When Will My Site Be #1?

We get asked this question all the time. Although we are very selective with our clients and like to work with larger companies, we do often work with local companies (because we like bringing local businesses on the web). Quite often the local businesses don’t have a ‘marketing department’ or anyone that already ‘gets it’. So a lot of questions get asked in the initial stages of preparing the campaign.

This post is to help small businesses out there who are looking for SEO services, to give you more of an understanding how legitimate SEO companies operate. It will also give you an idea of a good mindset to have when planning an SEO campaign for your business. The metrics and KPI’s you have in mind for success may not be the right ones. (Being #1 for a search term should not be your KPI.)

When Will My Site Be #1?

The question shouldn’t be ‘When will my site be #1?’, because who can answer this? Anyone that can is lying. The only people that potentially could is the guys over at Google.

The question should be ‘When will I start seeing leads, sales and more business in general from our SEO efforts?’

This is a better question that we can estimate a reasonable answer. We say within 90 days we can expect to start seeing results: More traffic, more leads and sales, and higher rankings of course.

Some SEO companies do not guarantee anything, and openly admit there are no certainties in SEO. This is also a sign of a legitimate SEO company.

Legitimate SEO companies follow best practices, and add value to your site. No SEO companies work with or for Google, and no SEO companies can guarantee positions.

REMEMBER: It’s about your website’s sales and leads. Not the #1 ranking for a specific term. You may be #7 for that specific term, but between #3 and #1 for plethora of other ‘long tail’ terms. These long tail terms put together will equal a  lot of highly converting traffic. Look at your sales and leads from the web before slating an SEO service for not getting you #1 for a specific term – but these success metrics and KPI’s should be discussed in great detail before the campaign starts.