According to Google Search Console, we closed last month (May 2026) with 13.6K web impressions on our site. YAY!
Now, the part that nobody knows/sees: that did not happen overnight. When we started, we had no more than 100 views (and most of those were us, checking our website to make sure it worked properly). It has been a process with many little steps here and there.
And maybe it is time to talk about that journey.
The Misconception: SEO is Magical
We recently delivered a website we designed. No biggie. The client was a one-time project (which is fairly common in web development), and on the day they approved the website to go live, they told us, “Emphasis on SEO once it’s launched.” They obviously had no idea how it worked, but somehow wanted them to magically appear as the first site in search results from the moment the site went live.
Of course, we ended up explaining to them that while there was already on-page SEO (with all terms and queries sent to them along with the copy for approval), SEO is actually more than just adding search terms and keywords to the page, and more like several things working together: the on-page one, social media, backlink generation, etc.
No magic, just constant work.
The Reality: SEO is More Like a Retirement Fund Than a Lottery Ticket
The problem is that many people think SEO works like advertising, assuming all you need is to put money in (or hire someone for a month or two), push a button, and you are done. People show up.
But SEO is almost the exact opposite, being way closer to planting a tree than to a magic solution. For a while, it feels like absolutely nothing is happening. You water it. You check on it. You wonder if it’s dead. You compare it to someone else’s giant tree and question every life decision that brought you here.
The first three months of SEO are a lesson in humility: you write content, you optimize your pages, you double-check your meta descriptions, and then, after all of that effort and hard work, you open Google Search Console and see no movement, no traction and a graph that looks like a completely flat line. The first couple of months, you might get 100 views, and 99 of those will be you and your friends testing the site. The other one will be Google crawling it.
This is normal, and it’s by no means a sign that you’re doing it wrong. This is just how it works.
Search engines need time to crawl your site, index your content, and figure out where you fit in the larger ecosystem of the internet. There is no shortcut around this waiting period, regardless of what any guru-with-a-course tells you. For a brand new site, Google can take anywhere from three to six months to start ranking you meaningfully for anything.
If we had to divide the process into phases, it would look more or less like this:
Phase One: The Foundation
Assuming you are working with an already live site and not a new one, you should start by auditing what you have. Look at your existing pages and ask the hard questions: Is the copy actually speaking to the people you want to reach? Are you using language your potential clients would type into a search bar? Do your page titles and descriptions tell Google (and humans) what each page is actually about?
If the answer is “sort of” instead of “YES”, then you have a fair amount of work to do. A decent-looking website with decent copy written more for vibes than for search intent will not cut it. It might be time for you to rewrite and research keywords (and we mean this… do not chase high-volume terms you have no chance of competing for, but realistic, specific, long-tail phrases that your audience and your niche might actually search for). Fix your headings, clean up your metadata, compress your images, and make sure the site loads at a reasonable speed.
Impressions at the end of phase one: somewhere in the double digits. Some days it will be literally two. One of them will be you.
Phase Two: The Content Starts
Here is where most people give up, and we understand why. You put in all the work in phase one, and the numbers barely moved. It feels pointless.
But this is exactly when you have to keep going.
In phase two, you should commit to producing content consistently. Not necessarily daily, as that might not be sustainable, but regularly and intentionally. Blog posts, social content that linked back to the site, and updated service pages. Each piece of content should be built around a specific topic your audience cares about and a specific question they might be asking.
During this phase, you should also start thinking about backlinks. This does not mean buying links or doing anything shady (Google and your audience know). It means being a real presence: engaging with other creators, being mentioned in places, and making sure your Google Business Profile is complete and accurate (yes, this is ALSO important for SEO). Small things that add up.
Impressions at the end of phase two: still modest. But the flat line will have a tiny upward curve at its end.
Phase Three: The First Signs of Life
Phase three is when something starts to shift, not dramatically, but noticeably. A blog post from month one starts appearing for a few keyword searches (for us, it was our emojis blog post for the longest time). The service page you finally rewrote is now properly indexed. Someone finds you through a search term you had not even consciously optimized for, because your content was relevant enough to match their intent.
This is the compound interest kicking in. It is quiet at first. But it is real.
SEO = Serotonin Excluded Obviously
The hardest part of SEO is not the technical side, but the psychological side: it is showing up to create and optimize content when the data is not rewarding you for it yet, it is the lack of serotonin and immediate reward (which nowadays is kind of like the standard), and the sheer amount of effort and patience you must have to make it work… and yeah, we get it, it can be mentally exhausting… bu there are a few things you can do to try and help:
Separate Outputs (Vanity Metrics) From Inputs (Progress Metrics).
Impressions and clicks are the goal here, yes… they are the outcomes that to a degree you can’t really control. The inputs (publishing content, building links, improving technical structure) are what you can actually control. Focus on doing the inputs consistently and trust that the outcomes will follow eventually… because they do.
Set Smaller, Process-Based Goals.
It is not only unrealistic but sometimes, even impossible to achieve high goals fast… so focus on what is possible and within reach. Instead of “we need 10,000 impressions this month,” try “we will publish two pieces of optimized content and update one existing page.” That goal is achievable no matter what Google is doing. And the accumulation of those process goals is exactly what builds the result.
Look At The Trend, Not The Number.
Two hundred impressions will never be exciting by themselves… but two hundred impressions when last month you had twenty? That is growth. In the early stages, the direction matters more than the volume.
Remember That Your Competitors Are Impatient Too.
Most people abandon SEO before it works. Staying consistent is itself a competitive advantage.
The stuff you make today is still working for you a year from now. Unlike a paid ad that stops the moment you stop paying for it, a well-optimized blog post or service page keeps getting indexed, keeps appearing in searches, and keeps bringing people to your site long after you hit publish.
A well-written post from a couple of months ago can turn into one of your better-performing pages without you even knowing. Something genuinely useful, properly structured, and optimized can, over time, be the one thing people end up searching for… more searches mean it will get served more often. And the more it’s served, the more it’s clicked. And the more it gets clicked, the better it will rank.
That flywheel takes time to start spinning. But once it does, it does not stop easily.
Our current traffic does not always come from our most recent posts, but from posts that are six, eight, or ten months old… sometimes even older. Content that had been slowly building authority the entire time.
And while it might feel disappointing that this article does not end with a secret tactic or a hack that made everything click, the reality is that SEO requires work. Consistently. Over many months. Without giving up during the phase where the data gave us nothing to celebrate.
SEO is a long game. It is boring by design. It rewards the people who do not need it to be exciting. It is a marathon, not a sprint. But every marathon has a finish line.
