What Google itself says
In its guide to hiring an SEO, Google says that in most cases you need four months to a year to see the benefit of changes. That's for search in general. Local can move faster in places, because some of the biggest levers sit on your Business Profile.
A realistic timeline
| When | What can change |
|---|---|
| First few weeks | Category fixes, services filled in, profile cleaned up. Sometimes a visible jump for searches you were nearly ranking for |
| 1 to 3 months | Reviews building up, new service pages getting indexed, more searches showing your profile |
| 3 to 6 months | Steadier map pack positions for your main searches, website pages starting to rank |
| 6 to 12 months | Competitive searches, wider areas, compounding results from content and reviews |
What speeds it up
- Fixing the primary category if it's wrong. It can move things quickly.
- Getting reviews coming in every week rather than in bursts.
- A page on your site for each service you want to rank for.
- Being close to the searcher. Distance is the one factor you can't change.
Warning signs
- Guarantees of number one. Google itself warns against anyone who guarantees rankings.
- Results promised in days.
- Reports full of rankings for searches nobody types.
- No plain answer on what's actually being done each month.
How to know it's working
Watch calls and direction requests from your profile, not just rankings. A business getting more calls each month from Google is getting results, whatever a ranking report says.
Rather not do this yourself? Our Google Business Profile management handles the profile, the posts and the reviews every week, for one monthly fee.