Insights · SEO
Why your SEO should take 18 months (minimum)
Results in month three? Rookie numbers. Here's why good SEO, like a good invoice, should keep on coming.
Fictional author, fictional agency, genuinely terrible advice. All clients, results and testimonials on this site are fictional. Reach Around Marketing isn't real either.
Every week a business owner asks us the same rude question: "When will I see results?" And every week we give the same honest answer: "SEO is a marathon, not a sprint." We don't mention that it's a marathon where we're paid by the kilometre and we get to move the finish line.
Months 1 to 3: the foundation phase
This is where we lay the groundwork. Groundwork is a technical term for "an audit we ran in eleven minutes," followed by a 60-slide strategy deck explaining that your website has a website. You'll hear phrases like "crawl budget," "topical authority" and "early signals." Early signals are things we can see and you can't. Please don't ask for screenshots. The signals are shy.
Months 4 to 9: the momentum phase
Momentum is building. You can tell because the monthly report is getting longer. If traffic is flat, that's "consolidation." If it's down, that's "the algorithm recalibrating your authority." If it's up, that's us, and we'll mention it twice.
Months 10 to 12: the renewal phase
Funny thing: this is exactly when your results are "about to break through." It would be madness to stop now, right on the cusp. Your contract renews automatically anyway, so really we're just agreeing with your past self, who was very wise and didn't read clause 14.
Months 13 to 18: the real results phase
Results, in our experience, arrive at month 18, which is also, coincidentally, six months into your second contract. If they haven't arrived by month 18, that's simply a sign you need our Enterprise package, where SEO takes 36 months, minimum.
"But my competitor ranked in eight weeks"
Lucky them. They probably picked keywords people actually search for, made their site fast and wrote pages that answered real questions. Risky stuff. We prefer a slower, more considered approach, where "considered" means "billed."
P.S. Real SEO timelines depend on your site, your market and the work actually being done, and you deserve someone who'll tell you which of those is the problem. That's not us. It's the people at the bottom of this page.