How long SEO takes.

SEO for a trade business takes at least six to nine months, and sometimes longer, before it shows up as more calls.

I'd be suspicious of anyone who quotes you less. Those months aren't empty, though, and if you know where to look you can see the work starting to show long before the phone rings more often.

The honest answer.

Six to nine months is the shortest timeline I'll give an owner, and some shops take longer. It's the timeline monthly SEO is built around, because nothing about how Google works lets it go much faster.

The range is wide because the starting points are. Say there's a plumber in Lethbridge with a ten-year-old website and two other plumbers worth worrying about. That's a different job from a new roofing company in Calgary going up against shops that have held page one since 2012.

The clock starts when the work on the site starts. If the site needs fixing before new pages can go up, the first month or two goes into that, and the six to nine months runs from there.

Google doesn't give anyone a timeline either. Its own page on hiring an SEO says no one can guarantee a number one ranking, and it tells you to ask the agency what results they expect and in what timeframe. That's a fair question to ask, and the straight answer comes with a range and some conditions attached.

Why it takes that long.

Google doesn't publish how it ranks pages, but it does say some of what goes into it. It uses links from other websites as a signal of which pages are relevant, and to find new pages in the first place. Its help page on local results says how well-known a business is counts too, and that part of how it judges that is how many websites link to the business.

None of that can be hurried. A new page has to be found before it can rank, and Google says crawling can take anywhere from a few days to a few weeks, with no promise the page shows up in results at all. After that, the page has to earn its place against the pages already there.

Which brings up the shops ahead of you. If the HVAC company on top for furnace repair in your town has had the same site for twelve years, with a page for every service and a link from the supplier they've bought from since 2009, that's the gap you're closing. They don't stop working on it while you catch up.

The age of your own site matters for a similar reason. An older site has had years to collect links and pages Google already knows about, so it starts ahead. A site that went live in March starts with none of that, and the first months go into building it.

What moves first.

Not everything waits nine months. Changes to your Google Business Profile, the box with your hours and reviews on Google Maps and beside search results, go live fast. Google says most edits are reviewed within 10 minutes, and some take up to 30 days.

That's why I put the profile first. A plumber whose profile says closed at 5 pm, when he takes calls all night, loses the 11 pm burst pipe to the shop below him, and fixing that takes one edit. The right hours and a service area that matches where you work can start changing who finds you within a few weeks.

New pages are slower. A page on what a new furnace costs has to be found, then compared with the pages already ranking for that search, and that's where the months go. Fixing a site Google has trouble reading sits in between, because it clears the way for the pages without pushing them up on its own.

Sorting the fixes that move in weeks from the ones that take months is the first job, and it's what the SEO strategy is for. You get a ranked list, so you know what to expect from each fix before you pay for any of it.

What to watch before calls go up.

Google Search Console is a free Google tool that shows how your site does in search. It has two numbers worth watching while you wait. In Google's own definitions, an impression is Google showing a link to your site in search results, whether or not anyone clicks it. A click is someone following that link through to your site.

Impressions go up first, because Google starts showing your pages for more searches, often low on the page where few people scroll. Clicks stay flat while that happens, which looks like nothing is working. Then the pages move up, and the clicks follow.

Say an HVAC shop in Lethbridge starts in January. Impressions climb every month from February, while clicks sit between 12 and 16 a month until June. In July clicks start to rise, and by October they're at 96 a month as the furnace pages move up for the season. Calls come after clicks, so they're the last number to move.

To check yours, open the Performance report and set the dates to the last six months or more. Look at the whole stretch, since one week on its own tells you nothing. Google also says the newest data can be preliminary and might change over the next few hours, so don't read anything into today.

The same report shows which searches you're showing up for. Early on, that list tends to be odd ones, like "furnace making clicking noise lethbridge", with a handful of impressions each. That's a good sign, because it means Google has started to connect your pages with the work you do.

Rising impressions with flat clicks means the work is in progress. If both are flat after six months, something is wrong, and it's worth asking why.

When someone promises page one in 30 days.

Every trade owner gets the email. Google's own advice on hiring an SEO covers most of what to watch for, and I agree with all of it.

• A guarantee of first place. Google says no one can guarantee a number one ranking, and that if someone promises it, you should find someone else.
• An email out of the blue. Google says to be wary of SEO firms and agencies that contact you that way.
• Talk of a "priority submit" to Google, or a special relationship with Google. Google says to avoid both, and its help page on local results says there's no way to pay for a better local ranking.
• Secrecy about the work. Google says to be careful with any company that won't explain what it intends to do.

A promise of page one in 30 days tends to mean one of two things. It's either a search nobody makes, like your own business name, which you'd come up for anyway, or it's paid ads, which stop the day you stop paying.

Ask which searches they mean and where they expect you to be by month six. If they can tell you, and the answer comes with a range, you're talking to someone who has done this before.

Google's page also suggests asking for examples of their previous work and their experience in your industry. Both are fair questions for anyone you're about to spend nine months with.