After putting a lot of effort into SEO and not seeing results, you might be frustrated. In my early days of blogging, I sat around wondering how long does it take to rank on Google and how long will it take for my SEO magic to start working. Unfortunately, my magic-8 ball doesn’t have an exact answer for you, but we’ll discussing some some factors that go into a post ranking on Google and ways to speed up the process of ranking on Google.
What to know about how long it takes to rank on Google…
Some people hit publish and expect that their website/posts will show up on Google. If you’re logged into your Google account and search immediately after publishing your website/blog, you might see it if you search for a keyword that you’re targeting. You pat yourself on the back, but what you may not realize is that Google tries to show your own posts, especially if you’ve spent a lot of time on your website. (Spoiler alert: Your website is probably not ranking after one hour.) Google assumes that you really enjoy results from one website,
There are a lot of factors that go into ranking on Google:
- Domain age
- Keyword used effectively within content, titles, headers, and SEO snippet
- Keyword in the domain name
- Domain History (Penalties from Google for spam…)
- Country/language matching the user’s query/location
- Is the keyword used more than once?
- Content length (The top results tend to be longer than other results)
- Keyword density (number of times keyword is used divided by content length)
- Your website/blog answers the query in question
- Your website is fast
- Non-duplicate content
- SEO optimized images with alt Text describing the image
- How often your post
- Mobile-friendly website
- You have pop-ups that block content (Bad!)
- Other people link to your website
- Topic
- Domain authority
- Listicles
Simply, there’s a lot of things that go into when your website will rank on Google, so if you’re obsessing about Domain Authority only, you need to stop and think about the rest of your website. I recommend doing an audit of your website speed and how well you’re optimizing your keywords on the page.
Magic-8 ball: How long does it take to rank on Google!?
You might be scanning here wondering how long it will take to rank on Google. On average, it takes me one to three months to rank for articles within my niche although creeping up to rank one on Google can take more time. However, for articles that aren’t in my niche, it can take up six months to one year for some articles to rank. In some cases, I can rank within two weeks if I’m the only one who has written about a topic extensively and I have a lot of content on the topic, but this is not common.
Ways to speed up the process of ranking on Google
You might be ready to throw up a shrine to Google praying that it will find it or give up, but we’re here to tell you that there’s some ways to beat the odds on how long it will take to rank on Google.
Our tip: Figure out your website topics and areas of expertise that you often write about in detail.
In the search engine optimization community and among bloggers, there’s a big obsession with domain authority, but there’s another surprise factor that you might not consider: how often you publish on a given topic. Let’s say that you run a craft beer website focused on selling local beer from Amsterdam, the Netherlands. You regularly write about beer one to three times a week and you’re still sitting plugging away on your website wondering how long does it take until this SEO magic starts working!?
The reality is that websites that are niche on a topic are more likely to rank on a given topic, so if we publish a guide here to craft beer tours in Amsterdam, it won’t probably won’t rank well on Google as we focus on SEO writing here. However, if this is your niche, the likelihood that you rank for something that you shouldn’t is much higher. So, if you’re super passionate about craft beer (or any niche topic), keep plugging away and Google will reward your persistence. This is the basis of our SEO technique, the Wolf Pack Method.
I realize it’s counter intuitive to say that you haven’t written enough about something, but it might be the case. I wasn’t getting any hits on a post about an country that is not known by many people as it’s not well searched and well, not that many people write about it. I wrote more and more about it. Within one week of publishing my four article about it about two weeks after the first article, I started ranking with the first article. Now, Google now sends thousands of page views per month to that article on my website.
Target long tail queries / niche queries
One of the fastest way to start ranking quickly is to write about things that other people aren’t writing about and/or are long-tail queries as we call them in the SEO world. They’re not searched as much as popular terms, however your blog post or business website might perfectly fit the needs of someone who’s looking for a very niche product. We use Keysearch to research keywords.
Let’s say that you run a business in a city. I often see a lot of bakery owners trying to target the word cake, however the odds of ranking for that is null. Instead, think about where you live and contextualize it. Instead of writing about cake, target the keyword “cake in your neighborhood” or “city in your city.” You’ll likely still have competition, but the likelihood that the person who needs a cake near you finds it is exponentially higher.
Write evergreen content
I know the going gets rough, but SEO is all about playing the long game. Although some people are turning out blog posts every day hoping that someone will find their post before an event the next week, Google favors content that is evergreen and it’s in your best interest to regularly update your content. I know, it’s a lot of work, but it will pay off. (Google sees all!)
Let’s say that you write about a one-time event that you want people to find out about. You optimize for it and then the event is over, but your website starts ranking six months later. If people come to your website then click off immediately as it’s about an event that happened six months ago, you can say goodbye to your ranking. Instead of creating a one off page about a one-time event, create an events page that you update regularly.
Get backlinks from relevant parties
Stop before you respond to that sketchy person offering to give you 1,000 backlinks for $10. Getting backlinks is possible without paying these SEO sharks (as I call them) who target new/old websites. If you write good, throughout content that is valuable and relevant to your core clients/readers, people might even link to your website naturally.
Instead, answer HARO (Help a Reporter Out) queries about your areas of expertise, collaborate on others’ websites in your local community of business owners/bloggers by giving your opinion/perspective, write op-eds for your local newspaper, contribute an article to a local website, or even consider sending out press releases about exciting developments.
Cats!? What do cats have to do with SEO?
Simply, don’t feel that you have to do sketchy things (which can incur penalties) to get backlinks. You can read about black hat SEO techniques here. I once got a backlink after I found someone who runs a gallery of beautiful cat photographs and emailed her asking if she wanted to add my photo to her gallery. She happily added my cat photo to her gallery while linking to my article (about cats). Now, my article about cats ranks #2 on Google on a query about cats in that city.
The most important thing to remember is that contextual links to specific pages are far better than a random spammy link. Once again, you run a bakery and you’re looking to decrease the amount of time that it takes to rank on Google. Instead of hiring someone, invite local bloggers to your bakery and/or put on an event that attracts the attention of the local newspaper. Ideally, they link to the page on your website about the event, rather than your homepage, which should provide a signaling boost.
Simply, stop sitting on your hands and think about how to reach your core audience. The odds are that the best backlinks that your business can receive are from those in your community who will link to your content naturally if it’s good.
So, how long does it take for you to rank for Google on average?
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