The number one question in the world of small business SEO is How Long Does SEO Take? There’s no straight answer for that, but let’s take a quick look at two scenarios to help answer the question of how long does SEO take:

How Long Does SEO Take? Scenario 1:

You are a small business serving the entire United States and are competing for the keyword “Stock Trading”.  We do our analysis and find the following results for your keyword:
Website Ranked In Position 1 Has: 1,000 back links
Website Ranked In Position 2 Has: 700 back links
Website Ranked In Position 3 Has: 600 back links
Website Ranked In Position 4 Has: 550 back links
Website Ranked In Position 5 Has: 350 back links
Website Ranked In Position 6 Has: 250 back links
Website Ranked In Position 7 Has: 150 back links
Website Ranked In Position 8 Has: 125 back links
Website Ranked In Position 9 Has: 90 back links
Website Ranked In Position 10 Has: 60 back links
Website Ranked In Position 11 Has: 50 back links
So in this situation, it will be super easy for us to rank your website on page 2 or even the bottom of page 1.  Depending on the SEO package you go with, we could get you ranked in as little as a few weeks and at most 1-2 months.  But if you want to reach the top of search results (which you do) it’s going to take more time because as you can see it’s far more competitive.  So to get you ranked in position 1 on our silver package for example, it’s going to take almost 1 year, whereas if you were on our platinum package we could probably get it done in 3-4 months if not sooner.

How Long Does SEO Take? Scenario 2

Let’s assume for this scenario you’re a local service company serving the Topeka, Kansas area and are trying to rank for the keyword “Topeka Electrician”.  We do our initial analysis and find the following results for your keyword:
Website Ranked In Position 1 Has: 100 back links
Website Ranked In Position 2 Has: 50 back links
Website Ranked In Position 3 Has: 40 back links
Website Ranked In Position 4 Has: 30 back links
Website Ranked In Position 5 Has: 20 back links
Website Ranked In Position 6 Has: 17 back links
Website Ranked In Position 7 Has: 17 back links
Website Ranked In Position 8 Has: 13 back links
Website Ranked In Position 9 Has: 12 back links
Website Ranked In Position 10 Has: 8 back links
Website Ranked In Position 11 Has: 7 back links
In this situation, no matter what SEO package you choose, we’ll be able to get you ranked in a matter of weeks and at most 1-2 months.  And by ranked we aren’t just talking about getting ranked, we’re talking about the number 1 position.
Now, there are other factors in determining how long SEO will take, such as on page factors, content, and domain age, but the number of links is still the number one factor that influences where your site ranks in search results, so by examining the number of links for your competition we are able to get a rough idea of how long and how much money it will take to get your website ranked at various positions in search results.