One of the many questions you may be asking yourself when you start using Traffic Blazer® is: How long is it going to take for me to optimize my site and get the search engine rankings I am hoping for? The answer is: “Well, that depends…”

In fact, it depends on a number of things, including the type of Web site you are operating, the competition you are facing, the search engines you are targeting, and your level of ambition. Lastly, it depends on how much time you are actually prepared to put into the optimization process.

At its most basic level, you can pick two to three keywords for your Web site's home page, include those keywords in Title tag, Meta tags, and body text; then submit the home page URL to the top search engines and sit back and wait for the traffic to come. You can probably do this in less than an hour. However, such a limited effort is unlikely to yield much in terms of a lasting traffic boost to your site. In fact, it is highly unlikely that you will score top search engine rankings for even remotely competitive search terms.

A more targeted and ambitious SEO campaign, however, requires patience, dedication and a good sense of what is a realistic goal. It should include meticulous and continual keyword research, copy writing, and link building, as well as tracking and assessment of the results of the campaign. Generally speaking, you should patiently prepare your site, rather than rushing through the process. The end results are bound to be better if you put the necessary time and effort into the campaign.

Top search engine rankings do not materialize overnight. The combination of intense competition and intricate search engine algorithms makes successful search engine optimization challenging, time-consuming and, at times, furiously frustrating. Indeed, it can take several months before you start seeing any results from the top search engines.

Then there is the issue of “sandboxing,” which can keep your site out of Google’s top rankings for as much as six months. Wary of link spamming, Google often buries newly-indexed Web sites in its so-called “sandbox” while it examines the site’s links. While sandboxed, Google deliberately prevents sites from reaching high rankings in its index. Your best chance of circumventing the sandbox is to patiently seek out and obtain back links from quality sites and refrain from buying or exchanging links that are irrelevant or misleading.

In closing, you must keep in mind that even a perfectly-optimized Web site will not yield instant results as search engines’ turnaround times (i.e., the time it takes to process submitted content for indexation) often exceed a month. Besides, the chance of actually hitting all the right notes right-away is fairly minimal. You will usually need to tweak parts of your site before you attain the search engine ranking you are hoping for. But, with patience and the right approach, the search engine rankings will eventually materialize, and the traffic will come to your site.