“It depends” happen to be the most common reply to the question – “how long will it take for my website to top the SERPs?” But it depends on what, says no one. We are here to show you some data-driven facts along with a few things that you need to keep in mind before setting up search engine rankings goals.

To begin with, there are a lot of factors in the ranking algorithm, over 255 to be precise as per Google, which decide a website’s rankings. Some of the most important ones are:

Domain’s Age –

Old websites are more likely to get higher rankings but it does not imply that it is impossible for a new website to do so. A domain is considered to be new when it has been active for a period of less than 6 months.

Domain’s cleanliness –

A domain is said to be clean if it has not been penalized by Google, either manually or algorithmically.

Keywords competition –

Opting for popular keywords, thinking that it will fetch you more traffic is not the ideal way to go about unless your website is strong. Pro’s tip would be to pick low competition keywords first, use those to get high rankings and then target the popular ones.

Other factors –

Type of content, optimization of title, number of content pieces on the website, their length and originality, on-page and off-page SEO tactics, number of external links/reference on the website, frequency of publishing content and updating the website.

Only 8.5% of the traffic goes to the second page. If your website is ranked anywhere after the 10^th position, chances are that you might not get the visibility that you desire. Here are a few things that you need to keep in mind and set expectations accordingly.

Large websites more likely to get ranked faster than the smaller ones

This just goes without saying that a site like Forbes.com will always have an upper hand over smaller website. The competitive nature must not be left unconsidered at any time.

Fresh content has the power to boost

Google has started to prioritize new and fresh content.

Be patient while building links

Link building is a tough job but it builds up a strong foundation of higher rankings in the future. Just continue leaving trails of high-quality links for Google’s crawlers to follow and you will witness desired results.

Do not depend much on indirect link building methods

There’s nothing wrong in following indirect link building tactics such as influencers, social media sharing, etc., to gain visibility but relying absolutely on it is.

Do not wait after publishing your content

When it comes to link building after publishing a content piece, you ought not to wait or delay it. There is a 1.8 month window in which you can gain momentum as it is the time during which Google considers a content as ‘fresh’ and wishes to push it to page 1. You can assure the search engine about your content’s newness through immediate link-building.

Select the target keywords carefully before developing content

Do your due diligence and select and develop content on keywords accordingly. If your competitor can get high rankings, chances are that you can too. But do ensure that:

• The niche is same
• They have a ranking for your selected keyword
• Their domain rating must be within 5 points of yours

A study conducted by Ahrefs showed:

• Only 5.7 per cent of their sample pages from 20,000,000random keywords featured on Google’s 1^st page and that too after a period of two to six months
• 95 per cent of newly published webpages don’t feature in the top 10 positions within a year

These facts just go on to show that expecting results overnight, especially, when we are talking about SEO, is simply irrational. You, as an entrepreneur, would require patience and in-depth knowledge of industry-leading practices and technical implementation to make high ranking possible. If you are not savvy with ‘whats’ and ‘hows’ of Search Engine Marketing, you are advised to get in touch with a top SEO marketing agency to aid you in your endeavors.