How long does it take to rank your local business in Calgary?

How long does it take to rank your local business in Calgary? This is a question that many clients try to ask and the answer that they get is usually confusing. Actually, the answer to this question depends on the person that is asking and other many factors. So, we are going to look at five different cases that incorporate many local businesses in Calgary, and we will try to come up with the amount of time that it takes for each to rank high in search engines.

A brand new business

Let’s say you are launching a brand new local business in Calgary, can you estimate the time that it will take for it to rank on top search engines like Google, Yahoo and Bing?

The first thing that we need to ask ourselves is where exactly is your business located? If your business is located in a competitive area, you are more likely to experience high ranking within a period of about 3 to 9 months. Conversely, if your business is situated in a non-competitive area, you can start to experience high ranking within a period of about 9 months.

Experts say that business located in competitive regions will have to overcome certain obstacles in order to start ranking high. A period of around three months is said to be enough to deal with this obstacles. The most interesting thing is that business located in non-competitive areas can achieve high ranking faster if they managed to identify the gap in the market and provide what’s missing.

Existing websites with some optimization

The second case is about an already existing website with some little optimization but doesn’t do well in terms of rankings. How long will it take for this type of website to rank in Calgary?

Again, we will look at this case from two different angles, a business that is situated in competitive location and another one that is located in a non-competitive area. Business in competitive regions will have to wait for at least three months before they can start to experience high rankings. A period of about 3 to 9 months is regarded as the maximum amount that an existing business can take to rank high.

Moving on to the business in non-competitive regions, six months should be the maximum time period for these businesses to improve their rankings. In fact, experts say that improved local rankings in Calgary for these types of businesses can be achieved within two months.

Poorly optimized websites

The next case is about an already existing website that is poorly optimized, what can you do to improve its rankings and how long will it take?

For purpose of clarity and easy understanding, we will answer this question in two parts. As usual, the first part will involve businesses in competitive locations and the second part businesses in non-competitive locations.

Poorly optimized businesses located in competitive areas are more likely to experience high ranking in time frame of at least three months and above. However, the maximum time period that they can take is 9 months. There are situations where it may take longer than nine months, but there are very few cases.

Poorly optimized business situated in non-competitive areas will require a time period of between 3 to 6 months to achieve significant rankings. In some situations, the time period may be reduced to one or two months.

Websites hit with manual penalty

How long will it take for a website that is fully optimized but has been hit with a manual penalty take to achieve significant rankings? It’s common for websites to be penalized by search engines if they are suspected of posting “distrustful” content or “fake” news. If your website is penalized, it means that it won’t show on search engines for a certain period of time.

When it comes to this situation, experts say that you will have to wait for a period of at least three months for your website to rank again in search engines. This time period may be reduced to two months, but it’s very rare. It is also important to note that this time period may also be extended to six months.

During this time website owners are required to clean up the “red flagged” link or content and submit a request asking Google to reconsider their decision. So, the amount of time that it will take to rank again depends on the “cleanup” services that you have been asked to do.

An already existing business that stops investing in SEO

Think about a business that has been using SEO services for a while, then stops investing in SEO. First, how will this decision affect their business and how long do you think it will take for them to start ranking high again?

SEO experts say that within the first two months, very little change will be experienced once the business stops investing in SEO (about 4 percent). After a time period of about 3 to 6 months, the business will start to feel a significant effect. Their local rankings will start to drop significantly (about 20 percent).

After a period of six months to one year, the rankings will continue to drop (about 34 percent). After one to two years, your website is expected to lose up to 50 percent of its rankings.

This results show how important local SEO is. In this regard, it is highly recommended that you continue investing in local SEO if you really want to rank high in search engines.