Brand-new website, agency says 6 months — how long does SEO actually take, and when do leads start coming in?

The agency saying six months is standard because fresh domains go through an initial filtering period with search engines. That said, you shouldn't just be sitting in total silence for six months. They need to provide a clear report at the end of every month showing what pages went live, which terms indexed, and competitor movement. If communication is dead, that's the real red flag.

On a fresh domain, crawl budget is low for the first 60 days. Check whether the site has technical errors, if the XML sitemap is being crawled properly, and whether robots.txt is configured correctly. Daily impressions sitting at 20-30 means the agency hasn't published content on targeted terms yet or failed to get it indexed. Check your Search Console index coverage tab right now.

We ran a similar B2B supply site on a 1.500 GBP monthly budget. First 2 months we got 12 total clicks. By month 4, monthly clicks hit 180, and the first inbound lead came in on day 118. By the end of month 6, we were closing around 14 quote requests a month. Don't expect leads in month two, but if clicks are basically flatlining by month 3, the content quality is weak.

A lot of agencies use the "six-month" line as a get-out-of-jail-free card. I've seen plenty of teams pocket 1.200 GBP every month for six months straight, only to pack up at the end and say the niche was just too competitive. Sit down with them and set mandatory milestones for day 90. Never trust a contract that doesn't commit to intermediate checkpoints.

How many pieces of content have been published so far, and are they more comprehensive than your local UK competitors' pages? Also, did the agency share an off-page backlink plan, or are they just tweaking on-page tags?

Ask the agency these three questions at the next meeting: 1) Which 10 long-tail keywords did we break into the top 100 for? 2) How many new landing pages are going live next month? 3) Are there any URLs that aren't indexed? If they can't answer these with screenshots, step in without wasting any time.

We just started out too and are in the same boat... I wonder if allocating part of the budget to Google Ads instead of waiting six months would speed up SEO? Does advertising directly benefit organic rankings at all?

I agree.

Thanks for writing this, that's the right way. Hasty decisions become decisions you have to fix six months later.

Most time waste accumulates in tasks waiting for approval. That's all sorry if I went on too long.

We experienced almost the exact same thing last year. Mistakes made on the how long does seo take for a new website side are usually reversible but expensive.

Mistakes made on the how long does seo take for a new website side are usually reversible but expensive. If I were you, I'd go this route.

The most overlooked point about how long does seo take for a new website is this: Start with a small trial; don't commit to everything at once.

If I were you I'd go this route.

I partly agree, partly disagree. like any unwritten clause becomes a point of disagreement later, as both sides remember it differently.

Of course it varies if your situation is different.

I'd say don't rush. Merge instead of deleting; deleted content doesn't come back.

I'm also curious if anyone does it differently.

Noted, thanks. If you get three different answers on a topic, the question was asked wrong.

Most time waste accumulates in tasks waiting for approval. That's all, sorry if I went on too long.

Looking at it as a process, the picture changes. Everything goes well for the first three months; problems arise in the fourth.

Just leaving this note, it might be useful.

Timely topic. When you try to change everything at once, nothing settles.

Don't trust anyone who gives guarantees; there are no guarantees in this business. Good luck with that.

Same here. Don't trust anyone who gives guarantees; there are no guarantees in this business.

If you're going this route, sort this out first. If you get three different answers on a topic, the question was asked wrong.