It’s often the first question we get asked by our web design clients here at Dentons Creative. Everyone naturally hopes their investment in a shiny new website will pay dividends with new business, and to pull in the customers the new site needs to be noticed.
Many industry leaders have set their minds to answering this very question. Tim Soulo, one of the brains behind Ahrefs – a toolset for SEO and marketing – did some respectable research (https://ahrefs.com/blog/how-long-does-it-take-to-rank/?ref=webdesignernews.com) into the matter, and found that “only 5.7% of newly published (web) pages will get to Google top 10 within a year”.
That’s a bit demoralising, right?
Instead of seeing the above results of the Ahrefs research as negative though, take a more positive view. That 5.7% DID make it into the top ten within a year of being “first seen” (in fact it took them between two and six months) and they didn’t get there just by luck.
So how did they crack it, and after a meteoric rise to fame, will they maintain their top slots?
The answer is probably no – it’s a case of the quicker they rise, the quicker they fall!
As we all know, SEO is the way to push a website up the ranks. There are many SEO “experts” out there – and online tutorials for those who want to try some d-i-y – but it’s a case of “buyer beware”. They may well be peddling the SEO equivalent of snake oil, which will end up doing your website more harm than good in the critical eyes of Google!
In the short term some deceptive SEO tactics may work, but long-term they are risky. Use the wrong approach and Google may penalise your site.
Google 2017 has a mile long list of what it regards as illicit practices in respect of SEO, and stringently polices them.
It’s therefore difficult to definitively answer the question we began with – How long until my site ranks high on Google?
We can, however, assure you that our web designers work closely with our in house SEO specialist to ensure your new website is Google friendly. Quality content is the key, patience is the virtue!
Dentons Creative keeps up to speed with all Google algorithm developments, and does have a few “legal” tricks up its sleeve to help things along. We are happy to give established websites an SEO audit, and have had great success in improving rankings for numerous client websites, tracking the results over several months.
Rome wasn’t built in a day. When it comes to time scales for increasing site rankings the fastest way to the top is to play by the Google rules and have intimate knowledge of what those ever-changing rules are.
