So how long does it take for SEO to work? This can be one of the top SEO questions that’s most likely in your mind if you’re in the middle of any search engine campaign right now. And even if you’re not, knowing the answer can surely come in handy one day.
As it turns out, there are many reasons why SEO takes that much time. But if we were to break it individually, we’d have to list a handful of the main ones:
- Preparing the campaign itself takes time.
- Running the campaign takes time.
- Waiting for Google to pick up your efforts takes time.
- Waiting for Google to re-rank your affiliate site takes time.
- Updating your campaign later on takes time.
Now, let’s take them one by one.
Preparing The Campaign
Before you can start doing anything to promote your affiliate site in the search engines, you have to prepare a solid plan that will have the potential to bring you success over time.
Everything starts with keyword research. Without carefully selected keywords, no SEO benefits will come. Then there’s competition research. Next, you have to pick the individual SEO methods, research link possibilities, and so on. All of this takes time.
Running The Campaign
When you’re running an SEO campaign, you usually have to find time to do things like reaching out to website owners, writing original content, commenting on blogs, and actively building links wherever it’s possible. Moreover, you can’t do all of this overnight because if Google notices your unnatural activity, they can ban you altogether.
Waiting For Google To Pick Up Your Efforts
Let’s not forget that Google has millions of sites to crawl, so no wonder they might not pay attention to yours right away. And even if they do notice “some” changes quickly, noticing them all is still going to take significantly longer. Unfortunately, all you can do is wait.
Waiting For Google To Re-Rank Your Site
Once Google has all the data in, they will take a while to update the ranking. Remember that it’s not only you who’s doing the work, there are also your competitors and other site owners. And Google has to make sure that the rankings reflect the web as a whole.
Updating Your Campaign Later On
In SEO, everything changes over time. And with Google introducing new algorithm updates left and right, it’s getting more hectic than ever. Quite simply, to stay on top of the game, you need to update your campaign constantly. If you don’t do that, one day Google can penalize you for not being in line with their guidelines.