Here are some of the questions we are most commonly asked.
(1) How long does SEO take?
Perhaps the most common misconception about SEO, as well as the issue we spend much our time explaining, is how long does it take. The answer is: generally at least 3 months to see substantial changes. Competitiveness, domain age, and brand level all play a part in this but ultimately in improving a websites organic rankings it is necessary for the whole of Google to shift accordingly. There are tips and tricks to help sites get indexed faster, but the best method is to maintain a consistent backlinking strategy, ensure sites are attractive to the friendly Google Spider, and then exercise patience and persistence.
Google explains it’s indexing system here.
(2) How long does it takes to get to page One?
As with question one, this depends on several variables, chiefly: how competitive are the keywords you’re targeting? For example the keyword “Car Rental London” is massively competitive and would take much longer to optimise for than, say, ‘Goat farmer Dumfries, which has little competition.
(3) How much does SEO cost?
The world wide web works in much the same way as conventional real estate. If you want to your shop front to be on Bond Street, expect a higher rent. Another way of explaining this might be in terms of a car race. Are you racing in your local stock car race, in a regional championship, or on the international Formula One circuit? For this reason, every search phrase has to be evaluated differently before we can make an accurate proposal to any client. We will spend careful time analysing just how easy or difficult your business niche is on the internet, and what we feel we need to charge to give you a top three ranking.
(4) Why can SEO be expensive?
When you type something into the Google search box you are effectively asking it a question. As SEO professionals we’re in the business of trying to ensure your site is the best answer to the question which is going to bring you the most amount of targeted business. However, with over 350 million sites on the world wide web, competition is fierce and getting more so. Increasing relevancy for a particular keyword phrase means, therefore, ensuring that your site:
- Offers the best on-page answer any particular search question, hence the importance of Keywords, H tags and all that jazz.
- Offers the best off-page answer to any particular search question, hence the importance of ‘backlinks’ or mentions of your site in conjunction with particular anchor text. This second part, in particular, is exceptionally time consuming, often requiring the creation of hundreds if not thousands of articles across a diverse platform of global websites. It takes a lot of man hours, a lot of knowledge, and a lot of patience. However – and this all important – we will never take on a client unless we are confident you will see a return on investment many times over. If you’re not seeing increased business and a strong uptake in enquiries or sales, SEO isn’t working for you, and we won’t let that happen.
