Can you rank a website in less than 90 days & guarantee it?

Many SEO agencies will simply say yes to the above to get you to sign up.

They will swear on their mother that they will be able to get a big chunk of your keywords on page 1 of Google within 90 days, or they will offer silly things like; ‘do your SEO for free or ‘give a percentage of your money back.

All this is ludicrous, will never happen and is sales talk to get you to commit to them and start paying an SEO monthly fee.

Also read: How much should I pay for SEO in 2019 in Sydney

Why does SEO take longer than 90 days for competitive keywords?

It’s quite logical. Imagine you are a lawyer, accountant, or trade, and you want to rank for your main service in Sydney (it can even be a local search where you may want to rank for, say, 10 suburban locations).

Just imagine what is happening on Google in this space. There are already existing companies in this niche that have been there for years and have probably been link-building and doing SEO all this time. These businesses are established and will not easily relinquish their page 1 position. If they even get a whiff of your business rising the ranks, they will do everything they can to keep you buried on pages 2, 3 or even 10. So if you think you can easily dislodge them if less than 3 months, you are dreaming. It just won’t happen.

Also read: How long does SEO take & why do I have to wait so long?

We have ranked websites in competitive areas at SEO Sydney Experts, but it has taken anywhere from 6 months to a year. Rushing the rankings and building scores of backlinks, especially to a new website, will raise red flags with Google, and you will get busted via a Google panalty. This is not how we work, and I really can’t understand why some SEO agencies promise these pie-in-the-sky unrealistic achievements. It’s quite scary as naïve business owners listening to this will sign part with a lot of money and penalise their site when the next algorithm rolls out.

Also, if they will reward you, Google wants to see that your link building is done slowly and naturally. Why would they give page 1 priority to a complete newbie? You must establish credibility and authority in the online space before you can even begin to think about being competitive.

How do you establish a website’s authority?

Ranking a website is way more than link building. To establish real authority, you have to be doing about five things all at the same time. These include:

Blogging and content marketing.

You have you be constantly publishing relevant, unique content every week. And remember, these blogs have to be more than a mere 300-500 words. You have to put some serious effort into these. Make sure your website is relevant with up-to-date information. Old, outdated information is not what your customers are searching for, and Google will position competitors’ sites above yours if they are deemed more relevant and current.

You must be active on all your social media profiles.

Post your blogs to your LinkedIn profile, and add some juicy information to your Facebook page. All the effort you put into your social media sends ranking signals to Google, which is great for your SEO.

Always monitor your website for maximum performance and user experience/engagement.

Essentially, the longer they remain on your website and the more pages they drill down to, the better it is for your overall bounce rates, which will help your SEO> Google push and promote websites that offer customers searching only the very best experience. Why would Google push this higher if your website is slow to load and has poorly written copy? Consider what your customer wants, cater to this, utilise the latest technological trends, and you will shoot up the rankings.

Google is like any other business; they only want to showcase the best websites for its search results. If they promote uninteresting sites and have long download times, users may start searching elsewhere like Yahoo and Bing – this is NOT what Google wants. They want you to love the results they provide.

You must always monitor your website’s results through analytics and ensure it’s delivered. Any issues must be patched up and fixed ASAP as these will hinder rankings.

Keep your link building up.

You can’t simply start an SEO campaign and switch it off once you hit page 1. This is a really bad move, and I get people asking me if they can do this all the time. Backlinks are the backbone, the foundation of your SEO campaign, and if you stop this, you will start sliding. It may not be immediate, but after 2-3 months, once Google sees that there has been no link-building activity, they will devalue your authority.

Avoid link-building using private blog networks.

I have discussed these details in a recent article, Private Blog Networks for SEO: avoid these at all costs. Also known as PBNs, most SEO agencies will have a pool of these PBNs that will give your rankings a bump once detected; many end up in a penalty. Link building should be natural and organic to establish trust for your website. Google has outlined the steps to creating trust, a must-read: Steps to a Google-friendly site.

The take-out from Google’s article is that SEO is not a quick 90-day affair. It’s a long, hard-working slog with ethical digital strategies implemented. Simply put, you cannot rank a new business start-up in 90 days and guarantee it by putting it in writing.

This is why SEO MUST be considered a long-term and indefinite strategy. Turning it off is going to hit your rankings hard.

SEO is not a quick, sugar-hit strategy with all the above information. It is a long-haul marketing campaign that you have to be committed to. I wouldn’t even bother starting if you are here for less than 3 months.

If you want some quick wins and push your website’s rankings in the short term AHREFS, a reputable site has an article called 15 Quick SEO Wins (To Improve Your Rankings), where they outline immediate strategies that can be implemented to legitimately improve your rankings. I advise you to read this before engaging any SEO agency, as most developers could have implemented these changes and given you the boost you want. Changes like internal page linking, optimising page titles and descriptions, checking keywords that your competitors are ranking and creating content pages with these keywords via blogs and creating a Google My Business profile.

So if you hear anyone tell you that they will rank your main keywords within 3 months, know that they are trying to scam you – BE WARNED!

If you’re looking for more information regarding keyword research or need SEO strategies to support, SEO Sydney Experts is here to help! Feel free to contact us for a consultation and visit our site for more information on what we do.