This is a question that is legitimate to ask  when you meet  an agency specialized in SEO  : “ How long  does it take  before my site is positioned in Google search results?”. The answer you will often hear is  : “It depends”. At GDA, it seems important  to us to go into a little more detail about the criteria that influence the appearance of SEO results .

Does SEO take time to show results?

Depending on many parameters inherent to your website, SEO (Search Engine  Optimization )  can take  from  a few weeks to several months  to give convincing results. Your site is young? Have catastrophic natural referencing actions been carried out upstream? So the positioning of your website on the first page of the SERP (Search Engine  Result  Page) will take  longer than in the case of a site that has already existed for a few years , or for which quality SEO work  has already been done. been initiated.

The advantage of long-established websites

The age of a website is an essential  criterion   for  SEO. Indeed, according to a study conducted by  Ahrefs ,  88% of  web pages  that are positioned in the top 10 rankings on the SERP have at least 2 years of existence  for a given keyword .

The pages that boast in the first place of search results are on average 3 years old  !

Looking at websites as a whole, only  5.7  % of  web pages  less  than a  year old  rank on the first page  of Google results. It’s certainly not much, but it means that even  if  your company  ‘s website is  fresh  and, perhaps, free of any upstream SEO work ,  you have the possibility of making a place for yourself in the big leagues . .  But in how long?

Also according to  Ahrefs ,  we find that the majority of websites  up to a year old  are positioned in the first 10  results of the SERP in  2 to 4 months on average . A valid finding regardless of the authority of these sites in the eyes of Google.

In fact, it is essential for your activity to better manage your content strategy upstream in order to  rank  in due time on your request. This is called  predictive SEO . So, if you want to increase your chances of appearing in a good position for Valentine’s Day, you will have to start publishing content optimized for this purpose,  ideally from November!

Low and high search volume keywords

The speed with which your site will position itself for a given keyword also depends on the search volume of this one. It will  indeed  be easier and faster to appear on the first page of natural results for  queries with low search volume , less competition .

50% of  pages less than a year old rank in the top 10 search results within 2-4 months for low search volume keywords.

On the contrary, for queries highly sought after by Internet users, SEO takes longer to take effect. It  usually  takes  almost a year for these keywords to rank on the first page . This provided that the site  is properly maintained  and that a minimum of work in natural referencing is carried out at the same time.  At this level, the competition is fierce!

Natural referencing, a long-term job

Be that as it may, natural referencing is a job of optimizing your website over the long term , the results of which are not seen for a few weeks. SEO is thus opposed to  SEA  (Search Engine Advertising), which consists of paying to display sponsored ads in search results.

This second method is often mistakenly called “paid referencing”. However, this is advertising and not referencing. Advertising gives  short-term results and requires paying for your  SERP display campaigns. On the contrary, natural referencing will only require work to provide results that take longer to see, but are much more sustainable.

Nota bene: SEO and SEA are not always enemies, on the contrary they are rather complementary. So if your site is recent, or if you have never worked on its natural referencing, conducting a few SEA campaigns will help you increase your site traffic while the SEO is bearing fruit. A little help is never refused, after all!

Netlinking, technique, content: the pillars to accelerate your SEO

SEO is broken down into three main pillars: netlinking and its backlinks, technique, content. These three points relate, in a more general way, to the user experience, also called UX . If you want to increase your chances of getting to the first page, or even the top of the search results, faster, you will have to put pressure on these levers.

Backlinks: work on your popularity

Backlinks are links that third-party sites make to pages on yours. This is one of the most important criteria for quickly obtaining results in SEO. Indeed, backlinks represent the  popularity of your site across the web . The more you have, the more you are known!

Be careful though: it is not a question of making links on sites talking about gastronomy if your company is specialized in the construction industry. The  theme  and  quality  of the sites that make you backlinks is widely considered by search engines. Be known, yes, but not just anyone!