When Is It The Right Time To Give Up On An SEO Campaign?

How do you know when it is the right time to give up on your SEO campaign?

If you have an eCommerce business, chances are you have heard about SEO and how SEO campaigns can potentially increase your website traffic. You may have even done some SEO campaigns for some of your products or services hoping to reap the sweet benefits of organic traffic.

SEO is a useful instrument that allows you to rank your website on search engines. The higher it ranks the better it helps to generate inbound traffic which can lead to more revenue. So, what’s not to like about it especially when SEO campaigns can cost as low as $0.00?

Are all SEO campaigns guaranteed to work? That’s a topic people rarely discuss. Typically, SEO campaigns take time to generate desired results, it can take weeks or months of consistent practice before you will start seeing results. But sometimes an SEO campaign just doesn’t work and you may find yourself waiting forever. What do you do when an SEO campaign doesn’t work? Count your losses and move on, or keep investing your time and resources hoping for a turnaround?

What Is The Normal Time-frame For An SEO Campaign?

To answer the question of when is the right time to end an SEO campaign, first, we have to determine what is the normal time-frame of an SEO campaign. How long should it take to start seeing the results of an SEO campaign? The first thing you should know about SEO campaigns is that context matters. Several factors such as budget, industry differences, consistency, specific niche, type of SEO of campaign, etc affect each SEO campaign and determine the timing. Therefore, there’s no one-size-fits-all routine to SEO campaigns.

That said, typical SEO campaigns start showing results within a few weeks to a couple of months. You should start seeing measurable traffic increase, your website should start ranking for the target keywords on search engine result pages (SERPs), and your domain authority should increase. You should see more glaring results after six months of running an SEO campaign, even in a highly competitive market.

If you don’t see any measurable result after two months of starting an SEO campaign, the campaign might be heading toward a futile path. And if after six months you’re seeing little progress, the SEO campaign will probably never work. You may have to make a few changes and try again.

What If You Don’t Want To Quit On An SEO Campaign?

We don’t expect you to give up easily on an SEO campaign you’ve invested your time and resources in for several months. Sometimes, an SEO campaign may seem ineffective because you don’t understand how SEO strategies work really. Sometimes the problem with an SEO campaign is a minor issue that can be fixed easily.

For example, you might be positioning an SEO campaign for the entire country when you should be positioning for your local market. Or you’re targeting the wrong keywords. Depending on your domain authority and awareness in your industry, some SEO strategies actually look like you’re aiming for more than you can handle. So, the real problem here is you’re using the right SEO tactics in the wrong place. Instead of giving up, you can assess the SEO input to find out what is wrong and make a few changes accordingly.

An SEO campaign can cost little to zero to execute, and that’s one of the reasons why eCommerce business owners appreciate it. To ensure that their SEO campaigns cost almost nothing, eCommerce business owners often do everything in-house, sometimes without help any from an SEO professional. Now, that’s a good practice and it can teach you the workings of SEO tactics. But sometimes what an SEO campaign needs is the expertise of an SEO professional.

An SEO expert can help you achieve your SEO goals much faster and can give you long-lasting effects. An SEO expert will assess your SEO strategies and campaigns and will find what’s wrong even when you’re sure that everything looks good. Ultimately, hiring an SEO expert to help with your SEO strategies and campaigns will position your eCommerce website for better results.

What To Look Out For When Assessing An SEO Campaign

Before you decide to quit an SEO campaign, you should have a checklist of items to review to determine the performance of the campaign. These are some of the variables that will affect the performance of your SEO campaigns.

Niche and Competition: the competition in your niche market will affect your market, so the more competitive your niche is the harder it will be to get your SEO campaigns to work.

Existing Penalties: if you have already violated one or more of Google’s terms of service, your website might have suffered one or more penalties as a result. These penalties are often had to recover from. So, while you’re expecting your SEO strategies to work, make sure you also check whether you don’t have standing penalties.

Content Quality: keep in mind that SEO campaigns don’t work like magic, so if you use content with poor quality for your SEO strategies, you may not see the type of result you want. You can always use the services of a content creator, content writer, or SEO expert to create your SEO content.

Invested Efforts: as with any project or plan, your efforts will affect the performance of your SEO campaigns. For an SEO campaign, your efforts include budget, resources, knowledge of SEO, consistency, and other metrics. So, if you’re not fully committed to putting in the work, don’t expect your SEO campaigns to work like magic.

Over To You

SEO is not a quick-fix strategy that works with little or no effort; it requires consistency, patience, and skills. Also, no matter the amount of effort you put into your SEO strategies, you shouldn’t expect a drastic turnaround within a few weeks or few months even. At the same time, there’s no use dwelling on an SEO campaign that is not working. Be critical, don’t let the time spent on an SEO campaign convince you to hold on to it forever if it’s not working. Always analyze your SEO campaigns. There are software tools for that, use them and be ready to make hard decisions about some of your SEO campaigns.

If you enjoyed this read, consider checking out some of our other blogs.

If you would like to reach out to us for help with your SEO campaign, click here.

Written by Klay

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