You may have looked up “how long does SEO take” but haven’t found a concrete answer for LOCAL SEO, which is different.
In this post, I’ll answer how long does local SEO take and what you can do to speed up your results as much as you possibly can.
For context, local SEO refers to search results in a particular area, like a city or a county, while statewide SEO and nationwide SEO are completely different animals and involve ranking in multiple locations across the state(s) or the entire country.
Hence, they take much longer to start working and producing ROI.
So, let’s get into it – how long does LOCAL SEO take?
~8 Minute Read
Quick Answer
One of the ranking factors for SEO is how fast the user gets their answer. So, I've decided to give your answer to you right away. Local SEO, from our experience, takes about 1-3 months to start producing some results, while it takes 6-12 months for true ROI to start kicking in. In some campaigns, we can see instant results due to a few factors, like existing prominence and domain age.
What Do We Mean By "Local SEO Results"?
It’s important to clarify what do “results” really mean. This term is highly subjective, as some business owners expect the moon, while others are just fine with a little bit of improvement and seeing the graph grow long-term.
There are companies in it for “the clout”. They want to be #1 for the sake of being #1, without caring about the fact that there are much lower competition keywords out there that can make them money easier and faster.
Instant Results
There are types of “results” that are almost always instant:
- More keywords overall, despite the position
- Improved conversion rate from the existing traffic (if applicable)
- Ranking in smaller towns around the main target area of a client
The extent of your “instant results” will depend on:
- Do you have an existing online presence (social media profiles, citations, other types of backlinks)
- How old is your domain (older domains have an edge)
- Do you already have traffic (traffic itself is a ranking factor, including Google Ads traffic)
Ranking in Small Towns
The last one is interesting, as most clients are based in mid-sized to big cities.
Most companies in small towns and villages that have been in business for decades don’t really need SEO, as everybody already knows about them.
Hence, we usually get hired by companies in more urban areas.
However, because companies that are actually based in small cities don’t care about SEO, there is an opportunity for us to take over and leverage that handful of potential customers that haven’t heard of the local companies for their particular needs and have, therefore, went to Google.
We always make 5-7 location landing pages per business location for our clients. So if they have 2 Google Business Profiles, we’d make them 10-14 landers that will rank in small towns near them.
Take this example:
The red Columbia, SC, is where a client would typically be based – it’s urban and has decent population that would justify SEO costs for most home service companies.
BUT all the blue cities wouldn’t justify a four-figure monthly SEO subscription on their own, but if they were an addon to the SEO strategy for a Columbia client, then that would maximize the client’s return.
Think about it – just because they don’t have 100,000 people, these cities have people who own homes. At some point, all of them will need a plumber, an electrician, a siding contractor, a roofer, an HVAC technician, and others.
Just because the search demand isn’t visible in keyword research tools doesn’t mean it doesn’t exist at all.
Here’s a real life example of this.
Mangools, typically a very accurate keyword research tool, shows no search volume for “duct cleaning Broussard.”
But the Search Console begs to differ:
There are exactly 65 impressions for “duct cleaning Broussard” per month, which means that there is demand.
Of course, the number of clicks will be low, but still. Just one customer per month per area is enough.
More Keywords Overall
This is pretty simple to get.
Once a company starts doing local SEO properly, Ahrefs should show “Organic Keywords” increasing almost right away.
You should see that orange graph spiking as soon as you start your SEO (like just a few weeks in), like we did in this example.
This is a great sign that what you are doing is working and will produce even more results down the lane.
Even if the rankings are on page 3-5, that’s still better than no rankings at all.
And a movement from position 30 to position 15 is huge, even though the money still isn’t coming in.
Improved Conversion Rate
This is applicable to clients who have existing traffic, whether from social media, brand searches, or other types of referral traffic, when starting their local SEO campaign.
It doesn’t take an additional 100 users per month for you to make more sales.
Sometimes, all you need to do is optimize your page to convert better and the existing traffic will start yielding you more leads and sales than before.
The results from proper conversion rate optimization are instant.
Take it this way. If your conversion rate online went from 2% to 4%, you’ve essentially doubled your revenue.
Here’s what we typically do:
- Speed up websites, as most local businesses have terribly slow sites
- Add bullet points, badges, certifications, and reviews throughout each landing page to build more trust with a cold audience
- Add testimonials with real people’s faces, ideally above fold
- Speaking of “above fold”, we would do our best to say everything a customer needs to hear to see the incentives and trust working with our client WITHOUT having to scroll
- Make the website mobile-friendly, as most businesses don’t have this, even with cookie-cutter page builders that should be auto-responsive
And more.
Short-term Results
Short-term results are the local SEO results that you see 1-3 months in.
Among others, these would include:
- Google Business Profile market share improving
- Your most valuable keywords, AKA head keywords, reaching page 2-3 (these would include “plumber Miami”)
- Phone calls improving by 10%-20%
Google Business Profile Market Share Improvement
What is “market share”?
It simply refers to your Google Business Profile (GBP) having a better ranking in a wider radius.
So, if you were #2 for “plumber near me” 2 miles away from your address at the beginning, 1-3 months in, you should be #2 for the same keyword 3-4 miles away.
Check out our GBP ranking guide for more info on how proximity and distance affect GBP rankings.
How the h**l do you even measure this?
Glad you asked. You can use Local Falcon to run monthly scans with a set radius. We recommend 4-10 miles, depending on the population density of your area.
Once you run a few scans over a couple of weeks or months, you will be able to see your “Trend Report”:
This is a 10-mile radius scan. You can see the red numbers on the right going from 20+ to 18-15. That, my friend, is the market share growing.
You can also see more numbers going green, which means that for people in that proximity to the business address, you’ll be ranked 1-3 on Google Maps.
The way you grow this is by building prominence online, and to do that, you have to build links.
Check out the guide we linked for more info on that topic.
Page 2-3 for Your Most Valuable Keywords
Throughout this site, we sometimes refer to “head keywords.” These would be your main money makers, equivalent to putting a billboard with your ad on Times Square.
For a plumber in Miami, these keywords would be:
- Plumber Miami
- Plumber Miami, FL
- Plumbing Company Miami
And similar.
These keywords have the most volume and high commercial intent, which is why every plumber and their mom want to rank for them.
After 1-3 months of proper SEO, you should be on pages 2-3 for these keywords.
Even though it seems irrelevant, this achievement is HUGE.
Most local SEO campaigns start off with you being on pages 5-6 upon indexing, and reaching pages 2-3 translates to you doubling your rankings.
There are exceptions, of course.
If you’re in the following industries:
- Addiction rehab
- Personal injury law
- Water damage restoration
- Payday loans
- Roofing
You’re an exception. Reaching pages 2-3 will likely take you longer than 3 months. Just a heads-up.
You guys aren’t just competing with other competitors in the same industry, but also with lead generation SEOs and huge data aggregators who make a lot of money selling leads in your industry.
More Phone Calls
You should start getting more calls by month 3. Even if it’s just 2-5 more calls, that still means that what you’re doing is working and that you should keep at it.
In the example above, March is when we started, and May is where the calls improved by 40% compared to the month of May a year prior.
Long-term Results
A penthouse, a yacht, a luxury sports car, a private chauffeur, a butler, a beachfront mansion, eating out every day, a bottle in da’ club every weekend.
Just kidding, it’s not gonna happen. Sorry.
Long-term results refer to 6-12 months of SEO work or longer. By then, you’ve likely spent around $10,000-$20,000 on SEO, and your ROI should already be felt.
Next year, you can lower your SEO spend to maintenance levels, and this is when you’ll start making way more than what you put in during year one.
You should be on page 1 for your head keywords, both with your website and Google Business Profile.
And at this point, we’d start considering opening up a new location in a market nearby so that you could continue growing, hiring more people, and serving more customers.
What to Do to Speed Up Local SEO?
The golden question.
And the simple answer would be to speed up building your prominence and increase the volume of content you’re putting out.
Instead of building 2 guest post links per month, build 4.
Now, depending on the industry, some companies don’t really need to publish a lot of, if any, articles.
In emergency industries, customers won’t spend a lot of time getting educated about their problem.
No, instead, they’ll just Google “roof leak repair Austin” and call the first company that they find the most trustworthy.
So, instead of publishing content nobody will read, you’d just have to focus on building up your prominence.
Don’t get me wrong – there are other instances where local companies could definitely benefit from articles and blog content.
Take the solar industry, for instance. In solar SEO, writing content like:
- Solar installation costs in Florida
- Solar payback period in Florida
- Solar incentives in Florida (there are a lot of cities that offer their own incentives too, providing even more opportunities for content like “solar incentives in Orlando”)
- Is Orlando a good city to install solar
- Does solar increase home value in Orlando
And so much more. Typically, the longer the sales cycle in a particular industry, the more opportunity there will be for writing local blog content.
Conclusion
How is that for a post?
You’ll not read this on most local SEO blogs.
If you need our help with your own local SEO, head over to the free audit request page and enter all of your details. We’ll be happy to help!
Other than that, make sure you give this post a nice, juicy backlink from the colleague’s or friend’s inbox you shared it in. Thanks! 😀
Bogdan is a local SEO expert with over 3 years of experience helping businesses grow using Google. When he is not helping businesses grow, he works on his own SEO projects, works out, takes long walks, and watches Suits, which is completely ironic given how rarely he dresses up in a suit himself.