It’s a fair question to ask. After all you invest of a lot of energy into SEO and to see little or no results for months is entirely normal, but doesn’t make it any less frustrating.
Ultimately it comes down to this…
You can’t live in a penthouse until you build the lobby.
It takes time to build the foundations of good SEO. Starting with easy wins, longer tail keywords and building on rankings you already have, ensuring technical SEO is in check as well as your on page optimisation.
That’s all before you even begin to think about building links. And just as with unnatural anchor text, building a backlink profile too rapidly can throw up a giant red flag where Google is concerned.
Does keyword difficulty have an effect?
Competition plays a huge part in the time it takes for your SEO efforts to start taking affect. Often a keyword that has large monthly search volume will be difficult to rank because your competition has likely spotted this traffic source as well and is trying to tap into it.
Lower search volume and therefore usually lower difficultly keywords usually have less competition and can therefore be easier to rank for. It doesn’t necessarily mean you’ll get to position one in a few days, but you can certainly make progress faster.
Imagine running a 100m race against a bunch of kids. The competition is certainly easier than running against Olympians, but the distance is still the same. You still have to put in the legwork to get the results.
Does domain age affect SEO ranking?
Domain age refers to the age of your websites domain and it is certainly a factor. When satisfying search queries Google is always attempting to give the user the best possible result.
That typically means trustworthy, reliable and conclusive information. Not only is a well established site more likely to do this, but from a practical standpoint, an older site is a known entity for Google. It has all the data to back up how credible the site is.
A newer site can certainly give the same or better quality content, but if Google hasn’t got the same track record to refer to, it’s going to play it safe and give a boost to the older site.
Does Domain Authority (DA) affect the time it takes?
Yes, Domain Authority is very similar to Domain age in many respects. If targeting a new keyword, chances are a site with a higher DA is going to rank that keyword quicker than a site with a lower score. That’s still not to say you will see instant results. All SEO takes time, but the lowest competition keyword from the highest DA site will normally win the race.
Can lots of backlinks speed up the SEO process?
Backlinks are one the major keys to ranking well, but it’s very easy to get caught out trying to cheat the system. So while backlinks can speed up the process, poor quality ones or a generally very suspicious backlink profile can land you in hot water with Google potentially resulting in a Google penalty.
Even the most efficient backlink profile building therefore takes time. Even if you are buying links (remember this is actually against Google’s guidance) you need to do so in a very natural way. Don’t go buying hundreds just because you can!
