Month 1 is setup and diagnosis. Your SEO agency audits the website, identifies technical issues, maps the competitive landscape, and defines your target keyword clusters. You won't see traffic movement yet. This phase is invisible but critical—it prevents wasted effort in months 2 and 3.
Months 2-3 are foundation building. Technical fixes go live: site speed optimization, internal linking structure, mobile responsiveness. Content work begins: keyword-targeted pages are drafted, optimized, and published. You're laying track for the train that arrives in month 4. Still no meaningful traffic gain.
Month 4 is the threshold. Search engines have indexed your changes. Early pages begin ranking on page 2 and 3 for target keywords. You'll see small traffic increases—often 5-15% above baseline. This is the first evidence that the strategy is working.
Months 5-6 accelerate results. More pages rank. Some move from page 3 to page 2. A few hit page 1. Traffic typically grows 20-50% month-over-month during this window. You'll also see quality improvements: better click-through rates, lower bounce rates on optimized pages.
Months 7-12 compound gains. Pages mature in rankings. Content clusters start performing as systems, not individual pages. By month 12, firms typically report 50-150% traffic growth compared to baseline, depending on starting authority and market competitiveness.