It is probably no longer a surprise to you that in SEO, the results do not appear as soon as you start to optimize but in about 4, 6, or more months. Of course, sometimes you don't have the patience for this; other times, you may not have the luxury of not having sales for such a period. However, there are solutions for all cases. Yes, we'll get to those too, but let's start at the beginning.

Sandbox or New Site "A Bit" Penalized

A newly launched website collides with the Google Sandbox. Google Sandbox is a restriction/filter imposed by Google on new sites so that they cannot rank well in the results for certain keywords for a while, allowing Google to determine if this new site is trustworthy, legal, and not spam. During this period, it is good to gather strong links to your website and constantly add original, high-quality content.

This Sandbox usually lasts between 1-6 months, and once you are in the Sandbox, you are "slightly penalized." The surest thing you can do is wait for the given period to pass and, in the meantime, focus on promoting your website and refreshing it with quality content.

Strategic Thinking for SEO Results

There are no results in SEO without planning and strategic thinking. Given that the field of SEO optimization is becoming more complex every year, achieving great results requires a well-defined plan for how you will accomplish your goals. Starting with your business objectives, here are the types of goals you should set on the SEO side: beat a certain direct competitor on Google for a set of business-relevant keywords, double your organic non-brand traffic in 12 months, and achieve a specific monthly number of conversions.

It is important to mention here that expectations must be realistic and adapted to the budgets of strong SEO campaigns. Also, be open to making adjustments along the way. In other words, the SEO strategy must be defined according to the SMART model (specific, measurable, achievable, relevant, and time-bound): it starts from business expectations and adjusts to the available budgets, which, in turn, must be comparable to those of the competitors you are trying to overtake (see here how to spy on the competition online).

So, a plan with clear activities and milestones will help you do SEO effectively. Or, when you don't know what you're after, how will you know when you've arrived where you should?

Why Does SEO Only Work in the Long Run?

SEO is ongoing digital marketing; you can't say you've done SEO once and that's it. As we mentioned above, the Sandbox is the period when your site does not rank in the search results as high as it should, just to pass the test of time from Google. When we talk about Google's algorithms, you must know that there are more than 200 ranking factors already known by SEO experts—imagine that it is not at all easy to qualify well in all of them.

Or, as some SEO specialists say: optimization is never finished—you always find ways to improve the quality of your website and its content.