How long realisitically could you expect SEO to work

[helruna]

If you've optimised your site with good relevant content, you've relaunched a site using the old URL's and you've got a lot of sites pointing at your home page (but not deep links). We've been employing a SEO company and we're not listed on minor engines and with our more relevant keywords we're still not ranking very well.

Any suggestions?

[seobook]

A good linking campaign to your home page will filter through to your entire website.

The main problem with a set and forget SEO plan is that the web is constantly growing. If you do not grow with it, then you are falling behind.

If you have a great idea it may work well to propigate itself over time, but many sites are not those types of sites.

Most websites do not actively participate in quality SEO, so if you do it correctly you have a great advantage. The problem is that if you are making large sums of profit and have not developed a strong brand others will eventually invest enough to displace you.

I have been told of times when SEO has lasted for many years without ongoing services, but it really depends on how well it is done from the start and how competitive the specific market is (or how competitive the specific market will become).

[Anthony Parsons]

You nailed that one Aaron.

We've been employing a SEO company and we're not listed on minor engines and with our more relevant keywords we're still not ranking very well.

Minor engines are not really a concern and most minor engines use a major engines results. As for not ranking well for your more relevant terms. It depends upon the competitiveness of those terms. It depends what terms you employed the SEO for? Guaranteed rankings, top 10, top 20? Many SEO's do not offer ranking guarantees, though offer some sort of guarantee for the outcome. Have they met it? If so then the job is done. If not, they should still be working at it. A mildy competitive term can take up to 6 months for ranking solely waiting upon the SE's to update their backlinks. Yahoo and MSN only update so often, not on the fly like Google now tends too.

If the terms are non-competitive, 3 months max from start, mildly competitive, 6 months or around about, competitive 12 to 18 months and extremely competitive (in the millions allintitle), give it a few years and a crap load of money to do it.

[dimok]

Just little addition to previous speakers...

Time to achieve good rankings depends not only on professionalism of SEO company, but also on the amount of money you are ready to spend. For example, there amount of directories and SEs with paid inclusion programs, you can find lots of industry specific sites where links to your competitors are already presented (these link also costs some money) – this is good point to start SEO company. The more money you ready to pay, the more industry specific sites will promote you. But, it’s not obligatory step, your SEO can do his work another way, most likely the longer way.

[David Wallace]

Sometimes when you have done all you can do as far as optimization goes and that is assuming you have actually done that and the keywords phrases you have selected are not too competitive and unrealistic in obtaining top rankings for them, then it comes down to a money game.

Essentially, how much money do you have to increase your link popularity whether that be hand selecting partners to link to you or purchasing paid text ads on prominent sites or run of site ads where your ads appear on many, many pages.

Hard to know what your situation is exactly without seeing your site. I have seen many people say they have completely optimized their sites and they still don't rank well only to discover that they missed many areas in their optimization strategy.

[Daria_Goetsch]

As mentioned, long term results can occur with good optimization. If you change the url of the optimized page, traffic may change until the new page is indexed by the search engine robots. If you do not change the content and general optimization of the web page, have good link building in place and the keyword competitiveness remains the same, the optimization should last long term.

As David said, it all depends on exactly what's going on with your optimization. Sometimes the structure of the web page causes problems with good indexing. Could be one or a number of issues.

[St0n3y]

Time and money are both obvious factors in how well you do. The other factors are the competition of the phrases you are targeting. You should only have to SEO once and then use minor tweaks and changes along the way to keep positions, but then, often time keywords phase in and out of popularity and you have to reevaluate the keywords you are targeting. With each keyword change you have to re-optimize.

[Heather Lloyd-Martin]

Other folks are right in that it's hard to track your success without knowing the details of your campaign. For instance, what does "not ranking very well" mean? Were you positioning better before, and then the positions dropped? How is that impacting your site ROI?

I would suggest going back to your SEO and telling them your concerns (if you haven't already.) If they are not meeting their quarterly goals for you, they should be able to tell you why. Have them outline exactly what they are doing for you, and how they expect it will impact your campaign.

Another thing to consider is that SEO isn't a "set it and forget it" marketing play. Although I've seen sites position well for years, those site owners are adding new content, engaging in ethical link campaigns, and refining their keyphrase choices quarterly. So, if your SEO is providing reporting - and that's it - you may need a slightly more aggressive approach to reach the positioning you want.

I hope this helps!