Why Great SEO Rankings Don't Happen Overnight

One of the biggest mistakes people make with search engine optimization is assuming it will be an overnight transformation for their website. While it’s true that SEO can have a dramatic and long-lasting effect on your site, it’s also true that good SEO takes time, and that people who want to enjoy all the benefits SEO has to offer will do best to be patient and understand all the various factors that come into play in an efficient SEO strategy.

Why Does Good SEO Take Time?

The myth of instant SEO is one of the most damaging and pervasive on the web. While many sub-par SEO agencies promise rapid results or guaranteed front-page Google rankings, these organizations are making empty promises they can’t keep. No matter how good an SEO company or professional is, great SEO takes time, and there’s no way around that.

While many people don’t understand why this is true, it's because there are dozens of factors that have to come together to make SEO "work." Here are just a few of the things that come into play.

SEO Is Amazingly Complex

To rank well in Google’s search engine results pages (SERPs), there are dozens of things you have to do. After all, Google has more than 200 ranking signals, and they’re changing all the time. Getting it right is a process of jumping through hoop after hoop, and being willing to experiment to see what produces results and what doesn’t.

Google Changes Its Algorithms Constantly And Doesn’t Always Tell Marketers

SEO is changing all the time, so it’s nearly impossible to stay on top of it entirely. When Google updates its algorithms, it seldom publicizes the juicy details of its updates. SEOs and other marketers are left to guess what will rank well now, just like ship captains are left to speculate about the true size of an iceberg when we can only see the tip of it. That's why, following a new algorithm release, SEO specialists gather data from the changes in rankings from thousands of websites. This helps to determine what may have happened and why some sites improved in rankings visibility while others suffered. The data is then used this information to make educated decisions about what has changed and how to react.

Your Competitors Are Living, Breathing People

You never know what your competitors are doing to rank better or worse in Google’s SERPs. This means that the front page of Google is a consistently moving target and that there are no guarantees when it comes to ranking there.

SEO Is A Craft

SEO is part science and part art, and learning to rank well consistently involves a significant amount of study and hard work; running site audits and creating Google-friendly content are complicated. These factors alone are more than enough to make SEO a complex, challenging beast, and marketers who understand this are more likely to thrive in the digital environment.