How long does SEO take? An honest answer for UK businesses

SEO takes weeks for the technical fixes and months for everything else, and anyone who gives you a firm date is guessing. Google won't give a date either, and if anyone were going to know, it would be Google. So the useful question isn't "when will we be on page one?" It's "what should happen, in what order, and how will we know it's working?" A good SEO can answer that, and won't mind putting the answer in writing.

From fastest to slowest

Fast: whatever is stopping Google listing your pages. A page can't rank until it's indexed, which means it's on Google's list of pages it's willing to show. Three things usually keep a page off that list: a "noindex" setting left on by mistake, which tells search engines to leave the page out; a robots.txt file, the small file that says which pages they may visit, shutting the door on the wrong ones; or a page missing from your sitemap, the list of pages you hand them. The fixes are quick. The wait is for Google to come back and read the pages again. Its help for the URL Inspection tool, which tells you whether a page is on Google, says that after you request indexing it typically takes only a day or so, but can take much longer, and that asking doesn't guarantee the page gets indexed.

Weeks: tidying the pages you already have. That means better titles, clearer pages, faster loading, and permanent redirects that send old addresses to the right new ones. Google already knows these pages, so the changes can show within weeks of it reading them again.

Weeks or more: moving a site. If a move changes your web addresses, Google says it can take a few weeks or more for a medium-sized site before the new addresses replace the old ones in results. Larger sites take longer, and rankings can wobble on the way, so a dip in the first few weeks isn't on its own a reason to panic.

Months: new content, and earning trust. A new page has to be found, indexed and then judged against whatever already ranks. Links and mentions from other sites build slowly because other people have to decide you're worth mentioning. This is the slow part, and for most sites it's the part that matters most.

What makes it faster or slower

• How competitive the searches are. Being found for a local service in a market town is a different job from fighting for a national search full of large companies.
• Local or national. Local search leans on your Google Business Profile, reviews and listings, and those can move faster than national rankings built on content and links.
• The state of the site. Serious technical problems come first, because nothing else shows until they're fixed.
• How much needs writing. A page that doesn't exist yet can't rank, however patient you are.
• Whether other sites already mention you. A business people already know and link to has a head start.
• Whether the work keeps going. Stopping and starting slows everything down. SEO in short bursts is the January gym membership of marketing.

How to tell it's working before the enquiries arrive

Nobody can honestly tell you when SEO will work, but it does happen in a set order: your pages get found and indexed, then they start appearing for searches, then they climb, then the clicks come, and then the enquiries. Each stage shows up in a free tool before the next one arrives, which is the nearest thing SEO has to a progress bar.

1. Pages indexed. Search Console is Google's free tool for seeing how your site appears in Google, and its URL Inspection tool and Pages report confirm your important pages are on the list. Bing Webmaster Tools does the same job for Bing.
2. More impressions for the right searches. An impression is your page appearing in the results, whether or not anyone clicks. The Performance report shows them climbing for the searches that matter, long before you're anywhere near the top.
3. Better average positions. This is where your pages sit in the results on average. Lower is better, so a falling number is good news, which is rare in a report.
4. More clicks on those listings.
5. More enquiries from unpaid search, in your analytics and when you ask customers how they found you.

If stage two is moving, the rest are more likely to follow. If it hasn't moved once Google has had time to read your changes again, something needs rethinking, and it's far better to know that in month two than in month twelve.

Agree the timetable in writing

Google's guidance on hiring an SEO suggests asking any SEO what results they expect and in what timeframe, and warns against anyone who guarantees rankings. I'd go further and get the answers in writing before any work starts:

• What will be done, in what order, and by when.
• What should change, at which stage above, by which date.
• When you'll review it together, and what would make you change course.

If someone won't agree to those three, or offers you a guaranteed position instead, I'd walk away. Whether the agreement needs to be one of the twelve-month SEO contracts some agencies ask for is a separate question, and one worth settling before you sign anything.

Quicker wins while the long work runs

• Your Google Business Profile. Complete and accurate, it does a lot of the work for local searches.
• Pages just off the first page. In the Performance report, the pages with plenty of impressions and few clicks are often the closest to moving.
• Paid search for the searches that matter most, while unpaid rankings build. Work out how much Google Ads cost for your searches before you commit.

The checklist

• My important pages are indexed on Google and Bing.
• The technical problems that stopped pages being indexed have been fixed.
• I know which 10 to 20 searches matter most.
• I know where impressions, clicks and enquiries from unpaid search stand today.
• I've agreed what should change, by when, with whoever does the work.
• I check Search Console and Bing Webmaster Tools monthly.
• Nobody has promised me a guaranteed ranking.

If you're still deciding whether SEO is worth it for your business at all, or weighing up how much SEO costs, settle those first. When you do start, the first piece of work should look a lot like what an SEO audit should include.

Our SEO audit and first fixes is a fixed £2,500 and includes a baseline, the fixes that matter most, and the searches worth going after. That gets the fast part done, so the slow part can get on with it.