Like anything worth achieving, reaching page 1 does not come easy. SEO is all about the long game, and failure to recognise this may breed unrealistic expectations within your business. If it were that easy to reach the top spot, there would not be such a disparity in brands who are making their mark and those who are barely being found. If you’re considering SEO or are impatient with the results to date, here is why SEO does not happen overnight.
You need to start ranking for your keywords
If an SEO agency in Melbourne is telling you that they can get you results overnight – run for the hills. This is not possible for a range of reasons, chief among them if your keywords. Your keywords are the words users search for when looking for businesses of your variety, and if you haven’t paid attention to these before then there will be some catching up to do. These keywords can be integrated into your on-page website copy, your onsite blog, and in any guest blogs you contribute as part of your link building strategy. Typically quite generic, these keywords can sometimes have a search volume in the hundreds of thousands. Your job? To get Google to recognise your website as a source that users are looking for when they use those keywords.
You need to achieve a high Domain Authority (DA)
We are sorry to say that the look and feel of your website have no impact on your DA. Harsh but true. Your DA is influenced by a range of things, like maturity, relevance, usability, and the number and quality of backlinks. A sleek new website does not translate into SEO success, so you will have to commit to improving your DA so that Google will want to rank you higher. Housing quality content on your website will also positively impact your DA, so ensure that you are posting useful and keyword-rich content on as many pages as possible.
Competition is fierce
So you have decided that you will invest in a strategic SEO plan. Unfortunately, many of your competitors have likely been plugging away at just that for many years. The greatest way to catch up, or even overtake, your competitors is to engage an SEO agency. Having a team of specialists pouring over the backend and watching your placement with an eagle eye? This is a priceless investment in your business. If your website is new, then you will have to go through the process of building yourself up as all websites have. Some businesses are competitive enough to buy domains to redirect to their own domain. This strategy, and a few more like it, can be frowned upon by Google’s standard so it is always best to have a Google Partnered SEO agency advising on the way forward.
Life cycle
When businesses hear that they will not see a change in their SEO for at least 90 days, it can come as a shock. This is a lot longer than other marketing initiatives, but only SEO will last the distance of time. A Facebook Ad will have to expire, and a radio broadcast will only be heard for a short period – SEO measures will remain in place and will continue to assist with ranking long after the money is spent. When comparing expenses and the life of a campaign, SEO will always come out on top. How quickly a quarter of the year can pass us by, and yet this time period can be seen as unacceptable by businesses looking to make a mark. Weigh up your ROI and see how SEO is a smarter investment across the board.
As marketers and business operators, we should be wary of get rich quick strategies and engagement promises that are too good to be true. Nothing will serve your business greater than strong SEO visibility, and not all are worthy of the top spot. Are you?
