When I talk with the presidents of clients who have commissioned a website from us, I'm often asked, "How long does it take before a website starts producing results?"

It's only natural. Commissioning a web production company like ours means spending a certain amount on production costs—in other words, making an upfront investment—so of course you want to see results as soon as possible.

That said, it's also true that no one can promise, "You'll definitely see results within this time frame."
So how do I answer that question?

"Assuming the site is properly maintained, if someone is searching for your company name or your products, you'll likely see a response within one week to one month. If someone is searching for your services in your local area, I'd say one to three months."

That's roughly how I explain it.
Why can I say that? Because those are the typical time frames for a newly created website to start appearing in search results.

*Company names and product names (excluding generic ones found everywhere): a few days to about a week after launch
*Area name + service name (including the reverse order): about one to three months

That's roughly how long it takes for company names and product names to show up in search results. Conversely, if your site still doesn't appear after a month, it's fair to assume there's a fundamental problem with it. And if you commissioned a production company to build it, you should ask them to address it immediately.

For "area name + service name," it depends on how many competitors you have.
For example, if your business is one that hardly exists in your area, you'll start showing up right away. On the other hand, in an industry crowded with competitors, ranking becomes difficult. For phrases like "Hamamatsu beauty salon," "Hamamatsu renovation," or "Hamamatsu esthetic salon," it takes a long time to reach page one of the search results—and you may never get there at all.
That's because rankings are ultimately determined by competition based on search engine evaluations. So unless you make an effort to improve that evaluation, your ranking will never rise.

So what kind of effort should you make? The answer is writing blog posts.

If you're writing blog articles with the goal of improving your search rankings, keep the following two points in mind.

[Point 1] Include the keywords you're targeting. For example, in this article I've deliberately included the keywords "Hamamatsu," "website," "production," and "creation." In other words, I want to rank highly for search phrases like "Hamamatsu website production" or "Hamamatsu website creation" (haha).

[Point 2] Target specific service menu items. If you feel that "area name + service name" is too competitive to rank for, it's effective to target specific menu item names rather than general service names.

Let me give a concrete example.
Search for "Hamamatsu beauty salon" and you'll find major portal sites, led by Hot Pepper, dominating the top spots.
With 489,000 pages competing, breaking into that lineup isn't easy.

So let's shift our perspective a little. Suppose you're a salon owner who specializes in hair straightening treatments.
Now search for "Hamamatsu hair straightening skilled."
What happens? Hot Pepper still occupies the top three, but the number of competing pages is 7,320—less than one-sixth of before. At this level, ranking highly may well be possible.

What's more, in addition to "area name + specific menu item," I've added
"skilled."
What do you think? It moves closer to the user's specific desire. And if, on the page they land on from that search, you write about your commitment to hair straightening and why you excel at it, don't you think a user who specifically wants a straightening treatment would be intrigued?
In fact, focusing on search phrases used by these users with a high "level of desire" makes it much easier to generate inquiries.

A blog is ideal for carrying out this kind of strategy. Even when something is hard to feature on your main website, a blog makes it easy to write articles targeting fine-grained search phrases.

Targeting search phrases close to the user's "level of desire" through your blog and picking up those users (even if there aren't many of them) leads far more reliably to results.

There are definitely high-desire phrases to be found in your business too! Keep that in mind.