Google Rankings: How Long Does It Take in 2019?
Updated November 2018
Every business wants to know How Long Does It Take To Rank on Google? How do Google Ranking factors work?
The answer is not simple, keep reading.
You have probably seen sites peddling “Climb To The Top Of Google Search Engine” programs promising to get your business ranked #1 in the Google search term rankings for just three secure payments of $99.95.
You know, the ones with the garish banners and a thousand pop-up windows that immediately freeze up your web browser.
They all promise to deliver “Guaranteed SEO Services!”
Sadly, all of these offers are a scam. They are the equivalent of 21st-century snake oil salesmen trying to take your money.
Even worse than that – not only do they not work but using shady SEO practices can hurt your business.
Using unethical SEO practices (or hiring someone to do so on your company’s behalf) can get your website penalized by any search ranking system.
And this could prevent your site from showing up in any of the search pages altogether.
Scary, right?
If you want to rank at the top of Google in 2019, it is complicated.
Appeasing The Algorithm For Keyword Rankings
Every business is different, even within the same industry. Page Rank is long dead, well at least the public version.
They are getting better and better at being able to tell similar companies apart from each other.
It does this by measuring how well business websites rank according to the criteria of their search engine and algorithms.
(Algorithms are a fancy way of saying “sets of rules used for calculations and problem-solving operations by computers.”)
Google uses these real-time algorithms, including Google RankBrain (that it updates almost continuously) to measure relevant data about websites.
It then analyzes this data to rank similar websites from highest to lowest in regards to which will show up first in the search engine and rankings pages.
The goal is to get your website’s data to line up with Google’s algorithm to soar to the top.
So, let’s talk about how to do this.
Ways to Rank on Google Rank
How Google Finds Your Website
First, it will be helpful to explain how Google finds sites to rank within its search engine pages.
They make and deploys special programs called ” bots” (also called “spiders”) to crawl through millions of websites (and their pages and posts) each day.
These bots collect and catalog all of a website’s data and add it to an index of the entire worldwide web.
These are some busy bots.
Since they are so busy, you want to make sure the information on your website is as accurate and easy to index as possible.
You want the content on your website to contain all of the pertinent keywords and phrases that are related to your business and the search terms you wish to dominate at the top of search results.
When people do a search what they are doing is searching the Google index of information for all of the sites that it has crawled on the web.
How Pages are Ranked
Great, now that you know how they find websites, let’s talk about how it ranks them in its search index.
The formula for Google’s ranking algorithm is always changing (and something the company does not openly share with the public).
However, there are several key known criteria that websites need to satisfy to ensure a spot on the top of Google’s results.
Search Engine Criteria
Search Engine Optimization, better known as SEO, makes sure that a website is not only visible to Google’s spider bots but that the site contains the correct search keywords, titles, image text and headings as well.
It is essential that these input points occur just enough times (but not too often) throughout a website’s pages to achieve a high SEO score.
A good search engine optimization expert continuously monitors your site’s SEO performance to make sure it is optimized for peak exposure and discovery by of Google’s index and algorithm seeking bots.
Domain Age Can Affect How Long it Takes To Rank
Yep, Google is a bit of an ageist when it comes to ranking websites.
And it considers any website less than six months old to be a “new” site.
This means how long the website has been up and live on the web, not how long someone has owned the URL for it.
Own a URL for ten years but have only built and posted a live website on it last week? Then, according to Google’s search engine, your site is just one-week-old.
Older sites are considered to be more reliable and less likely to post spurious or unverified information.
However, don’t fret.
Sites less than six months old increase search ranking, slowly.
And, these results usually improve significantly once a site is live past the six-month mark.
Keyword Competition
Keywords are words and phrases most often entered by users when doing searches online. The more often words are searched for, the more “competitive” Google considers them to be.
However, newer sites can offset this by focusing on building trust with search bots.
This is done by focusing SEO content on less competitive keywords before tackling more competitive terms.
Less competitive keywords ranking are ones that are searched for less frequently. They can also become part of a website’s long-term search engine optimization strategy. Use one of these SEO Keyword Research Tools.
Website Optimization Tip: Content Quality Is Key
Google’s spider bots work continuously to verify that a website’s content is as fresh and relevant to users as possible.
There are several things that Google takes into account when measuring a website’s quality index:
- Length Of Posts
- Timeliness Of Content
- Original Content
Here is a more detailed breakdown of each.
Length Of Posts, They Matter
Google discourages online marketers from just throwing up as many random websites and posts as possible.
Although lots of unscrupulous folks have tried (and failed) to do so over the years.
One way search engines combat these “junk” websites is by measuring the length of each post on a site. According to Neil Patel and Quicksprout, the average top 10 page has over 200o words!
Usually, the longer a website’s posts are, the more credible a site will be regarding the search index.
SEO content posts should always be a minimum of 300 words to ensure a good ranking.
However, longer posts ranging from 1,000 to 3,000 words perform even better.
A more extended post tells Google that your website is an actual authority on the subject that it covers.
Timeliness Of Content
Search engine’s values certain types of content over others when it comes to relevance.
Notable, posts and content about current and breaking news events will rank higher in search than those about less time-sensitive topics.
Hence, it is smart to have a mix of “evergreen” posts on your website (articles that topics that stay relevant for a very long time).
But you should also be sure to add some fresh, current event related content to your site on a regular basis, too.
Original Content, Not Duplicate Garbage!
This almost goes without saying, but let’s say (or type) it anyway just to drive the point home.
Search engines original content and ignores (and often penalizes) redundant, cut-and-paste and/or plagiarized content.
Google’s spider bots can index an entire website in seconds while simultaneously cross-referencing all of its content with every other site in the search index.
Don’t try to pull a fast one and dump mountains of plagiarized or duplicate content onto your website.
You will not be able to slip it past Google.
Domain Cleanliness
No, this is not a rating of how G-rated or not your website content is. Although Google’s not a big fan of adult content, so be sure to keep yours family-friendly and professional.
Having a “clean domain” means whether or not your website has even been flagged for trying to cheat the search index system.
Penalized sites do this by overusing keywords (AKA “keyword stuffing”) or buying fraudulent “backlinks” (links to your websites from spammy, low-rated content sites). Stick to the highest quality organic backlinks you can earn.
Both of these practices can get your site penalized and will detrimentally affect (i.e., completely torpedo) your site’s search index rating.
Suddenly your website will disappear entirely from search results altogether.
So, as far as lousy keyword and backlink practices go: Don’t use them!
Quality External Reference Links
On the other hand, links to your website from verified, high-quality, legitimate internet sources improve your ranking within the Google search index.
The best way to get these type of quality backlinks is to post superb, useful and relevant content. You know, the kind of material real people will want to use and share with others.
One of the best ways to do this is to hire an SEO expert to assist in publishing outstanding content on your site that people cannot resist sharing.
How Often New Content Is Added
One more thing Google takes into account is how often you post new content to your website.
Spider bots have big appetites and will grow bored and unsatisfied with stale old content that just sits dormant on your site for weeks, months and years at a time.
It is your job to keep these bots well-fed.
And you can do this by producing a steady stream of fresh content for them to feast on.
If you post new content at least two or three times a week your website’s content will be crawled, indexed and added to Google’s search index much more quickly.
In fact, almost immediately in many cases.
So How long does it take for SEO to work?
Now that you have got the gist of how SEO ranking works on Google let’s talk about how long it takes to reach the top of the search engine rankings.
As stated above, it takes a while to earn Google’s trust and improve your website’s reputation with its search and website indexing system. AHEF’s study on how long rankings take showed that the average site ranked #1 was over 900 days old.
However, if you utilize an excellent search engine optimization plan and build a quality website that features continually updated and optimized content, your site will be at the top of the SERP’s in no time.
Or, almost no time.
It takes about six months.
OMFG, three to Six Months plus to rank?!?
Yes, three to six months might seem like a long time. Do not fall for shortcuts promised by a shady salesman who will Resell or White Label your SEO services and send you generic reports.
But in the world of search engine optimization, it is not.
You understand if you have ever been duped and let down by internet hucksters, who promised faster results and couldn’t deliver.
Or, who got your website penalized.
Six months of quality SEO execution is a very short time to wait for a site that will show up on the front page of Google ahead of all of your competitors.
And, even better, after your site has passed the six-month mark, your results will improve faster and faster.
This is especially true if you are using and continue to use the techniques outlined above.
Laying the initial groundwork can be difficult. But you will reap the rewards for years to come if you stick to your initial six-month SEO search ranking master plan.
Trust Earned, Trust Rewarded
Once you earn the search engine’s trust, it will reward you.
Google will consider your site the go-to page on the web for the type of content you publish and the industry your business serves.
Couple this with specific geographic targeting practices and you will dominate front page search results in your region in no time.
For example, let’s say you own a marketing business for plumbing in the Dallas-Fort Worth area.
When a customer searches for an “SEO for a plumbing business” your company’s name and contact info will be the first pop up on the top of their computer or phone screen.
And you will be able to do it yourself for any keywords and phrases that you set your company’s sights on.
Proper search engine optimization can do this for any local business – bars, restaurants, automotive repair shops, dry cleaners, daycare providers, bookstores, dog groomers… you name it.
What Are The Next Steps
Does all of this have you excited about optimizing, streamlining and supercharging your business website’s SEO program?
It should because this type of website improvement can increase your company’s sales by hundreds if not thousands of dollars every month.
Do you want thousands of dollars in additional sales every month?
If so, let’s talk about the next steps.
Don’t Feel Overwhelmed
All of the information detailed above is a lot to take in.
If you were to sit down right now and try to figure out where to start with SEO, keyword planning, content production and distribution, goal setting, and metrics monitoring, you’d probably want to throw in the towel and quit.
Don’t worry. You do not have to quit. And you do not have to work to achieve your SEO goals alone.
An experienced and reliable SEO expert can take care of all of your business’s short and long-term SEO needs.
You need to find the right one.
And, lucky for you, by ending up on this website you have found one.
This Search Engine Optimization Expert Can Help
Meet Bradley Shaw.
By day I amSearch Engine Optimization (SEO) expert, and by night I am a digital marketing and online consultant.
I have all the skills and know-how to take your website to the top rankings. Moreover, I can do it the right way, without taking lazy or reckless shortcuts that might endanger your business’s standing.
My philosophy is simple, take your time and do it right. You can not sustainably rank your site on any search engine overnight.
I help all sized businesses increase their online visibility and sales using SEO optimization and marketing techniques.
For over 20 years I have helped companies expand their online visibility into the competitive online marketplace.
My approach is unique and custom tailored to each client.
I understand there no “one-size-fits-all” solutions when it comes to a company’s online marketing.
I create a unique and specific online marketing strategy plan for every customer based on proven methods that deliver measurable results.
Free SEO Audit
Whew, you made it.
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