SEO is one of the most complicated yet simple marketing strategies for online business owners — it’s the technique you use to show up on Google by changing how Google (and other search engines) perceive your brand. But it’s also a mix of navigating multiple moving parts to create a strategy that works for you.

While following guides and using checklists are great ways to get started, they won’t create a strategy specifically for you, your audience, and your offers, often leading to a miscommunication between the SEO work you’ve done and the results it brings.

So, if you’re wondering if you’re showing up in search results, this is your quick guide to tell if your SEO is working — or not.

How Long Does It Take to See Changes in Your SEO?

The exact change or improvement in SEO will depend on your website. For example, if your website is nearly 10 years old and has no negative marks, it will likely improve quicker than a website that is 2 years old and has a long list of scammy backlinks.

Whatever the case, you should start to see some changes in your SEO performance (tracked in Google Search Console) in 4-6 weeks such as newly indexed pages or impressions for targeted keywords and their variations.

At three months, you may start to see click-throughs, but the main goal at this point is to see more aligned keywords and notice a drop in unrelated keywords. 

Four to twelve months is when you can start to see more significant changes and growth, but again, how much growth will depend on your website and strategy. For example, if you’re consistently blogging for SEO, you’ll grow faster than a brand that is not.

How to Know if Your SEO is Working or Not Using Google Search Console (GSC)

The first step is tracking the changes you make. Keep a list of the keywords you use and the pages they’re used on as well as the dates and pages that you update your copy or design. If you’ve completed a full overhaul of your website’s SEO, write down everything you’ve changed, updated, or adjusted (this will keep you from playing a guessing game if something IS wrong).

Next, you’ll want to check in periodically. I always suggest one week after, two weeks after, and then check your performance monthly or every four weeks. Look for changes in your ranking keywords, pages indexed, and any new performance alerts in your GSC.

Another place to see if your updates or SEO is working is in your Core Web Vitals. This section of your GSC gives you insight into the user experience of your page(s) and if they need improvement.

If your website seems to be increasing in impressions and click-throughs for targeted and branded keywords and reduces the alerts or “poor” and “needs improvement” URLs, it’s a good sign that your updates are working — but only time will tell.

With SEO, your website could be in perfect SEO “health” and still not “work.” When your SEO strategy is built around the wrong keywords 

What to Do If You See No Change After Updating Your SEO

If you’re checking consistently, but still seeing no change in your SEO performance — neither good nor bad — take a moment and refer back to the list of pages you’ve updated. If you updated your entire website, you may need to consider submitting a new sitemap (or if you’ve never submitted a sitemap, now is the time to do so).

Otherwise, go through and manually submit each updated page for indexing or re-indexing. This will tell Google that you’ve updated the page and that it should take another look to better position it in search results.

Once you’ve submitted your sitemap and/or pages for indexing, check in another two weeks to see if you notice any change. If you’re still not seeing any changes, you may not have made enough of a change in your SEO to change how Google values your website.

My SEO Looks Like it’s Working, But I’m Not Seeing Results

With SEO, your website could be in perfect SEO “health” and still not “work.” When your SEO strategy is built around the wrong keywords, the people who are coming to your website are not the people who want to work with or buy from you.

If your SEO is improving and your website is in good shape, but you’re still not seeing results, you may have accidentally convinced Google to show you in the wrong places.

For example, say you’re a website designer and you want to give your audience a peek into your life so you write a blog post about your latest kitchen DIY. But it ends up ranking and now Google keeps ranking you for DIY kitchen tips. Those readers are not likely interested in booking a VIP day for a new website — they’re more concerned with updating their old kitchen.

But it’s not always that drastic, it could be a simple miss-step in your keyword or phrasing choice and now your website is attracting DIYers when you need visitors who are ready to outsource a done-for-you service.

In any case, if you’re ready to get your website on the right track and show up online where your dream clients are currently searching, click here to book your SEO Website Health Check.