SEO

How long does SEO take to show results?

Published

1 year ago

November 9, 2022

30-second summary:

The only way to determine any time frames is to determine your client’s goals and flesh out a lot of “it depends” before a commitment
There are a lot of “it depends” you will need to clear out with your client before giving any time estimate
Factors that can influence how long SEO may take include the site’s age, its previous history with SEO and Google, its size, CMS, and any business specifics that may slow you down
The minimum amount of time required for SEO work to show obvious results is 6 months (but a 12-month period is more realistic)
There are certain credible strategies that can yield quicker results (if done right)

There’s no way to guarantee SEO results within a definitive timeframe, simply because we can never guarantee what we cannot control, and Google is not under our powers.

There can be rough estimates that should be clearly explained to the client as they are, that is, expectations that are not guaranteed.

Your client should understand that there are no magic bullets and you don’t know any secrets. All you can do is follow the best practices to ensure gradual growth. This is key to managing clients’ expectations properly.

But let’s get back to the question: How long does SEO take to show results?

What is it we are trying to achieve?

First of all, it is important to understand and adjust your client’s goals. What is it they are looking for when investing in an SEO strategy?

Most clients would insist on improving rankings for the keywords they already know they target. In many cases, these are unrealistic keywords that may take years to achieve.

This is where “adjusting” the goals comes into play.

By expanding those keywords to make them longer and less competitive, you can be more confident in achieving SEO goals within a realistic timeframe. Make sure the client is made aware that:

Long-tail keywords can actually bring organic traffic that converts much better: The more specific a search query is, the closer that searcher is to complete their buying journey.
Keyword gap analysis helps identify business gaps that can help a business stand out and find its unique audience.
Discovering new keywords and expanding existing keywords help diversify organic traffic sources which, in turn, helps maintain a more consistent organic visibility. If you lose one or two positions for a short-tail search query with a huge search volume, you risk losing 20 to 30 percent of your traffic. If you lose a few long-tail rankings here and there, your site will still be driving pretty much the same amount of organic traffic. Google’s SERPs are very dynamic and versatile: Losing rankings is inevitable, so diversification is key to stability.

Overall, the best way to set the client’s expectations right is to set a goal of gradual organic traffic (and conversion) growth. This way you focus on positive results that come from a big number of pages instead of stressing over rank monitoring for a few key pages that may be moving up extremely slowly.

What actually are the metrics “it all depends on?”

And yet, the inevitable “it depends” will still come up.

Every site is different: Some sites will benefit from active SEO work quicker than others, even if you focus on gradual traffic growth, rather than a few rankings.

The SEO time frame primarily depends on:

The size of the site: It is easier to achieve accumulative growth when the site is large and already has quite a few possibilities
The site’s history: If the site has been seeing a slow but steady decline in rankings and organic visibility for a few years, it may be difficult to flatten that curve and ultimately turn it around. Plus, if a site was affected by certain updates (like Product Review Update) requires Google to re-run that update for all the previous work to reflect (or not) on rankings. No SEO professional can ever be sure when the next refresh happens, so that will impact your SEO results to become obvious. And let’s not even talk about a pretty unpopular fact that none of the recent Google updates has any obvious remedy: You need to work on everything under the sun in hopes it will help and sometimes it doesn’t.
Current backlinks profile (and possible actions): Things like backlink clean-up may take quite some time for Google to recognize and react to the changes
The age of the site: New sites take longer for Google to finally accept the fact that they can be trusted.

There are more factors, of course. Whether a site is already an entity is another factor that can impact how fast the results will come. The current structure of the site is another big thing that can be challenging: Restructuring a site can cause Google to figure it out for quite some time, even if you do everything right.

Obviously, the client’s turnaround is another factor to discuss: Some businesses require a long process of approving any change that is needed to make their sites SEO-friendlier. New and optimized content may take weeks or months of the legal reviewing process.

Other businesses simply have no development teams to help them with on-site work, so they rely on freelancers. This is another level of back-and-forth process slowing them down, especially when ongoing technical tasks are required. Additionally, some CMSs are easier to manage (these are Wix, WordPress, and a few others), while others require technical skills.

SEOs are seldom lucky enough to get the keys from clients’ sites allowing them to push all the required changes live within days.

So how long does SEO take?

With all of the above in mind, the minimum amount of time required for SEO to start delivering tangible results (i.e. relevant traffic that converts) is six months.

In most cases, you will need about 12 months to proudly report on the results you were able to achieve.

There are quick wins possible…

Of course, there are tricks to start delivering some results within a shorter period of time to keep your clients happy.

For example, optimizing for branded search is something that can quickly help your clients see more traffic that converts like magic (because people searching for a brand name are very likely to convert once they manage to land on that site).

Internal linking can quickly boost the performance of existing pages, especially if those are optimized for search queries with lower competition.

Exploring rich snippet opportunities and using structured markup (where it makes sense) will likely improve click-through without having to wait for the rankings to grow (which will be slower to happen).

Updating old articles that currently rank within the top two pages of search results may also deliver quick wins, if you do it right.

Those are the first steps to take when starting active SEO work.

It is actually an endless process

This is another thing to make clear when clients ask that inevitable question: How long will it take?

SEO actually never ends. You cannot just optimize a site and watch your organic traffic come and convert. Google’s algorithm is evolving, current content becomes stale (so it needs to be monitored, updated, and re-optimized), and competitors keep getting backlinks, and other key boosts.

You need to always stay on top of your SEO efforts, develop new content and new link-generating assets and lead magnets, explore new searching patterns… the list goes on and on.

An effective SEO service will also always include exploring new tactics, detailed competitor monitoring (and learning from them), and ongoing investigation of new SEO opportunities (like new keywords, new rich snippet opportunities, and new media).

Ann Smarty is the Founder of Viral Content Bee, Brand and Community manager at Internet Marketing Ninjas. She can be found on Twitter @seosmarty.

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SEO

brightonSEO Live Blog

Published

2 hours ago

April 25, 2024

Entireweb News Bot

Hello everyone. It’s April again, so I’m back in Brighton for another two days of ~~sun~~, sea, and SEO!

Being the introvert I am, my idea of fun isn’t hanging around our booth all day explaining we’ve run out of t-shirts (seriously, you need to be fast if you want swag!). So I decided to do something useful and live-blog the event instead.

Follow below for talk takeaways and (very) mildly humorous commentary.

SEO

Google Further Postpones Third-Party Cookie Deprecation In Chrome

Published

5 hours ago

April 25, 2024

Max

Close-up of a document with a grid and a red stamp that reads "delayed" over the word "status" due to Chrome's deprecation of third-party cookies.

Google has again delayed its plan to phase out third-party cookies in the Chrome web browser. The latest postponement comes after ongoing challenges in reconciling feedback from industry stakeholders and regulators.

The announcement was made in Google and the UK’s Competition and Markets Authority (CMA) joint quarterly report on the Privacy Sandbox initiative, scheduled for release on April 26.

Chrome’s Third-Party Cookie Phaseout Pushed To 2025

Google states it “will not complete third-party cookie deprecation during the second half of Q4” this year as planned.

Instead, the tech giant aims to begin deprecating third-party cookies in Chrome “starting early next year,” assuming an agreement can be reached with the CMA and the UK’s Information Commissioner’s Office (ICO).

The statement reads:

“We recognize that there are ongoing challenges related to reconciling divergent feedback from the industry, regulators and developers, and will continue to engage closely with the entire ecosystem. It’s also critical that the CMA has sufficient time to review all evidence, including results from industry tests, which the CMA has asked market participants to provide by the end of June.”

Continued Engagement With Regulators

Google reiterated its commitment to “engaging closely with the CMA and ICO” throughout the process and hopes to conclude discussions this year.

This marks the third delay to Google’s plan to deprecate third-party cookies, initially aiming for a Q3 2023 phaseout before pushing it back to late 2024.

The postponements reflect the challenges in transitioning away from cross-site user tracking while balancing privacy and advertiser interests.

Transition Period & Impact

In January, Chrome began restricting third-party cookie access for 1% of users globally. This percentage was expected to gradually increase until 100% of users were covered by Q3 2024.

However, the latest delay gives websites and services more time to migrate away from third-party cookie dependencies through Google’s limited “deprecation trials” program.

The trials offer temporary cookie access extensions until December 27, 2024, for non-advertising use cases that can demonstrate direct user impact and functional breakage.

While easing the transition, the trials have strict eligibility rules. Advertising-related services are ineligible, and origins matching known ad-related domains are rejected.

Google states the program aims to address functional issues rather than relieve general data collection inconveniences.

Publisher & Advertiser Implications

The repeated delays highlight the potential disruption for digital publishers and advertisers relying on third-party cookie tracking.

Industry groups have raised concerns that restricting cross-site tracking could push websites toward more opaque privacy-invasive practices.

However, privacy advocates view the phaseout as crucial in preventing covert user profiling across the web.

With the latest postponement, all parties have more time to prepare for the eventual loss of third-party cookies and adopt Google’s proposed Privacy Sandbox APIs as replacements.

Featured Image: Novikov Aleksey/Shutterstock

SEO

How To Write ChatGPT Prompts To Get The Best Results

Published

1 day ago

April 24, 2024

Max

How To Write ChatGPT Prompts To Get The Best Results

ChatGPT is a game changer in the field of SEO. This powerful language model can generate human-like content, making it an invaluable tool for SEO professionals.

However, the prompts you provide largely determine the quality of the output.

To unlock the full potential of ChatGPT and create content that resonates with your audience and search engines, writing effective prompts is crucial.

In this comprehensive guide, we’ll explore the art of writing prompts for ChatGPT, covering everything from basic techniques to advanced strategies for layering prompts and generating high-quality, SEO-friendly content.

Writing Prompts For ChatGPT

What Is A ChatGPT Prompt?

A ChatGPT prompt is an instruction or discussion topic a user provides for the ChatGPT AI model to respond to.

The prompt can be a question, statement, or any other stimulus to spark creativity, reflection, or engagement.

Users can use the prompt to generate ideas, share their thoughts, or start a conversation.

ChatGPT prompts are designed to be open-ended and can be customized based on the user’s preferences and interests.

How To Write Prompts For ChatGPT

Start by giving ChatGPT a writing prompt, such as, “Write a short story about a person who discovers they have a superpower.”

ChatGPT will then generate a response based on your prompt. Depending on the prompt’s complexity and the level of detail you requested, the answer may be a few sentences or several paragraphs long.

Use the ChatGPT-generated response as a starting point for your writing. You can take the ideas and concepts presented in the answer and expand upon them, adding your own unique spin to the story.

If you want to generate additional ideas, try asking ChatGPT follow-up questions related to your original prompt.

For example, you could ask, “What challenges might the person face in exploring their newfound superpower?” Or, “How might the person’s relationships with others be affected by their superpower?”

Remember that ChatGPT’s answers are generated by artificial intelligence and may not always be perfect or exactly what you want.

However, they can still be a great source of inspiration and help you start writing.

Must-Have GPTs Assistant

I recommend installing the WebBrowser Assistant created by the OpenAI Team. This tool allows you to add relevant Bing results to your ChatGPT prompts.

This assistant adds the first web results to your ChatGPT prompts for more accurate and up-to-date conversations.

It is very easy to install in only two clicks. (Click on Start Chat.)

Screenshot from ChatGPT, April 2024

For example, if I ask, “Who is Vincent Terrasi?,” ChatGPT has no answer.

With WebBrower Assistant, the assistant creates a new prompt with the first Bing results, and now ChatGPT knows who Vincent Terrasi is.

Screenshot from ChatGPT, March 2023

You can test other GPT assistants available in the GPTs search engine if you want to use Google results.

Master Reverse Prompt Engineering

ChatGPT can be an excellent tool for reverse engineering prompts because it generates natural and engaging responses to any given input.

By analyzing the prompts generated by ChatGPT, it is possible to gain insight into the model’s underlying thought processes and decision-making strategies.

One key benefit of using ChatGPT to reverse engineer prompts is that the model is highly transparent in its decision-making.

This means that the reasoning and logic behind each response can be traced, making it easier to understand how the model arrives at its conclusions.

Once you’ve done this a few times for different types of content, you’ll gain insight into crafting more effective prompts.

Prepare Your ChatGPT For Generating Prompts

First, activate the reverse prompt engineering.

Type the following prompt: “Enable Reverse Prompt Engineering? By Reverse Prompt Engineering I mean creating a prompt from a given text.”

Screenshot from ChatGPT, March 2023

ChatGPT is now ready to generate your prompt. You can test the product description in a new chatbot session and evaluate the generated prompt.

Type: “Create a very technical reverse prompt engineering template for a product description about iPhone 11.”

Reverse Prompt engineering via WebChatGPT

Screenshot from ChatGPT, March 2023

The result is amazing. You can test with a full text that you want to reproduce. Here is an example of a prompt for selling a Kindle on Amazon.

Type: “Reverse Prompt engineer the following {product), capture the writing style and the length of the text :
product =”

Reverse prompt engineering: Amazon product

Screenshot from ChatGPT, March 2023

I tested it on an SEJ blog post. Enjoy the analysis – it is excellent.

Type: “Reverse Prompt engineer the following {text}, capture the tone and writing style of the {text} to include in the prompt :
text = all text coming from https://www.searchenginejournal.com/google-bard-training-data/478941/”

Reverse prompt engineering an SEJ blog post

Screenshot from ChatGPT, March 2023

But be careful not to use ChatGPT to generate your texts. It is just a personal assistant.

Go Deeper

Prompts and examples for SEO:

Keyword research and content ideas prompt: “Provide a list of 20 long-tail keyword ideas related to ‘local SEO strategies’ along with brief content topic descriptions for each keyword.”
Optimizing content for featured snippets prompt: “Write a 40-50 word paragraph optimized for the query ‘what is the featured snippet in Google search’ that could potentially earn the featured snippet.”
Creating meta descriptions prompt: “Draft a compelling meta description for the following blog post title: ’10 Technical SEO Factors You Can’t Ignore in 2024′.”

Important Considerations:

Always Fact-Check: While ChatGPT can be a helpful tool, it’s crucial to remember that it may generate inaccurate or fabricated information. Always verify any facts, statistics, or quotes generated by ChatGPT before incorporating them into your content.
Maintain Control and Creativity: Use ChatGPT as a tool to assist your writing, not replace it. Don’t rely on it to do your thinking or create content from scratch. Your unique perspective and creativity are essential for producing high-quality, engaging content.
Iteration is Key: Refine and revise the outputs generated by ChatGPT to ensure they align with your voice, style, and intended message.

Additional Prompts for Rewording and SEO:
– Rewrite this sentence to be more concise and impactful.
– Suggest alternative phrasing for this section to improve clarity.
– Identify opportunities to incorporate relevant internal and external links.
– Analyze the keyword density and suggest improvements for better SEO.

Remember, while ChatGPT can be a valuable tool, it’s essential to use it responsibly and maintain control over your content creation process.

Experiment And Refine Your Prompting Techniques

Writing effective prompts for ChatGPT is an essential skill for any SEO professional who wants to harness the power of AI-generated content.

Hopefully, the insights and examples shared in this article can inspire you and help guide you to crafting stronger prompts that yield high-quality content.

Remember to experiment with layering prompts, iterating on the output, and continually refining your prompting techniques.

This will help you stay ahead of the curve in the ever-changing world of SEO.

More resources:

Featured Image: Tapati Rinchumrus/Shutterstock