How long does SEO take to work?
The answer
Expect movement in six to twelve weeks and meaningful traffic in four to six months. Local searches in smaller Essex towns can move faster than that. National terms take longer. The first month is usually spent fixing what is broken, which shows up as better crawling before it shows up as traffic.
What happens month by month
- Month one. Technical fixes, tracking, and the pages that already rank get tightened up.
- Months two and three. New content on the terms your customers actually type.
- Months four to six. Links, reviews and local signals start compounding.
If nothing has moved by month four, something is wrong with the plan and we say so rather than sending another invoice.
Sixty seconds, fixed figure, no callback ambush.