- This is by far my most
frequently asked question that I get, "Hey Neil, my
website is new and I'm still "not seeing a lot of visitors. "How long before I start seeing
results from my SEO effort?" When you're putting all
this time and effort into making your website
to get to the top, you're anxious, you want to see results
right away, don't you? Hi everyone, I'm Neil Patel and in this video I'm going
to break down the question of how long does SEO take
to work for a new website. (upbeat music) Before we get started
make sure you subscribe to this channel, and if you're on YouTube
click the alert notification. SEO used to be easy and following a specific
formula would get you to the top of page one, and in many cases when
I share my SEO journey, back in the day I could
get a top of page one in a few months, maybe even six months at the
latest for the head terms, they were like auto
insurance and credit cards. But nowadays SEO is super competitive, there's over a billion blogs on the web, there's roughly one blog
for every seven people, and there's even more websites on the web, so when you combine all of that, it makes sense on why SEO is so hard, because now Google has its prime pickings to figure out which website
they're going to place on top. In other words, they can be super picky, while five, 10 years ago
they couldn't be as picky. So first, let's start by seeing how SEO has changed over the years. Keyword research. This is one of the big areas. This wasn't nearly as competitive a market as it used to be. There're literally thousands of websites, if not millions of websites
created every single day. As of January 1st, there're over 1.7 billion websites online. That's a lot of competition. It used to be that you could
focus on five or six keywords, maybe even ten, and those keywords would bring
in most of your site traffic. Companies used to be able
to focus on small groups of generic keywords and see great results. The reality now is, it's a lot different. Websites now must have a
list of 50 to 100 keywords or more depending on the site. And at bare minimum each page
on your site is going to need to be targeted at least at one keyword. However, in most cases
actually three or four keywords per page. Now, the next thing
that's changed is content. It used to be that you can
simply write an article and implement the keyword
a fair number of times and Google automatically would rank you, a.k.a. QR density, right? The more you put the keyword in your page, the more they know about that
page is around that topic and then you're ranked. Now that doesn't
necessarily flow naturally and it didn't really work well for users, hence Google doesn't look at
density the same way anymore. Google has gotten smarter and they changed their expectations a bit. They're not just looking
at a site shoving in the same keyword and stuffing it and ruining the searchers' experience. They made some big changes
to improve their rankings by not showing low-quality
content as high. So now when you're writing content, it's not about that keyword in there, naturally it'll be in there
and other synonyms will be which Google can tell, because think of them as a
big dictionary and thesaurus. So they know what the article is about even if you don't have
that keyword in there. Their main priority is to
deliver a high quality content and keeping the search intent in mind. Remember when someone
types in a search query it usually is a question, right? It's not necessarily
specifically a question with a question mark, but when someone does a Google search they're looking for an answer
to what ever they typed in, and if your page does that, provides that answer with that content you're in the good graces, if you don't, you're not going to do well. So don't just shove in
keywords within your content and write long pieces of article because, hey, people say
Google wants 2,000-word article ranked at the top. It's not about word count. It's about providing what
the users are looking for as quick as possible. If you do in 500 words, 2,000 words, 5,000 words, whatever it may be, whoever does it in the
easiest form for the user, without shoving in keywords, and creating the best experience
is who's going to do well and the best in the long run. So how long does it
take to rank on Google? Well, are you ready for this? The answer is it depends. I know it's frustrating, right. According to Forbes, the
average it takes for a new site is four to six months to start seeing some traction in service. However, because there're
so many factors in SEO, there is no definitive answer. Every industry is different as well. It's easier to rank for a plumber in a localized city, than it is to rank for
auto insurance nationally. On average, based on my experience, even if you're starting a new website and you're actively
working on your content, on page SEO and link building, it can take roughly six months before you start seeing results. It doesn't mean in six months
you're going to rank at the top and get what you want, but it usually takes six months
to start seeing traction. And the best way to start
seeing the traction faster is going after the long tail phrases which convert better than head terms. So if you want to rank faster, there's some important SEO factors that you need to know if you want to rank. The first thing we should
look at is your site and is it secure and is it
accessible to Google crawlers. Are you using HTTPS? Is your robots.txt
blocking the right pages, allowing the access to the right ones? Using a site map and submitting
it to Google Webmaster tool, so Google can crawl on your pages? Is your website fast in load time? If it's fast, not only it's going to
boost your rankings, because it's a part of their algorithm, and then you get to use
Google PageSpeed to see how fast your website loads, both on mobile and desktop device, and they'll tell you what to fix as well. But mobile speed time
and desktop speed time also affect conversions as well. The other thing that
you need to look at is, is your site mobile-friendly? Did you know that over a
half of searches on Google are done by mobile devices? If your website doesn't look
nice on a mobile device, like iPhone or Android device, don't expect them to rank it high up. The other thing that you have to look at is do you have authoritative content. Right? If you just have a me-too
content, it won't cut it. Google doesn't want the
same regurgitated content over and over again. They want you to provide
something that's unique, that people haven't read before. Every time I blog on something new we're seeing on average 47.6% more traffic than when we blog on something that's been regurgitated and is old. So in other words, try
to blog on something that's new, that people
haven't seen before. I know it's frustrating, but the world has changed and, yes, there still is new stuff that people are learning about. Not everything has been
written even though there's been over a
billion blogs on the web. Another thing you need to look at is quality backlinks. Getting links from authoritative
sites is one thing, if those sites are emulated
you're not going to do as well. Are you creating an amazing enough content to attract right type of links? Are you creating amazing
product and service to get more links? Do you know what section
of my site gets more links than any other? It's actually Ubersuggest. Did you know I generated
over 10,000 backlinks alone just to Ubersuggest? I'm not going out there
asking people for links, they're just linking to me
and it's attracting them. Another thing I want you to
look at is social signals. Even though social signals
have no effect on ranking according to Google, there is a correlation
between pages that rank high and have a decent number
of social signals. Remember, Google wants
to rank pages at the top that people love. So if people love a page, they're more likely to link to it. They're more likely to share
it on the social web, right? They wouldn't just say, "Hey, I'm going to link to it,
but I would never share it." They go hand in hand. The other thing that
you need to look at is do you have your business
information listed. Especially if you're a local business. You need to claim your
Google My Business profile, you need Yelp reviews, Google reviews, have a good Better Business Bureau page. The more reviews you can
attract the better off you are. The big takeaway is, when you do the right things and you go above and beyond and put the user first, you're going to rank faster, than if you just try to
optimize your page for Google and not put the user first. If you need help with your SEO, check out my ad agency Neil Patel Digital. Thank you for watching, if you have any questions
leave a comment below, I'll answer it. Please share the video, like it. I'll see you soon.
