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How Long Does It Take To Get On The First Page Of Google?
- Categorized in: Search Engine Ranking
It's a question we get asked all the time - how long will it take for my site to start showing in Google (on the first page of results)?
The answer? It depends.
If you really want to be on the first page of Google, you can be there in 15 minutes. This can only be done, however, through their Sponsored Links (Google Adwords). Your site is listed there for free, and then you pay "per click", with all the control you need over things like what position in the rankings, what keywords to show for, what countries/states to show in, how much to spend, and more.
Google Adwords provides a cost effective way for small businesses to compete with any large business, and your ads can be up and running within minutes.
However, most people (quite rightly) want to be showing in the main "organic" results. This is much harder, and a much longer process. There are many factors involved in how Google and other search engines rank your site, including the text and coding that's in your site, but also another major factor is the amount of links you have pointing to your site (known as your "link popularity"). This is a main reason why when you do a search in Google, the top sites are usually very popular sites, because they often have thousands of other websites linkiing to them.
Ranking high in the free/organic results, then, takes a much longer time, because you need to adjust your site to match the search engine's preferences, and you have to build links into your site. Lots and lots and lots of links. It's a long term process, and often sites we work with don't start seeing real results for many months or even years. The length of time is also greatly affected by the number of sites that are also competing for your keyword.
But both approaches are definitely possible, and some businesses even choose to do both - taking out Sponsored Ads while they work on their organic rankings.
If you need help in either of these areas, check out our range of services in the menu above.
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After your answer I feel much better. Namely I created a website 2 months ago and it got stacked on the top of 2. Googles result page. For a lot of optimized keywords I get positions 11 - 20. Just not good enough because this is not 1. page. If It realy takes months than I might be just impatient =)
Organic search results are better anyways. For one, you are not paying for every click. Second, I think people tend to click on the first few real search results because they know the sponsored listings are just ads. I know some people just tune out those sponsored ads.
The way I look at it the long way is better, more cost efficient, and more rewarding. Thats not to say sponsored results are not a bad idea sometimes, especially if the PPC price is right. The important thing to remember when using that option is to constantly track your campaign to know how much you are spending per click and whether or not the money you are investing is translating into results.
Terrific work! This is the type of information that should be shared around the web. Shame on the search engines for not positioning this post higher!
I just finished making my second website and my article pages aren't ranking anywhere near first page of Google. But I know from the experience of my first website that it took me about 6 months to get to Google's #1 spot and sit there for a keyword phrase of about 10,000 monthly searches without any backlinks. Just took the search engines time to trust my site I'm guessing because I only started getting a couple backlinks after I made it to first page. I would suggest to people be patient and it will happen.
Yesterday I ranked to the first spot of the first page and out of 5+ million search results for the following keyword phrase/question...what does it take to achieve Google first page results?
You can see for yourself that my blog http://getgooglefirstpageresults.blogspot.com answers that question completely. I have video proof...that it occured in nanoseconds!
Is it just me, or can I actually "bend Google results with my will...almost everytime!"
Thanks for the tips,
No this will be incorrect, i too thought my site had ranked on the first page of google for Website Design East yorkshire, Website Design Yorkshire Coast and Website Design Bridlington
Imagine how chuffed i was that after only 2 weeks it seemed i was on the 2nd spot for all of those phrases...... only to find it was because i was actually logged into my Gmail account, and because i look at my site every day..... Google therefore displayed it as if was one of the most popular sites when it was just a site i happened to view for my business reasons....
Im gutted now, and my confidence has took a little knock now.... I dont really have 6 months to get to the top spot and im in an area of the country where if your not up there you wont get noticed.......
staring into space for a while :(
steve
I've had variable results in the past, I've got to page 1 in under a month for a campaign we've been link building for while others hardly moved. I'm also on page 1 for a search term I've not been link buidling for at all.
To avoid the personalised search trap there's a firefox plugin called Google Unpersonalised from Yoast (Google it!) that will bive you an unbiased SERP which is what everyone will see normally.
It is brilliant post,
Thank you so much to point me in best direction.
The unfortunate thing is it will only get harder and harder to rank higher now that there is more competition and the search engines are constantly modifying their algorithms.
As long as you keep a good stready monthly SEO campaign though, you should do well.
Nice article Graeme! It's really very hard to get on page 1 of Google. Or... is it really? One very important tip; don't make a website that already exists. Be original or otherwise all your hard work is just for nothing. Believe me, I've made this mistake. Do some research before even getting a domain name.
I really can't tell either because I had another site mygeekfreeware.com and it was on the first page of google for the word mixtape wich had an search of 18 million. It made it on the 1st page in 3-4 weeks I have no Idea how this happend because I had to take down my original site because the name was copyrighted or something like that =( now it's http://tmi101.com this made me mad because now I have to start all over