How Long Does SEO Take To Work for New Websites?
– In this video, you're
gonna get a real answer to how long it takes
for SEO to start working for a new website. In case we haven't met before, I'm Matt Diggity and I'm the founder of the SEO businesses LeadSpring, the Search Initiative, the Affiliate Lab and the Chiang Mai SEO Conference. Through my various companies, I get to work with tons of websites. Right now, I have 207
websites under management. – [Both] Damn. – 51 of them were created
in the last 12 months.
So, I get to keep my finger on the pulse of how long it takes for a website to start generating traffic
after SEO gets supplied. I'll say one thing first. Things have definitely changed, especially in the last few years. Let me take you back real quick. The year was 2014. Doing SEO around this time was what you would call easy mode. We used to test the
competitiveness of certain niches by building what was
known as skeleton sites. They look like this. You'd have a homepage
with 300 words of content that you'd get written for $3. You'd put the keyword in the title, once in the first paragraph
and once in an H2. Then, you'd slap a YouTube
video on it for good measure. After that, you'd send a strong backlink directly to the single page website. In three days time, you'd
be on page one of Google. That's how quick and easy it was.
These days, as you know,
things are a lot different and there's plenty of reasons for it. First, because Google started dropping the quote unquote, Google Sandbox, on us like it's no one's business. The Sandbox is like a leash that is placed on new websites that prevents them from ranking. Many people argue over whether or not the
Sandbox actually exists. Think about it like this. Whenever people start new websites, they typically come prepared with a bunch of keyword research. And if they've done a good job, they found some extremely
uncompetitive keywords that they'll first
target on their website. Keywords that have
literally zero competition. But they start these websites and they start on page billion of Google for these zero competition keywords. That's a Sandbox. By the way, I'll give you some
tricks to avoid the Sandbox later on in this video. Next, there's no other way to put it, there's just more competition these days. If you started a blog on golfing in 2010, there are probably just
10,000 golf websites you were competing with.
Now, there's probably 500,000. You just can't slide up the
rankings like you used to, unless you're an SEO badass because you've been watching my videos. Another reason it takes longer
to get SEO results today is because the amount of
content that's required in today's Google environment. If you're trying to get
to the top of Google for a topic like fishing, it's not enough to write a single article on fishing and hope you're gonna do well.
Even if it's the best damn
article in the world on fishing, it's just not gonna work. Google wants your website
to answer multiple questions about fishing in multiple articles, such as how to get a fishing license, what are fishing rods made from, and why beer so good when you fish. Actually, last one I made
up, but you know it's true. This concept is called topical authority. When you completely blanket a
topic, then Google rewards you because you've become an
authority on that topic. If you're starting a new website with five articles on fishing,
you're not gonna compete. It's gonna take time. And finally, the last reason
SEO takes longer these days is because the backlinks. A backlink is when one
website links to another with a textual or sometimes image link. Back in 2001, Google founder Larry Page patented his page rank algorithm, which basically detailed
how Google was gonna rely heavily on backlinks to determine rankings in the search results. And that commitment to backlink
still carries forward today. Sometimes to such a degree
that the search results have gone bonkers.
If I Google best penis enhancement pills, not because I need to. It's for demonstration. Gosh. – He, he, Why? (static crackles) – [Matt] If I Google best
penis enhancement pills, these top three websites aren't topical authorities on penises. They're not even health websites. They're just websites with
the billion backlinks. And they post up content on any subject, they get to the top of Google. That's how much Google
still loves backlinks. When you're just starting out, this is what you're up against.
So in this video, I'm gonna
give you a real expectation of how long SEO takes to
work for a new website. And make sure to stick around to the end because I'm gonna be giving you a bunch of tested methodologies that'll speed up this
process significantly. But if I could just ask for
a significant favor from you, could you please test the Like button to make sure it shoots
out digital confetti? I've been appointed to the role of lead like button confetti ambassadors.
So, I'm looking to spread the word to find folks like yourself. Kidding. But smashing the Like button
helps support the channel and makes my day at the same time. So, thanks. I asked this question to the members of the Affiliate SEO
Mastermind Facebook group, how long does it take
for a brand new website to get traction in Google? Let's say 5,000 visitors per month. And I'm talking about normal SEO here. Nothing that will speed up the process. No 301 redirects, no expired domains, and none of the fancy tricks that'll show you at the end of this video. Why do I put 5,000 visitors
per month as a threshold? It's a good number. You can make some money with
5,000 visitors per month. A lot of money if you're
in the right niche.
Let's take a look at the results. A huge majority of the voters
selected six to 12 months as the answer. 74% of the voters to be precise. That's a lot. And in my experience, they're right. Most of the websites that I work on will start to turn the corner
within this time period. But there's definitely some exceptions, which I'll show you shortly. Six to 12 months building
content and links will eventually jump
you out of the Sandbox and get you moving up the ranking, scoring that sweet, sweet traffic. The next category coming in at 17% was the one to six month range. So, we definitely have people
that are getting results in less than six months.
And I can say to myself
I certainly have websites that squeak by the 5k per month mark in less than six months. And that's without using any fancy tricks. I'll show you one of 'em soon. That said, breaking the six month barrier is more the exception than the rule. Next, we have the 12 to 18th
month category coming in at 6%. You know what I think about the people that voted for this category? They suck. Absolutely terrible. Worst SEOs on the planet. – What did you say? (static crackles) – Totally kidding. What I think is these are folks
that are answering honestly and not letting ego drive their votes. And if you're in any
super competitive niche, it's extremely normal
to take at least a year to get traction, for myself included. Then, we have the two year plus category with 2% of the votes. That it depends category with 0.7%, which successfully points out that you should always
have a healthy breakfast and anti glare monitor. The 18 to 24 month category with 0.4%.
And a less than one month
category with one vote from the guy with the
biggest (beep) on the planet. So, what are my thoughts on these votes? I almost completely agree. In my experience, most of the time, sites take six to 12 months. Sometimes I get lucky
with a six month site because of a variety of factors,
which I'll discuss soon. And sometimes, it takes longer than a year because of other factors,
which will also get too soon. But six to 12 months, if
you're doing everything right, is very typical. Here's a table showing
the time to hit 5k traffic for the last five sites
I've started from scratch. Keep in mind that these sites are in various niches with
various levels of competition.
But the average has been 8.6 months, which falls in line with
the results in the poll. That said, I have this site
here that I've been working on for about four months that's
in a super competitive niche. It should hit 5k traffic next month, but this is using one of
the speed up techniques that'll show later. But ultimately, it depends. How long it takes to
get to the top of Google depends on a few factors. And here's how those factors
will adjust the time it takes for SEO to kick in. Remember before we talked
about the Google Sandbox where Google places a leash on your site in the beginning phases? The Sandbox, just by itself, typically last two to four months.
If you can avoid the Google Sandbox or at least shorten its duration, you can expect to get 5k traffic in the one to six month range. We'll discuss techniques for this later. Next, the level of competition
you face is a huge factor on how long it takes for SEO to work. If you go straight for
the heavyweight keywords and try to rank on day one
for stuff like credit repair, this is gonna extend the
time it takes to get results to more than two years. But if you start small and start going for long tail keywords, such as how do I get
outta credit card debt in Austin, Texas, you're gonna begin stacking up small wins. Each of them adds to your
overall website traffic. If you do this correctly
and you publish fast, you can expect to break into
the six to 12 month category. If you start competing
on the national level for stuff like how to start a business, you're gonna be up against the best, simply because there's more search traffic at the national level.
But if you localize your keywords to say how to start a
business in Las Vegas, you're gonna get traffic faster. Enough local keywords
can get you 5k traffic in the six to 12 month range. Likewise, if you take your
SEO to foreign countries, the competition is lower as well but not necessarily the search traffic. For example, 212 million
people live in Brazil and they Google the (beep) out of things. Choosing the right foreign country can reduce the time down to the six to 12 month range as well. But the factor that
makes the most difference is your SEO methods. What types of techniques you use can get your results
in less than one month. Just look at this flag
pull of a traffic route my buddy sent over. Note that the tactics
were about to get into are considered advanced SEO and that the ones that will
get you results way faster than the norm. The first strategy is to do
whatever you can to avoid or at the very least
reduce the amount of time you're stuck in the Google Sandbox. The Sandbox exists for two reasons. First, you don't have any link authority as a new website.
No links, no authority. Second, because you haven't
built any trust yet. As a new website, Google trusts you less than Johnny Depp trust Amber Heard. The way you solve this is with backlinks and not just any backlinks. Through numerous tests, I
found that a certain sequence of backlinks. Starting with super
trustworthy social links, then sequence follow ups of guest post will significantly reduce
your time spent in the box. I've left a length in the
description to a video where I fully lay out how to do this.
So, make sure to check it out after you finish here. The second methodology will
seriously skyrocket your website right out of the gate. And that's to launch a website with a ton of content that's topically relevant to your niche. One could call this a
topical authority launch. This is what's gonna get
you a vertical traffic like you see here This process starts with
creating a topical map. You need to do research to
figure out every piece of content that's required to give you
topical authority in your niche. The great thing about this is that the research can
be done literally for free. You'll get content ideas from the people also ask section in the Google search result
for your main keyword, Google's auto complete function, the related searches at the
bottom of the search result, and good old fashion intuition. I've also left a link to
a video in the description on how to get Google traffic
without link building. It includes a section on
how to create a topical map, so make sure to check
it out after this video.
After you created the topical
map, it's time to get writing. You can write it yourself,
of course, hire a writer, or perhaps dive into one of
the many AI content tools on the market. The third methodology is to leverage the avalanche technique. The avalanche technique was coined by C. Carter from Builders Society and is used in practice by many SEOs, including myself and Kyle Roof. The theory boils down to this. There's a concept called traffic tiers. Depending on how much traffic
you have on your site, you're able to rank for certain keywords in your tier easily. If you shoot for keywords
that are too difficult, then sure you can write them but you're not gonna get
traffic for them anytime soon.
So, it's within your best interest to only go for keywords at your level. As you guess, the key
here is to figure out which keywords to start with. Go to Ahrefs' Keyword Explorer and type in your main
keyword for your niche. Click on Matching Terms, then filter for keyword difficulty,
KD, between zero and 10. This will give you a huge
list of super easy keywords to start with. Get cracking on these. And then, eventually
you'll get more traffic which will allow you to
move up a traffic tier and then go for harder keywords. Eventually, you'll start snowballing. Kyle Roof and I discussed
the avalanche technique in an interview I had
with him on my channel. Make sure to check it out. Next on our list, we have
content optimization. And I mean fully optimizing
your content for Google when you write it. If every article on your
site is perfectly optimized, you'll rank very quickly. This whole concept of quality
content is complete (beep). People think of that if
you just write content that's so good, Google will notice it and push you to the top of the results.
Think about it. Google's a robot, an algorithm. It can't read your content as if it's a piece of Shakespeare. What it does instead is
looks for certain words, entities, and phrases in
various places in your content and at certain frequencies. If you write a piece
of content on fishing, what it's gonna do is check your content against the other articles
on page one for that keyword and compare you on factors such as how many words
of content were written, were keywords added to
the title H2s and H3s, did you use related words
like saltwater, freshwater, and fishing line, how often
do you use those words, and so forth. That's why I love Surfer
for content optimization. It looks at the other articles on page one and gives you a writing
platform to write your article so you give Google exactly
what it wants to see. Check out my onsite
optimization checklist video after you finish up here. Link in the description. Next, we have expired domains.
Instead of starting your
website on a brand new domain with no backlinks, start
it on an aged domain with lots of backlinks. I recently launched a website on an expired domain a month ago. Check out how many of
these keywords marked new are already on page two of Google. All of the aged domains I use
for SEO have come from Odys. Odys is great because
they audit their domains for both quality and penalties. You're not gonna buy a
crappy site from Odys. They also have a huge selection
of niches to choose from. For example, if you
wanted to start a website in the health niche, just
type health here at the top and you'll find tons of domains. But the best thing is that Odys domains don't have a drop history. So, Google doesn't reset
the backlink equity. Use the link of the
description to sign up to Odys with a hundred dollars
in free store credit.
You also help support the channel. Next, we have 301 redirects. It's a quick way to instantly build a ton of links to your
site in a natural way. A 301 is when you tell
Google that domain A doesn't exist anymore. It now lives at domain B. So, send all the back
links from A to B pronto. I did two 301 redirects to this site, one in June and one in December. Look how the referring domain count went vertical on these dates. I'll be releasing a video
soon on 301 redirect, so make sure to subscribe
so you don't miss it. Then, we have PBN links. PBN stands for private blog network. Note, this is definitely not
a White Hat SEO technique. So if that makes you uncomfortable, there's plenty of Justin Bieber videos you can switch over to. – Oh, hey. I didn't see there. (static crackles) – PBNs are essentially expired domains with tons of backlinks that
were brought back to life. But the kicker is when you get a link from one of these things,
you typically get one from the homepage. That's an insane amount of
power coming from a single link, which at the right amount, can shoot your website
up to search rankings.
For PBNs, I'm getting
mine from rankclub.io. And my last and final technique is to subscribe for more
videos just like this one..
