Did you know SEO is not instant?

There has been a lot of shift over the last few years regarding SEO, especially when it comes to the marine industry. What you could once effectively manage yourself with a list of “holy grail” keywords that most related to what your marine business was offering and just go for it is for sure not the case now. There is a whole slew of different factors that contribute to your search engine rankings on Google, Yahoo, and Bing – and all of those factors take TIME.

Search engine optimization now 100% fueled by a natural, free-flowing language search. This means people are searching for “who is the best website company for fishing charters?” instead of “fishing charter websites”. Make sense? 80% of internet users own a smartphone and as a result, people are using the tools at their disposal like Siri and Google Now to speak their searches, rather than typing them in. Naturally, people are including more detail in their typed searches as they seek to find what they’re looking for faster. Therefore, when it comes to rankings,  your focus should not be for few top keywords that remain the same over time but to focus on a much larger number of natural language searches that is growing and changing rapidly.

Now the big question – if SEO rankings are not as instant as they used to be, how long will it take for me to climb up the rankings?

The short answer: it depends. No two websites or business are the same. Different markets, offerings, competition, goals, etc are just a sampling of what search engine algorithms are looking for when they compile their rankings. Our rule of thumb is a MINIMUM of 6 months to see results. And that is just a start. Think of it as phases to growing your marine business.

• Month 1 – Research and discovery, website audit, keyword strategy, and planning. There is a lot of planning that goes into starting an online marketing strategy for marine businesses. Every market is different. Goals are different.
• Month 2 – Technical SEO work. There quite a bit of back end work to websites, social media, directories, etc that all factor into this.
• Month 3 – Focus on content!! We have talked about this at length here, but fresh content to your website and social outlets is crucial to SEO results. Fishing reports, blogs, videos, pictures are just the tip of the iceberg. At the minimum, you should be posting weekly.
• Month 4 – Continued focus on content. Make sure your fishing reports or blogs have natural, free-flowing text and pictures that showcase what you are offering and you are posting consistently is key.
• Month 5 – If you haven’t already, incorporating social media. We often include this in some of our marketing packages because social media is very critical to success. Posting links to your fishing reports or blogs, getting reviews, and posting regularly are crucial.
• Month 6 – By this time, you should see an increase in rankings from when you started. They might not be where you want them to be (or you maybe have seen a dramatic increase – every business is different), but as we said, SEO rankings take time and the longer you do it, the more you will benefit.

Interested in increasing traffic to your site? Time to modernize your site and deliver the right 1st impression? At Charternet Web Solutions we deliver sites that offer easy navigation, making the redesigned websites both human and search engine friendly. We take pride in offering responsive design, a necessity for businesses to connect effectively to the smartphones and devices that are quickly replacing the desktop/laptop. Fill out the form below and our team will get in touch to discuss your needs: