How long does it take to position a website?

How long does positioning take?

No wonder this is a popular question among people who have decided to optimize their own website. After all, effective positioning means the beginning of potential large profits, and the expenditure on this process is also not small. We would like to hear the answer in the form of a specific assurance: “two months”, “five months”, etc. However, the most appropriate answer is only one: it depends.

Although it sounds evasive, if we take into account all the factors that successively contribute to this process – this is the only rational explanation. To fully understand the complexity of the issue, we will break it down into individual elements and explain why it is impossible to estimate in advance how long positioning will take.

Aspects of positioning, i.e. what influences time

It is important to understand from this formula that positioning is a continuous process. It is a continuum of activities that will bring us measurable and lasting benefits over time. After how long? It depends on where we start from.

There are a number of factors that influence the “difficulty” of optimizing a given website. They may concern both the technical condition itself and the characteristics of our activities and other environmental factors. Below we will present the most important aspects that determine the amount of time and effort that should be devoted to positioning.

Site status

Did we take over the website from someone or was it created from scratch? If this is the first case, you should check her history. Google has special algorithms that verify the content of a given page. In a case where the presence of content significantly different from the standards imposed by the search engine was registered, the website could be “punished” – i.e. its reach was significantly reduced. Positioning such a website will be a much more problematic task.

The best situation is presented by sites that have been operating for a long time – thanks to which they have been noted many times during indexing – but which have a “clean record” when it comes to offenses.

The architecture of the website itself is equally important, and specifically its adaptation to the page creation guidelines included in Google Search Console. They concern all aspects, including a clear internal structure (easily accessible to Google robots), appropriate linking and original, high-quality content. There are many elements, so this aspect alone may require a lot of work.

Industry of operation

This is an equally extensive issue, if not even more extensive, because it requires us to specify our business model, willingness to expand, target groups, etc.

First of all, let’s talk about our competition. We are talking about companies that position themselves for the same keywords as us. They may be larger than us, operate longer, offer more content, have better technical conditions (better website – see above), a larger budget and a wider reach. As you can see, there is a lot to take into account. At the beginning, we should start by specifying the phrases for which we want to position (including long-tail). It will be necessary to understand who we are basically targeting with our offer and who we want to be perceived as (what our company profile should be). The more phrases with different levels of competition, the better.

If we offer our services locally, it will also be necessary to determine the range. What geo-location phrases do we want to position for? Adding city names to keywords is a popular and effective practice, but isn’t there competition in our target location that is superior to us in many respects?

The industries themselves are also characterized by different competitiveness. There probably won’t be many purchases of catalytic converters in a given area, but there may be many more shoe stores or companies offering loans. For this reason, from the very beginning we may face an easier or more difficult task.

Outbound link profile

Does our website already have a position in the hierarchy thanks to appropriate external linking? This is one of the most important factors influencing trust in a website, so this activity cannot be underestimated. Again, we come back to our website – if it is already established, this action will require less work. However, obtaining outbound links to larger sites is more difficult if you are just starting out – which is quite natural as we have not yet proven our credibility.

Budget

And finally, a few words about money. It’s easy to see why budget plays an important role – as shown above, there can be quite a lot of steps to take right from the start. The more financial resources we have, the faster and more effectively we will make satisfactory changes. Moreover, you should be prepared for regular expenses – we emphasized at the very beginning that positioning is a process that cannot be artificially accelerated. You can’t pay more at once and enjoy the effects after a shorter time.

Can you predict how long it will take to position a website?

Perhaps, finally, it is worth asking one more question – what exactly is our goal when it comes to positioning? If we want to increase only a few (dozen) positions in the search engine for a given phrase, this can probably be achieved in a relatively short time. However, most often it is about reaching the top ten, i.e. the first page in Google for a given phrase. Only then can you talk about achieving your goal. As can be seen from the above information:

Everything depends on individual factors. It is very approximate to assume that after 3 months the first effects of our activities should appear. However, it may well take twice as long. For the most popular keyword phrases – up to a year.