SEO can be a confusing topic, especially for business owners that have client needs to meet, employees to manage, and bottom lines to attend to. It’s hard to keep up with the ever-changing landscape of online marketing. Which is why we’ve put together some foundational SEO FAQs with answers you can count on.

1. What Is SEO?
Search engine optimization. It’s the work required to help ensure your home improvement firm’s web pages show up on search engine results pages (SERPs) when people enter relevant keywords.

2. Is SEO free?
You don’t pay Google or other search engines for placement in the organic listings, but SEO isn’t free. Even if you don’t pay a service to handle it and do it yourself, you’ll still need to spend time and resources on keyword research, web development, content creation, and other efforts.

3. How Long Does SEO Take to Work?
It varies, but SEO is a long-game online marketing effort. It usually takes a few months to start seeing an impact on search rankings.

4. When Can You Stop SEO Efforts?
When you’re ready to close your business. SEO is not a one-and-done job. You must constantly update content and other SEO efforts to keep pace with the competition and ensure your content is in line with search trends and consumer needs.

5. Can I Buy a Page Rank or the Guarantee of One?
You can’t buy your way into the organic search listings, and anyone that offers a 100% guarantee to get you onto the top space — or even on page one of SERPs — may not be able to keep that promise.

You can, however, support your SEO campaigns with SEM. That’s search engine marketing, and it involves paying for ad positions on search pages.