As SEO consultants in Vancouver, one of the most common questions we get is “when can we expect results?” It’s a fair question. When you invest in your business, you know what you’re getting. If an SEO company promises instant results and staggering growth, consider it a red flag.

SEO, also known as Search Engine Optimization, is a long-term strategy. It starts with how your website is made in terms of structure and content and then relies on factors like social media, backlinking, and blogging. The best time to start SEO is before the website building process. It’s important to work with web designers who understand how search engines like Google work. This is important to maximizing compatibility.

Realistically, if a website is properly built and optimized, it’s reasonable to expect to start seeing results within about 3-5 months. However, several factors will influence this.

Competition and SEO in Vancouver

As a Vancouver SEO and web design company, the bulk of our clients are local. They’re competing with other businesses located in Vancouver. Competition in your business niche is one of the most crucial factors impacting the speed of SEO growth. How many of your competitors are actively optimizing their websites? How saturated is your market? If the competition consists of a few dozen competitors, you should be able to make headway fairly quickly. However, if you’re competing with hundreds of other businesses who are aggressively optimizing their websites, buckle up.

If you’re an established business with an older website, you may have noticed newer businesses creeping ahead of you on Google. Just this week, we began a redevelopment project for a client that’s been a leader in their niche for over a decade.

In this case, they were losing “points” due to an old Joomla website that was outdated and not mobile-compatible. They were still on page one, but they had lost the top spot. Interestingly, legacy is a factor on Google. Businesses that have dominated Google for years may just need to update their website to reclaim former rankings. However, for businesses appearing on the Internet the first time, conquering established competitors who are experienced SEO players will require work and strategy.

Interestingly, your field can also impact your Google ratings. Businesses in services related to health, wellness, and finances—those that can seriously impact individual well-being—will have a harder time overcoming older, dominant businesses that have established themselves as trustworthy service providers. There’s more scrutiny involved from Google to avoid inadvertently promoting a business that’s fraudulent or intends to harm users. Therefore, building up confidence and authority is going to take a longer.

Choosing the right keywords

As SEO consultants in Vancouver, we talk a lot about keywords. What are the best “word combinations” your website should rank for? For example, as SEO consultants, we’ve optimized our website for words like:

• “SEO Consultant Vancouver”
• “SEO Web Design”
• “Vancouver SEO”
• “SEO Vancouver”
• and so on…

It’s best to dedicate one website page to a search phrase, so it’s important to create a list of target words/phrases and then decide which page will be optimized for specific pages.

Not all keywords are equal. Some of them are generic and get hundreds or even thousands of monthly searches. Others may only be Googled around fifty times a month. The trick is understanding which keywords lead to business inquiries. And if it’s something your competitors aren’t using, there’s an even better chance of ranking higher, faster.

Be ethical

Remember, in Search Engine Optimization, it’s important to use a best-practices approach. Google is quite open about what practices are acceptable. There are some disreputable companies that promise big results fast, but if Google identifies this (and they always do), a website will be severely penalized, making it incredibly difficult to regain the positioning that has been lost.

In conclusion, SEO involves dozens of factors, from technical improvements and content creation to setting proper internal linking and building backlinks. As web designers and SEO consultants in Vancouver, we’re knowledgeable in all these areas and work one-on-one to help our clients overcome barriers and implement solutions to effectively and organically boost search engine rankings.

Getting things right takes time and effort. Search Engine Optimization isn’t like math or physics, the rules change all the time as Google constantly adjusts their algorithms in order to give their end-users a better experience—i.e. helping people connect with the businesses and people who deliver the services and goods they promise.

Search Engine Optimization is not and never has been rocket science. However, it does take people who understand search engines. It takes a commitment to invest in a Google-friendly website, to publish keyword-rich blogs, and to build up your reputation using a combination of social media and backlinking.

SEO is a process of Ready, Fire, Aim. You have to see what’s working and adjust for what’s not. However, with patience and persistence, your efforts will pay-off, because Google is now the go-for finding businesses and service providers—and no one is checking page 5.

Want to learn more? Get in touch at nita@inkykisscopywritinganddesign.ca or visit http://ikcopywritinganddesign.ca/