As SEO consultants we often get asked how long it takes to get to the number one spot in the SERPs. Unfortunately this is one question that is impossible to answer.

With most activities you can set a start date, timetable your activities and provide a deadline completion date. SEO has no comparison. I can start tomorrow and I can provide a schedule of what activities are being undertaken, as for a completion date - that is up to you.

A date on when you will hit number one - forget it. Search engine rankings are out of everyone’s hands. In fact if you believe the search engines they will tell there is no manual intervention at all - with the exception of those use unacceptable techniques to get ranked. With that in mind, SEO can only do so much. The rest will depend on the search engines.

Some of the variable that will effect your progress include the activities of other website owners, the activities of other third parties such as visitors who link their content to yours or someone elses, and the search engines themselves; how often they spider sites and how they treat the information received.

SEO is a game of patience. You optimize pages as far as possible. You submit pages to relevant directories and social bookmarking sites and perhaps even encourage links from other web pages. From there it is a waiting game. Once you start to see some progress you can look at whether or not further tweaks are required.

As for providing a timetable as when I can get you to number one - I cant and I wont and anyone who says they can should be looked at with caution. You can only control what is in front of you. The very best in SEO strategies cannot control your opposition.

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This entry was posted on Monday, July 21st, 2008 at 6:58 am and is filed under SEO. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.