How long does it take to do SEO? An hour a week?

When I introduce people to the concept of SEO, most business owners get excited, “Are you telling me that my business’ website can appear a the top of Google?” 

“Well, basically, yes. With a little work, more of your customers can find your business.”

That naturally brings us to additional questions.

How quickly does SEO work?

Unfortunately, SEO is not quick. Sometimes, after people put a little time and effort into their website, they don’t see their desired results. They wonder if they’ve done it wrong or if SEO doesn’t work. You can do everything right but not see immediate results. Here’s why:

• Your website can only get credit from Google each time they visit your website- and it doesn’t see the typical website all that often. That means you might “optimize” a page perfectly for Google, but you won’t get credit for it until Google sees it- and, for that, you’ll have to wait!
• Even after Google sees a change, it has many things to consider (thousands of other websites relevant to the same topic as yours) when deciding if and where your webpage will show up in the search results.
• There are many factors (a couple hundred) behind how Google decides to “rank” websites. Changing one thing might not make all that much of a difference when there are potentially hundreds of other factors to consider, too.

I’d suggest that things you do to improve your website this week will be several weeks before your website sees the benefits. 

Don’t be discouraged. Just because SEO is slow doesn’t mean it doesn’t work. It just means you have to keep working at it. You have to put the time into your SEO campaign for you to see the results you want.

How many hours should be spent on SEO?

The short answer is: as much as you can. The more you do to help your SEO campaign, the more Google will consider serving your website to potential customers. Don’t do one thing and step away, hoping it will help. Do as much as you can and know that your accumulated efforts will pay off over time.

Can you do SEO within an hour each week?

Since SEO is slow, you have to put the time into your campaign to see the results. However, I think if you only spend an hour a week you will start to see results! The key: focus. Simply reserving time for yourself each week will make sure you don’t let other things distract you. 

Another SEO benefit of focus is making sure you spend your time on the most important things. That’s where Curious Ants can help you. It tells you (in order of priority) where your biggest bang for your buck (or your time) might be. The Curious Ants game plan not only teaches you what you need to do for SEO but helps you prioritize the tasks that will make the most significant impact.

Do you have a hard time finding an hour to dedicate to SEO? Each week, members of Curious Ants participate in a weekly virtual co-working meeting. During this time, we all sit down together (virtually) and get things done! Join our virtual co-working, and you’ll always have that time reserved.

So, if you only have an hour a week to dedicate to your SEO efforts, Curious Ants can help.