiteHostingRating.com), a greatly superior better motto might go something like: “Build an audience, and they will come.”

Where do you build that audience? Where do you go to find them and draw them in? Well, do the math: 3.5 billion social media users out of 4.4 billion internet users amounts to close to 80% of your internet users… Yes, you’ll find your audience on social media.

Growing your audience on social media platforms is directly correlated with an increase in traffic to your website. Which brings us rather neatly to point number 2.

2. Social media sites can increase traffic

It is a fairly simple, systematic formula: The more people who find you on social media, the more people will know who you are, the more people will end up visiting your website. Now add in quality content. More people will end up sharing that content and the people they share it with will end up on your website. More traffic equals more recognition from search engines, and this results in improved search engine rankings.

3. Social media sites can encourage backlinks

Search engines love a good link. A link which makes sense, which provides users with useful content, which is a natural, organic extension of the content from which it sprang. It’s well known and well documented that great backlinks can do all kinds of magic to your SERP rankings. And while Matt Cutts’ 2014 video was quite clear that social signals are excluded from Google’s search algorithm, he did say that Google crawls social websites in the same way that it would any other site: “Facebook and Twitter pages are treated like any other pages in our web index, and so if something occurs on Twitter or occurs on Facebook and we’re able to crawl it then we can return that in our search results.”

If you’re publishing quality content on your social media channels, and including links back to your website – more specifically links which make sense – then search engines may well recognize these links as credible, and this could help improve your page ranking on SERPs. Even better? If that audience you’ve now tapped into include links to your website on their social media posts, recognizing your site, and voice, as an authoritative one. Speaking of which…

4. Social media sites can establish your influence – and your personality

When your audience recognizes you as an authoritative or influential voice on a subject, search engines are more likely to as well. Again, the path from well-managed social media site to SEO-win follows a simple formula: Topic authority equals brand authority, equals more clicks. More clicks – to relevant, authoritative, excellent content, equals better rankings.

People are also more likely to turn to you as an authority if they know who you are, if they can get a sense of your personality. Your social media pages and profiles offer your audience a more personal picture of who you are as a brand. By using your social media sites as a channel for users to get to know your brand in a more engaging, intimate way, you’re allowing them to ‘know’ you better. And to know you is to love you, isn’t it? Knowing you, and liking you, translates to more engagement. More engagement means more clicks. More clicks means, you guessed it, more search engine love. (You’re starting to get the picture now, right?)

5. Social media sites can serve as your own personal search engine

Not only are social media pages and profiles frequently among the top results on SERPs for searches done on brand names as well as significant, relevant keywords, they also serve as the search engines themselves.

Google may still be Goliath, with Bing offering up a smaller, quieter, but equally powerful David-sized alternative, but they’re not the only players on the search engine field. More and more, people are turning to social media sites to find what they’re looking for.

Optimize your social media channels to perform well within their own search functions, and the positive effects can only but trickle into ‘traditional’ search results.

How to Optimize Your Social Media Sites for SEO

With search engine algorithms changing constantly, by the minute it seems for some (yes, you, Google), SEO as a whole can feel like rocket science. Optimizing your social media sites for SEO, though, can be boiled down to 10, fairly simple, steps.

  1. Make your profiles consistent. Use consistent images and brand colours across all your social media channels. This increases brand recognition and shows you care about your brand. If you don’t, why should anyone else?
  2. Make your bio relevant to your business, but make it interesting. Social media sites are a prime place to play, to have a little fun, to show a little flair.
  3. Claim your stake. When searching for a brand on Facebook or Twitter you will often see several different pages or profiles pop up, all claiming to be said brand. Which one is the real deal? Claim your business page and get rid of duplicates. Make it obvious for your audience to see that your page is the official one.
  4. Include a relevant link. To your website. To a landing page. To a newsletter signup. But link you must.
  5. Post regularly. Be active. Show your social media sites, and their audience, that you care enough to keep them up to date. Social media is marketing version of fast food: updates come and updates go. Take a look at the shelf life for posts on each of the following platforms: Twitter – under 20 minutes; Facebook – maybe 5 hours; Instagram – 20 hours, if you’re lucky; LinkedIn – 24 hours tops. If you’re posting infrequently, you’re not yesterday’s news, you’re no news at all.
  6. Engage. Answer user questions, respond to comments, thank followers for shares or retweets. Take part in conversations on your particular platform. Search for Twitter chats within your industry and have your say. Engage with others to receive engagement back. Aside from being good manners, your responses also help social media algorithms recognize that your content is active, which improves its potential reach.
  7. Love your neighbour. Share industry-related or local-related content that you believe in or find interesting. Share links to receive link love back. Find real, relevant influencers and talk to them.
  8. Create quality content.
  9. Share it.
  10. Then create some more.

The Top 5 Social Media Sites for SEO (Plus 2 Secret Weapons)

The Usual Suspects

1. YouTube

Telling numbers: YouTube has over 1.9 billion active logged-in users every month, and every day people watch over a billion hours of video and generate billions of views. (YouTube)

Studies show that 54% of consumers want to see more video content from a brand or business they support (HubSpot). So for goodness sake, give them what they want! Whether it’s a purely promotional video, a ‘how-to’ video relevant to your product or service, or a #FridayFun behind-the-scenes team video giving viewers an insight into your company personality, videos can potentially rank organically in the SERPs and they can lead to links. Double win.

2. Facebook

Telling numbers: As of the first quarter of 2019, Facebook has 2.375 billion users. (Statista)

As beleaguered as Facebook is, it continues to be a powerful player not only on the social media scene, but on the internet as a whole. With 51% of those 2.375 billion Facebook users more likely to buy from brands they follow, your FB Business page has the potential to be a great lead generator. Pay attention to that page, post compelling content, use targeted keywords, and always, always, stay on brand.

3. Instagram

Telling numbers: They say a picture paints a thousand words… Get your pictures painting that many words to over one billion monthly Instagram users – 500 million of which are using the platform DAILY! (Hootsuite) – and some of them just have to stick!

Instagram is a great place to showcase products, tell a story, show your true colours… in their best light of course. Naturally, with over 95 million photos uploaded every day, to stand out from the crowd you’re going to have to bring your A-game. Again, it’s all about staying on brand, being authentic, and showing some personality. Oh, and do your research on hashtags, then use them!

4. Twitter

Telling numbers: With 330 million active, logged in, users, Twitter may not boast the most impressive numbers, but they sure do boast an astounding level of engagement.

You better believe Tweeps are passionate about the things they Tweet about. (Twitter trolls too, unfortunately.) And with 77% of Twitter users feeling more positive about a brand when their Tweet has been replied to (Twitter), and companies using Twitter for customer service seeing a 19% increase in customer satisfaction (WebFX), this could be a game changer in getting your name out there in a positive – or negative – way.

5. LinkedIn

Telling numbers: 93% of B2B marketers consider LinkedIn to be the most effective site for lead generation. (LinkedIn)

Once considered primarily a social media station for job seekers, this professional site is now widely considered one of the best social media sites for SEO, precisely because it is ‘professional’. It’s more than 610 million users are almost all, to a user, professional, polished, qualified and distinctively un-troll-like. Not only does this make it a wonderful networking site, it makes it a great source to see, and be seen as, authoritative voices within your particular industry. With the B2B market booming, it’s also excellent for generating leads as per the statistic above, and for converting sales. Use it wisely, though. If your activity is too salesy and pushy, you’ll very quickly lose followers.

The Secret Weapons

6. Quora

Telling numbers: As of September 2018, Quora had 300 million monthly users. More importantly, those users are asking questions that you could be answering.

The power of Quora lies less in its volume of users, and more in its user model. Quora is in the business of asking, and answering, questions. If you’ve learnt anything from our recent blogs, you’ll know that answering question-based search terms are, well, key in modern SEO. Quora not only provides a living, breathing, holy grail home base for finding the questions being asked online – about everything, including your industry, product or service – but an opportunity for you to answer those questions, and establish yourself as the go-to on your area of expertise. Establishing yourself, or your brand, as an authority on this platform can pay off with clicks to your website or, at the very least, increased direct searches for your brand name. But remember: nobody likes a showoff. Asking questions is just as important as responding to them. Asking interesting questions can drive as much traffic to your site as answering questions well can. Finally, as with all content, anywhere on the web, quality is key: whether you’re asking or answering the questions, make sure you’re adding value by making them useful and insightful.

7. Pinterest

Telling numbers: 90% of weekly users use Pinterest to make purchase decisions (Pinterest) and 98% of users go out and try the ideas they find on Pinterest (Pinterest).

With 265 million users (Statista), Pinterest is another social media site which doesn’t boast the numbers, but certainly boasts the purchasing power! The statistics above tell their own story, especially when you compare the 98% statistic to the 71% average across social media platforms. Pinterest also seems to have escaped much of the social media scandal scene as well as the need by people to regularly purge themselves of their online presence and bent for oversharing. If you have a product or service that lends itself to visual representation, Pinterest can be an immensely valuable tool for increasing your audience, stimulating your sales, and, ultimately, upping your search engine rankings.

Get Social (Media)

As with everything Google, things may change. Their algorithms are a mythical beast known only to themselves (and even then we wonder…), so it’s entirely possible that come tomorrow they may well begin to include more social media signals in their ranking algorithm. Or maybe they won’t.

Regardless of the cards Google may, or may not, play in the future, there are a few key points to remember about using social media sites – whether you have SEO in your sights or not:

  1. Google may not currently include social signals, but Bing, for example, with its 24% share of search queries, does use social likes and shares as a direct ranking factor. Google is not the only player in the game.
  2. More importantly, quality content on well-managed social media sites can only but garner you friends and fans, allowing your brand, business and website to be found online. And isn’t that, ultimately, what SEO is all about?

If you still have questions about Social Media and SEO,  please call our SEO experts here at 1st on the List at 1-888-262-6687 or contact us online.

 

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How To Create Landing Pages That Convert

When done properly, great landing pages that convert can really add to your ROI.

The object of any landing page is to provide a clear and complete path to a decision, whether that is a download, a purchase, a request for more information, or some other clearly defined call-to-action.

SEO, pay-per-click marketing, and other online forms of generating traffic are designed to direct more visitors to a website. With a good SEO strategy and excellent content based on user-intent, you can grow your targeted traffic. However, getting them to the website is only half the battle. What they do once they arrive is what really counts. Getting traffic to your website is great but if it doesn’t convert, what’s the point?

Whether you call it conversions or lead generation, landing pages that convert are the holy grail of a full SEO or digital marketing strategy.

What is a Landing Page?

By easy definition, a landing page is any page that a visitor lands on from any form of advertising or search engines. So, any page within your website might be the very first page a visitor lands on when they visit your website. This could be your homepage, a sub-page, or even a blog article.

With this in mind, it’s important that you evaluate your entire website to create landing pages that convert. Each page within your site should be a good representation of your brand and should have a clear path for what you want the user to do next.

That being said, many digital marketing companies will encourage you to invest in “landing pages.” These are specific pages designed to match a campaign and user intent.

Some online marketing professionals insist that landing pages that convert must have a form. Others will argue there just needs to be a clear call to action or next step.

Ideally, a landing page is a page with a clearly defined target audience based on a specific topic, usually decided based on a user query. The user is then provided only the information they need to make an informed decision, be it a purchase, a form fill-out, newsletter signup, a content download, or even an offline visit.

Identifying Landing Page Topics

The first step in gaining traffic that converts is to figure out a visitor’s intent and then create content that is a good match. SEO keyword research is a great place to start. You’ll likely narrow down to a variety of keyword queries that will give you a fairly good idea on user intent. From there, you can create landing pages that match the target queries.

  • If you’re a real estate agent in San Diego, you might find you could use landing pages that convert for San Diego ocean view condos.
  • If you run an accounting company, you might find you could use a landing page for 2019 tax deduction tips.

In other words, you are identifying the demand for your product or service and then you’re going to use your landing page to reel them in.

Before you write a sentence of copy, you need to have a clearly defined message for your clearly defined target audience.

Landing Pages that Convert have Clear Calls-to-Action

What do you want your visitor to do? Be clear. Your general website is the backbone of your online presence. It’s where people might go to to learn more about your company and your services. It’s where you can be different things to different people.

Your landing pages? They have one important job to do. They need to capture the attention of the visitor. Since you’ve already identified the target audience and their user intent, you need to clearly articulate the next step.

Common calls to action include Buy Now, Download, Contact Us, Sign Up, Try It, etc. Don’t distract your landing page visitor with a variety of messages. Make it easy for them to take the next step.

Help The Visitor Along

In a perfect world, a person types in a query and clicks on your ad or organic listing and lands on landing pages that convert right away. Well, unfortunately, the world isn’t perfect and this is a rare occurrence.

You have to work a little bit to help the visitor along your path to conversion. This is where content comes in.

Ideally, you will have a combination of three forms of content.

  1. Text
  2. Images
  3. And video

Each piece of content should be able to stand on its own, but also compliment the other forms. In other words, you aren’t going to say the same thing, word-for-word in a video that you have in text on your page. After all, there needs to be a reason for the visitor to watch your video.

Having some social proof can also be an important element in landing page content. This is a testimonial or two depicting how your product or service has helped someone to solve whatever it was they came to your website looking for.

So, in order to help the visitor along so they feel comfortable forging a relationship with you, you need to provide them with the answers to their questions, the information they’re looking for, and a hook they simply cannot resist.

Keep It Simple

It’s important to ensure you do not overcomplicate your landing page. More often than not, landing pages that convert are clean, simple, and easy to understand.

This means you have one clear message. Everything that is on that page must relate to that message and must help lead the visitor further down the path to a conversion. Limit the content that doesn’t serve your main goal: moving the visitor down the conversion funnel.

Don’t complicate the page with a variety of messages and calls to action.

If you can, keep your navigation simple. After all, you don’t really want them leaving the page to get lost within your full website. You don’t need to offer them all the information about your company. Eliminate almost any click that isn’t your call-to-action.

Use your brand guidelines, fonts, logo, etc., so that the visitor starts to establish a relationship with your brand; however, keep it as simple as you can.

Important Elements of Landing Pages that Convert

Landing pages that convert generally have a few important elements in common.

1. A Really Great Headline
The job of your headline is to reinforce the visitor’s query while enticing them to stay on your website. You have a second for the user to decide if your page will help them. Your headline needs to help solve their query, look professional, and be catchy enough that they want to scroll a little bit more, rather than hit the back button. It has to capture their attention, their interest, and compels them to learn more about your offering.

2. A Really Great Subheading

The main headline piqued a visitor’s interest so now it’s up to the sub-heading to go in for the kill. Normally the sub-heading is positioned directly below the headline to act as the two in a one-two punch.

3. Enticing Visuals

Visual storytelling helps to sell. Any images you use on your website need to be clear, beautiful, and help inspire your visitor to action. Do you have a video that can help reinforce your message? Many visitors look to video to help them in their decision making.

4. A Benefit (pleasure) Statement

Articulate the main key benefit the visitor will get for completing whatever it is you are asking them to do. If you can use a feeling of pleasure within the copy, you can best play upon their emotions.

5. A Reinforcement (pain) Statement

Does your product or service solve a pain point? Now is the time to remind them of this pain and reinforce how your product or service will solve their problem.

6. Legitimize Your Business – Part 1 – Contact Details

Landing page visitors will look to ensure you are a real business and they will do this by looking for your contact details. Having your address, phone number and email address on your page’s footer is an easy way to show the world that you are real. You can go even further by having a link to your about page.

7. Legitimize Your Business – Part 2 – Social Proof

By showing satisfied past clients, you are providing social proof that your business, product or service is legitimate. Many web visitors are wise to testimonials, so use legitimate reviews cited from third party websites.

8. The Offer
What are you offering the visitor? What are you offering in exchange for the visitor completing the action? Keep it clear.

9. The Value Proposition

What’s in it for the visitor? Just like the offer, you need to keep the value proposition clear and simple. Outline the benefits. This is where you need to talk directly to your visitors about your visitors’ needs, not about you.  

10. A Guarantee or Way Out

Want to catch a visitor in a moment of spontaneity or weakness? Offer them a way out. A website visitor is more apt to take the plunge when they know there is a safety net to catch them. A guarantee or unsubscribe at any time statement allows them to know they are not locked into their decision.

11. Simple Form

Did you know that the more fields you have in a form the lower your click-through-rate will be? Only ask for the information that you absolutely need at that moment. You can obtain other information at a later time.

12. A Powerful Call To Action
Ok! So you’ve hooked them and reeled them in. Now you need to seal the deal before they get cold feet. This is where your call to action comes in. What is the one thing you most want them to do? Make it big and bold. Make it unmissable. Make sure it stands out.

Let’s Talk About Layout

Many web designers create website pages on very big monitors. They’ve accounted for plenty of ‘white space’ and are able to design very stunning pages. But, did you know that the average screen size is 1024×768? Yes, that’s a typical laptop screen. Plus, more and more Internet users are conducting searches on their mobile phones. So, while a page might look great on the web designer’s screen, how it looks and acts on a laptop and phone is far more important.

Landing pages that convert well are also very responsive. This means the content and images adapt to fit the browser size of the visitor. This allows for the page to look and function great on any device.

How the site responds to the various screen sizes should be planned out. Often, items will simply begin to stack on a mobile device which can account for an awful lot of scrolling. Is the same information necessary to a phone visitor as it might be to a desktop visitor? Is there a visual indication to keep scrolling? These are all important question that needs to be asked. The most important elements of the page should be front and centre regardless of the device!

A/B Testing

It goes without saying that you will test your landing page links and form. What we’re talking about is A/B Testing. This means delivering variations of headlines, copy, images, colours, etc. to different users to determine which combination of elements gets the best click-through rate.

After all, for all the good design rules and how-to’s out there, it can be difficult to predict what will actually resonate with the majority of visitors.

The rule of A/B Testing is to test one element at a time so you can effectively make a determination of the winner. Colour, call-to-action wording, call to action location, etc. are all things that can benefit from A/B testing.

In Conclusion

The best landing pages that convert are the ones that were planned and designed with the user in mind. Once you decide what action you want them to take, you can guide, persuade, and convince them to do it. If you make it clear and simple, most people will do what you ask them to.

1st on the List is one of North America’s leading SEO companies that also offers SEO website design. To speak with one of our SEO experts, please Email or call us at 1-888-262-6687.

 

You might also find Neil Patel’s article interesting entitled, The Definitive Guide to Creating High Converting Landing Pages.

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How Long Should It Take for SEO to Work and Show Results

Inevitably, every client wants to know how long does SEO take to work.

Everyone wants instant gratification. We live in a time where nobody really wants to wait too long for anything. We’ve been conditioned to believe that faster often equates to better. We want instant food, instant miracles, instant success, and instant everything! But that’s not reality.

Let’s take food for instance. You can open up a can of soup, heat it up in the microwave and within seconds you can be eating your lunch. It’s delicious, quick, and provides you the sustenance you need to get through the next part of your day. Sort of. It’s also filled with salt and preservatives, and in many cases, the nutritional value can be lost or minimal.

Now, think of that homemade turkey soup you cooked right after Thanksgiving. You created a broth from the bones that you let simmer for hours in order to extract every ounce of natural flavor. You added in your fresh vegetables and herbs. It might have taken all day (not to mention the day it took to cook the actual Turkey) but the result was the perfect bowl of homemade soup that was chock-full of goodness and taste.

It took time, but it was worth it. The same can be said for Search Engine Optimization.

SEO Takes Time, But It’s Worth It

Almost every single client will ask the all-important question: how long does SEO take to work?

The industry-standard answer is 4-6 months…perhaps. You can find hundreds (or thousands) of articles on the Internet that agree with this consensus. And you can say that to every-single-client, but sometime within the first week or two, every client asks if it’s working yet.

Clients are excited. They’re nervous. They need to account for their spend. You’ll remind them that you ensured they’d start to see some results within 4-6 months, but at some point, they’ll begin to get impatient. It might not happen every time, but it happens enough. How long does SEO take to work will depend on a lot of variables.

Sometimes results can take a day, a year, or even more. It all depends on the goal, the key performance indicators (KPIs), the competition, the industry, and the ever-changing landscape of the Internet.

Let’s Determine What The Results Will Be!

Instead of providing the generic four-to-six months answer to the question “how long does SEO take to work,” we find it can be far more beneficial to outline what our anticipated results will be.

Key Performance Indicators – KPIs

KPIs are objective, tangible metrics that are used to measure the success of a campaign.

In the realm of SEO, there are several KPIs that can constitute successful results.

1. Growth in Organic Sessions – Tracking traffic from organic search is a measurable KPI. Growth can be slow going, as it does take time for pages and websites to make their way up the search engine results, especially in competitive industries. It is the objective that lies at the heart of any SEO campaign since more targeted traffic from the search engines is something that always excites clients.

2. Increases in Keyword Rankings – Back in the day, SEO companies would provide clients with spreadsheets outlining keyword results for targeted keywords. It was a metric the clients loved. But, with the growth of localized and individualized search results, it became more difficult to provide an accurate measure of keyword rankings. A website could be sitting at #1 for one user but #4 for someone else in a different location. Now, SEO companies might provide a more generalized average for keyword rankings.

Keyword ranking isn’t the be all, end all though. Going from number 50 to number 8 might not make a huge difference in traffic; however, going from number 8 to number 4 likely will. This is because most users will click on the first few results, but not wade too much further down the list.

3. Leads & Conversions – What good is all of this extra traffic if they are converting into leads? More and more companies are getting savvy with the results they expect to see, and leads, orders, and sales have become a valuable KPI for SEO campaigns. On average, the best results for a website come from organic traffic results. After all, this traffic is highly targeted for specific searches. If a person is searching for the best place to wash their car, it is likely to assume they are further down the path-to-purchase than a person who gets advertised to by a car-wash display ad or social media post.

4. Session Duration – Generally speaking, once you implement an SEO campaign, you will likely start to see an increase in session duration. This is because the quality of traffic is highly targeted, which means the user would likely be more genuinely interested and engaged in your website and information.

Targeted Traffic vs General Traffic

If you look at just numbers, one might think that having 10,000 visitors a day vs 5,000 visitors a day is a win. But, if the 10,000 visitors who are coming are more general in nature, is it really a win? They’re likely not spending as much time on the website, or they’re browsing without intent to purchase, contact, or convert. They take more effort to convert or bring back. So, if you can get 5,000 visitors who are specifically searching for one of your particular products or services, they’re more targeted. They’re likely more ready to convert or purchase. Those 5,000 visitors are more valuable than the 10,000 generalists.

How Long Does SEO Take to Work Depends on Tactics

Depending on the industry and the competition, an SEO professional will undertake a variety of tactics to achieve results. Think of it like growing a garden. Some plants, fruit, and vegetables take longer to bear fruit or flower than others. In addition, you can’t quite ever predict how long it will take before the tomatoes are ready to be picked.

An SEO plan that is really content-driven can take a lot of time; however, the results might come in spurts. The SEO professional will target a keyword, have a piece of content written and published, and depending on how competitive the keyword is, results may start coming within a week or longer. No one really knows how long it takes for SEO to work.  It could also take six months or more. In the meantime, with each new piece of content, site authority and ultimately results will start to build.

Budget Also Affects How Long SEO Takes to Work

Nobody wants to admit that the more you pay the better results you will get; however, budget equals time and resources.

How long does SEO take to work? Simply put, the more you put into it the more you should get out of it. Three team members spending six hours should see results faster than one team member sending two hours.

At the end of the day, SEO is not a quick-fix for a business that requires results immediately. It’s a long-term process that requires a strategy and if done properly, can provide long term results. SEO is a process where every step builds upon the one before it. Today’s results are likely built upon the effort from six months ago.

So, while you’ll likely find it takes four-to-six months to start seeing results, it isn’t a one-size-fits-all solution. There are many types of SEO services that can be brought into play. Instead of offering a timeline for how long does SEO take to work, it can be more beneficial to offer education on the KPIs. That way, you can start celebrating the little wins along the way.

Please call our SEO experts at 1st on the List toll-free at 1-888-262-6687 to learn more about SEO or if you still have any questions.

For additional information on this topic, visit this informative article by Search Engine Journal.

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