Giving SEO the time it deserves

I have posted similar articles to this before, but I feel that this topic needs to be drilled into the minds of people who think that Search Engine Optimisation happens overnight (you know who you are!) Recently we've worked with a company that suffer from overly eager, impatient management. Their campaigns followed solid tactics, stuck to best practices and even had some smart, creative elements, but after a month of middling results, they have ended up seeking third party advice. Obviously these aren't the sort of people with the persistance and patience to see things through - fair enough.

To be fair, even I make the mistake sometimes of wanting things to magically happen on the spot, but the difference is that I understand SEO and I run my business in such a way that it doesn't rely on the internet (which fool would?). However, SEO doesn't function in the "I want it now" fashion - never has, and I doubt it ever will. Rare, in fact, are the sites who can make sweeping changes, launch viral content, start some link building campaigns and see immediate success. Why? Lots of reasons:

The engines need time to re-crawl your site. For a lucky few, this might take only days or a couple weeks, but for many large sites and even for smaller sites that aren't terrificly high on Google's "must crawl" list, we've seen as much as 3-4 months pass before a site's pages are fully updated.

The engines have to crawl all your link partners, too! If you've recently launched some great widgets or viral material or a new content licensing system, it's going to be a solid wait before you experience the full impact of that work.

The algorithms reward patience. Even if the engines start to see those links right away, it might be a few weeks or months before the algorithm rewards the full weight and heft of their existence. Why? Because search engines learned years ago that manipulative link building is often temporary, while high quality links stand the test of time. This issue is particularly true of new domains (or newly moved domains), so be aware that you might have to earn some trust over time before you feel all the positive ranking impacts of links.

It takes time to attract links. Last, but not least, on our list of reasons is the growth of links themselves. If you've just started new content, design and promotion strategies to attract links, you not only need time for those campaigns to reach their targets, you need to wait for the links to start rolling in (and then get counted by the engines). This can be a long, tough slog, and understandably, a lot of site owners and SEOs give up without ever getting the full benefit of their work.

Patience can be a challenging and rare quality to find in a manager or indeed any person. Just remember - if you're spending money on PPC, which receives something between 12-20% of the clicks on the SERPs, those organic listings can produce a lot of value. Give your SEOs and your campaigns a minimum of 3-4 months to show positive effects and make sure you watch total search referrals (not just rankings for your pet keyword search phrases). Once you start to see increased traffic from the engines for long tail and related phrases, you know you're on the right path.