Study: How Long Does It Take to Rank in Google (Answer: Too Long)

Aaron_4SIGHT

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ahrefs.com published a study earlier this year looking at the question "How long does it take to rank in Google?" It's worth a read, and worth sharing:

https://ahrefs.com/blog/how-long-does-it-take-to-rank/

A few key points:

- Only 5.7% of new pages make it to top 10 for one keyword within a year
- 0.3% of pages rank for a high volume keyword in a year
- A domain’s previous authority (they call it "Domain Rank") is key to ranking (a new domain has no authority)

The bottom line is that if you are kicking back waiting for the leads to come pouring in via organic search, you are going to be waiting for a long time. The 5.7% that rank within a year don't do it by accident.

Very few insurance agent sites are going to build up the authority to rank for the highly competitive keywords. Instead, focus on niche long tail keywords. And if you want traffic and leads from your site within the next year in a manner that you can control, SEO isn't where you should start.
 
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No.

These would be sites like Allstate.com, statefarm.com, safeco.com, progressive.com, geico.com, etc. If you can buy any of these, you can probably get out of the insurance business ;)

Seriously though, the thread is simply borderline spam. Basically says SEO doesn't work but calling me will. Yeah, not exactly a credible statement even though I do agree SEO is usually not worth the money people tend to spend when you are dealing with highly competitive keywords.

Dan
 
No.
Seriously though, the thread is simply borderline spam. Basically says SEO doesn't work but calling me will.

Hey Dan,

I'm sorry that this comes off to you as spam - that's not my intent and I'll edit my original post to remove my contact info. I'm not trying to sell anybody the "solution" to this problem. I am always happy to talk with agents about ways to use the web to grow their business regardless of if they use our services (and do so with agents from this forum on a regular basis).

That said, I do have an agenda: too many agents have gotten the idea that you can launch a basic website and rocket to the top of the search results for some of the most competitive search terms out there. It's just not the case. I'd like to get rid of the myths and misconceptions around search engine optimization.

Aaron
 
Seriously though, the thread is simply borderline spam. Basically says SEO doesn't work but calling me will. Yeah, not exactly a credible statement even though I do agree SEO is usually not worth the money people tend to spend when you are dealing with highly competitive keywords.

Dan


Agreed. This guy has a history of spamming the forum under the guise of providing info.

I wonder if he still promotes canned content and still claims it doesnt hurt your google ranking? :no:

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That said, I do have an agenda: too many agents have gotten the idea that you can launch a basic website and rocket to the top of the search results for some of the most competitive search terms out there. It's just not the case. I'd like to get rid of the myths and misconceptions around search engine optimization.

Aaron

Only the idiots think that. Most people realize that SEO takes time. Especially people who have spent more than 2 minutes researching SEO.

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(and do so with agents from this forum on a regular basis).

Do you still mislead them by saying that your canned content is ok to use and will not get them sandboxed or blacklisted by google? Do you disclose that you have sites using that same content that are already sandboxed by google? (or at least you did a year or so ago)
 
Ranking methods on Google is a great conversation to have. There are a lot of misconceptions out there and even more things that were true at one point in time but are very dated now.

The topic of the thread is a great conversation. You have to start with the concept though that getting a good quantity of quality insurance leads through a website is very tough. There is a lot of competition out there in that space. Standing out from everyone else is a very difficult task. Staying as a standout from the crowd is a LOT of work.

Face it, the website is only a small part of the solution. Driving traffic to the website is the challenge. Lots of ways to do it, some are good, some are just traffic.

Dan
 
The guy is right that ranking for keywords organically takes a long time. However, if you do it right and go into it understanding it easily takes at least a year to start to see results, it's well worth it. Furthermore, you won't rank for competitive keywords for a long time. What will happen is you will rank for multiple long tail keywords that are far less competitive. These longtails will drive traffic and convert.

If anyone wants to rank organically, they must be prepared to work on the following every single day:

  • Creating high quality relevant long form content.
  • Building links to your site. Ideally, you want links from relevant sites with as high domain authority as possible.

If you aren't willing to do those two things, don't bother.
 
I am interested how we can find out if someone has sites that have been sandboxed ?

Is Aaron_4Sight an insurance agent as well ?
 
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