Search Engines: How Long Is Too Long?

I get questions all the time regarding how long it will take to show up in the search results on the first page of Google, Yahoo or MSN.  Years ago, it took many years to perfect the ranking.  Now it can be done within a year.

Everyone in our industry always hears the constant questions from impatient Web users about how long they have to wait for everything on the Web. Every time I hear this from somebody, I am reminded of a story I once heard, of the early introduction of the Polaroid Land camera.

Remember when you had to wait up to one week to have your pictures developed by a film processing company?  You know…before digital photography.  When Polaroid came out with a camera that delivered a finished photograph in sixty seconds, people were amazed; the era of ínstant gratification had begun.

So the story I heard is that a group of adventurers traveled deep into the jungle  to learn about the indigenous people. When they came across a tribe who hadn’t seen anyone before, they spent some time with them and took pictures of them with the Polaroid cameras they brought along. The tribe loved the pictures since they hadn’t seen anything like this before, but they did have one complaint, ‘why did it take so long for the pictures to develop?‘

The problem is not technology; the problem is one of perception. Like the tribe who perceived the sixty second developing of photographs to be slow, so do many Web-users perceive the Internet to be slow when in fact it is an incredible technological achievement where anyone with a computer and Internet connection can access information from all over the world in seconds or, heaven forbid, minutes.

One important note here is that the tribe didn’t see 10 Polaroid’s inside 10 different folders.  They were shown one.  To ensure maximum feedback, that is all that was needed.  However, in the real world of search engines you are competing with many other Polaroid’s, and it will take time to rise to the top. 

What is the key?

Effort.  I tell this to people all the time, clients or not.  You have to put in the effort to get to the top.  You don’t expect to rise to the top of your profession by riding the coattails of another coworker and you can’t expect that on the internet either.  You need to put in the time to build your site on a regular basis and with a main focus.

The Plug!

Yes we can help you.  Even if you only have us work on your site for 30 mins per month, that is likely more than is being done now and it will help.  We can show you things to do that will save you money.