If you’re a business owner, you probably already know about SEO (search engine optimization). But what about local SEO? This specialized branch of SEO helps your business rank high in search results, specifically when people are searching in your local area.
Leadhub leverages the power of local SEO for every one of our clients, but just because every home service business can benefit from it doesn’t mean there’s a one-size-fits-all strategy. If you’re wondering how long it takes to see success with local SEO, the answer isn’t so simple.
Realistic Expectations For Local SEO
So, how long does local SEO really take? Here’s the honest answer:
3-6 Months
Within this timeframe, you should start seeing changes. Maybe your rankings for certain keywords jump a few positions, or you notice more traffic from local searches.
6-12 Months
If you’re consistent with your SEO efforts, this is where the momentum might really pick up. You could break into the top results pages, significantly boosting your local visibility.
12+ Months
For high-competition industries or complex websites, it can take over a year to truly dominate local search.
Factors That Affect Local SEO Success
After investing money, time and effort into an optimization strategy, it’s natural to want to see results as soon as possible. With SEO, it’s usually a game of patience. Several factors contribute to how quickly your local SEO efforts show results. Let’s take a look at some of the big ones:
- Keyword difficulty (KD) — Are you targeting popular keywords everyone in your industry wants to rank for? This means more competition and likely a longer timeline to see results.
- Your website’s health — Does your website load quickly? Is it mobile-friendly? These are important technical SEO elements that can boost (or harm) your rankings.
- Citations and backlinks — Citations are online listings of your business name, address and phone number. Backlinks are links from other websites to yours. Both play a role in establishing local authority.
For any chance of local SEO performance, these key factors must be optimized and reviewed regularly. With just one of them off-target or not accurate, your SEO strategy can suffer.
The Importance Of Submitting Your Site To Google
While Google’s crawlers are constantly exploring the web, you don’t want to just sit around and hope it finds your awesome website. Here’s how to directly tell Google to check you out:
Google Search Console
This free toolset lets you directly submit your sitemap (a list of your website’s pages) to Google’s index. It’s a simple way to speed things up.
Google Business Profile
This powerful listing not only puts you on Google Maps but gives you control over what information appears about your business in Google search results.
When you manually submit your sitemap to be crawled, you signal to Google to put your website in line instead of waiting for it to be found naturally. This can significantly affect how quickly your pages begin to be indexed.
SEO Is An Ongoing Investment
Think of local SEO as a workout — you don’t just hit the gym for a couple of weeks and expect to be super fit forever. To maintain your gains, you have to keep putting in the effort. This requires:
- Content consistency — Regularly publishing relevant and useful content (like blog posts) keeps your site fresh in Google’s eyes. Refreshing older content can also give your site a boost in a big way.
- Staying on top of reviews — Actively earn reviews from your customers and respond to them, both good and bad. This shows you’re engaged and care about customer experience.
- Adapting to change — Google’s algorithm is always evolving. Stay updated and ready to shift your tactics if necessary.
Leadhub executes all of these techniques for our clients, ensuring our SEO strategies have the best chance of performing.
Need Help With SEO Services?
Local SEO isn’t a “set it and forget it” strategy. It’s a marathon, not a sprint. While those initial few months can feel slow, with dedication, you’ll see your business climb higher in local results, attracting more nearby customers ready to engage with you. Leadhub can help your company maintain a strong SEO presence and grow to exponential heights!
