Organic Marketing Efforts: A Timeline for Results
The timeline for results is a common area of curiosity, and sometimes even frustration, when it comes to organic marketing efforts. When you’re deep in the weeds, you may start to wonder how long you should invest your efforts before seeing results. To be frank – organic marketing isn't a magic spell that'll conjure results overnight. Instead, it's like planting a seed. It requires nurturing it with attention, care, and high-quality content. This blog serves as your friendly guide to understanding organic marketing timelines and the time it takes to yield results.
Why Invest In Organic Marketing?
Investing in organic marketing is the best way to achieve long-term, sustainable growth. It’s a natural way to generate traffic, leads, and sales for an extended period of time. Organic marketing also allows you to embrace new ways to understand your customers’ journey. You’ll find it’s a great way to get to know your customer while enabling you to do more with the customer data you own.
The Typical Strategy
- Analyze your Current Traffic Habits - To build an organic marketing strategy, you should analyze your audience's current traffic habits and then compare them to your target audience. First, know where you get the most organic traffic currently. Is it from your Facebook account, blog posts, or email newsletters? Then, think about how your ideal audience usually discovers a business like yours. Do they rely on publications, social media, or reviews?
It's important to understand what type of content is generating traffic so that you can start creating more of that content. Additionally, you need to understand what organic traffic is already working for your business so you can continue to nurture and possibly expand those efforts. - Create Content - Once you know which channels you want to focus on and where your target audience spends their time, then it's time to start creating content. However, before you can just create content, you need to brainstorm the types of content assets you want to create and build a list of several ideas.
For instance, if you want to focus on blogging, do your keyword research and competitor analysis, and then build a list of keywords you can create posts around. Then, you can start creating content. However, if you want to focus on creating case studies or research, you'll have to do first-hand research, and then decide how you'll publish your findings. - Optimize Content - If you were to ask what makes organic content work, the answer would be SEO. You'll want to optimize all your content so that it will show up on search engines and social media platforms. For example, the strategies might be similar, but you'll optimize your blog content, video descriptions on YouTube, and social media posts.
To optimize this content, usually, the strategies involve incorporating keywords into your content, having a great design, and using metadata to let search engines know what your content is about. - Evaluate Results - Lastly, the key to any organic marketing strategy is to evaluate your results. You can use certain tools to plan your SEO strategy, optimize your content, and measure real return on investment (ROI). This type of software will also help you measure and keep track of your Key Performance Indicators (KPIs) so you can see what's working and what isn't.
How Google Search Ranks your Content
Google Search works in three stages:
- Crawling: Google downloads text, images, and videos from pages it found on the internet with automated programs called crawlers.
- Indexing: Google analyzes the text, images, and video files on the page, and stores the information in the Google index.
- Serving Search Results: When a user searches on Google, Google returns information that's relevant to the user's query.
Even though it works in three stages, Google search has a single goal only. That goal is to provide users with the most relevant answers or information. Every time you use Google or other search engines, the algorithms choose pages that are the most relevant to your search query, and then, rank them before displaying them.
To deliver the right information to users, search engines analyze two factors: Relevancy and Authority.
- Search engines assess Relevance between the search query and the content on a page by various factors like topic or keywords.
- Authority is measured by a website’s popularity on the internet. Google assumes that the more popular a page or resource is, the more valuable its content is to readers.
How Long will it Take to Work
Now for the answer to your burning question - when can I see results? Keep in mind that organic marketing is a long-term strategy that requires consistent effort and patience. Unlike paid advertising – which can yield immediate results – organic marketing takes time to build momentum and generate significant returns. The exact timeframe for seeing results can vary based on the following factors:
- Industry Competition - Highly competitive industries may require more time and effort to climb search rankings and gain visibility.
- Content Quality and Consistency - Publishing valuable and well-optimized content consistently can expedite the results of organic marketing efforts.
- Brand Reputation and Authority - Established brands with a strong reputation and industry authority may see faster results due to existing trust and credibility.
As a general rule of thumb, expect it to take several months (possibly 6-8) to start seeing noticeable results from organic marketing. However, it’s important to remember that organic marketing is an ongoing effort, and the results tend to compound and grow steadily over time.
Don't Know Where to Start?
Organic marketing isn’t about flashy, instant results, but instead is about cultivating trust, understanding your audience's needs, and creating content that resonates with them. If you’re ready to embark on your organic marketing journey but don’t know where to start, drop us a line. We can help you create high-quality content, engage with your audience, and build those relationships that will keep your business thriving for years to come. Remember, the best things in life are worth waiting for, and that includes the fruits of organic marketing!
