There is a question that gets asked of us quite often. That question is “How long will it take?” In a short answer, it depends. The long answer is, it depends. That may sound somewhat cryptic, but it is the truth. You may not want to hear that but, again, it is the truth. So, what does it depend on? Well, it can depend on any number of things. The first thing is how much time you want to dedicate to boosting your ranking. The second could be how new your website or business is. It could even be a matter of what is being said about you on a current website and how much traction the news has received. Often, you will hear of online reputation management companies and search engine optimisation companies telling their client that they can get the results faster than their competitor. Well, this may be true, but it all comes down to how much time and money you are willing to invest in that venture. Instead of telling you exactly how long it will take because no one can, we will explain to you why it takes so much time to get ranked.
Search Engine Results Pages
At the end of the day, it is the search engine results page (SERP) and their specific algorithms that will make the difference in how fast you will be ranked. Speaking in generalities, they tend to have more of an attachment to the people who are conducting the searches versus having an attachment to you. The reason for this is that when someone is looking for results on an SERP they want to have relevant results. It should never be about who has spent the most money to pay to be at the top. There is a certain degree of this, but it is not straight cash for the top spots. There is a certain amount of money that can be paid for advertising (you have seen the results that say “ad” next to them). Other than that, Google, as well as the majority of other SERPs, want to make sure that the results are 100 percent organic. What this basically means is that if you are doing a search from your computer and someone else is doing the exact same search from their computer, only in a different part of the world, the two should be different results. The reason is that when you are searching in Canada and someone is searching in Denmark, the two countries have different interests. If it was as simple as paying a large amount of money to Google, or any other SERP, a company could theoretically rank at the top all around the world. For instance, let’s use Home Depot for an example. We are not trying to pick on them, it was just the first company name that came to mind. Let’s say they were paying to have their website ranked at the top of an SERP. While Home Depot may be relevant to people living in North America, it may not be relevant to those living in Eastern Europe. Therefore, when you are trying to rank at the top of a Google SERP, you are going to want to make sure the content that you put out is relevant to your target market. This will give you the online reputation of being in tune with your customer base.
Getting the Upper Hand
You may have heard this before, “reputation is something that you earn.” This is the same in the digital world. What this means is that the longer your company is around, the more reputation you are going to achieve. Therefore, the best way to improve your reputation is by sticking with it. Do not get discouraged and stop trying to earn more respect in your industry. Should you happen to be entering a new industry, it is important to get your website up and running as soon as humanly possible. This will allow you to be one of the first companies to start providing content. The older and more reliable the content is that you put out, the more weight Google will assign to it. Remember, the algorithms are written by humans and humans have a tendency to be particular to a company that has been around for years. So, naturally, when the algorithms are written, they take time in the industry into account. That does not mean that just starting out will mean that you will never gain traction. It simply means that you are going to have to work that much harder to get noticed. Give it time and your reputation will gradually increase and you will be amongst the veterans in no time.
Keyword Targeting
Perhaps the number one reason that many websites fail to gain traction is due to the keywords they choose. Remember, your reputation has not yet been established. Therefore, you are going to have to choose different keywords than someone that has an established reputation for a certain product. We will go back to the Home Depot example. If you were trying to make a reputation in the home hardware store business, you would not start out by trying to rank for home hardware. You are going to try for something that is a little less competitive. You could try for lumber yard or household repairs. Whatever you do, don’t try to rank for the things that Home Depot is, at least not right away. Let your reputation build up and you will be able to rank for those soon enough.
Content
By far the best way to increase your reputation and ranking on an SERP is by making great content. Your customers are going to want to see what you have to offer them besides the tangible items they are shopping for. This means that they are going to want to see why they should even consider doing business with you. If you have great content, with engaging titles, they will be more likely to do business with you and spread your name around. This will earn you reputation not only around town but also on the internet. The more they find to read, the more they will be willing to share your content and that will boost your reputation in the digital world.
Conclusion
It is true that it can take some time to improve your reputation, but there are things that you can do about it. As we explained, you can take the little steps to make sure that your target market knows who you are. Give them the time and content they want, and you will be ranking in no time. Try not to over analyze the numbers on an hourly basis. These will fluctuate over time, both for good and bad. Pick some solid keywords and start writing some great content based on that. Patience is a virtue and something that you should have if you are going to be building a reputation in the digital world.