SEO stands for search engine optimisation: all the work that makes your website findable in Google without paying per click. It comes down to three things: technology (can Google read your site), content (do you answer the searcher's question) and authority (do other sites refer to you). Results typically take three to six months, because search engines first have to discover your pages and weigh them against the competition.
SEO stands for search engine optimisation. It is the work you do to be found in the ordinary search results, so not the ads at the top.
The difference with advertising matters. With Google Ads you pay per click and the traffic stops the moment you stop paying. With SEO you invest in the site itself, and the traffic keeps coming as long as your pages stay relevant. It simply takes longer to get going.
Google does three things in sequence. First crawling: a program follows links and fetches pages. Then indexing: the fetched pages are stored and understood. Finally ranking: for a given query Google decides which pages answer it best.
Each of those three can go wrong. A page nothing links to never gets crawled. A page carrying a noindex instruction never gets indexed. And a page that does not answer the question will not rank, however technically perfect it is.
Put simply: SEO means being found by people searching for what you sell.
| Pillar | What it covers | Examples |
|---|---|---|
| Technology | Can Google read your site and does it load fast | Speed, mobile, sitemap, https, structure |
| Content | Do you answer the searcher's question | A page per query, real answers, kept current |
| Authority | Do others consider you worth referencing | Links from other sites, mentions, reviews |
The biggest gain nearly always lies in the number of pages that answer a real search question. Google judges per page, not per website. A site with five pages can only be found by its company name; anyone searching for what you do ends up at a competitor.
Repeating keywords until the text becomes unreadable has done nothing for years. The same goes for buying link packages and for twenty pages of identical text with only the place name swapped. Google recognises that, and then none of those pages count.
Quality beats quantity. Ten good pages outperform a hundred thin ones.
Expect three to six months before new pages rank steadily, and longer in a competitive market. Anyone promising you a first position within a month is selling air. What can be quick: claiming a Google Business Profile sometimes produces local visibility within weeks.
How we approach it is on our page about SEO and AEO.
In the Netherlands ongoing SEO ranges from roughly €500 to €2,500 per month, depending on the size of your site and how competitive your market is. A one-off optimisation of an existing site typically sits between €1,500 and €5,000. We build SEO into the sites we make as standard, so you are not paying separately for something that should be there from the start. Be wary of parties charging a low fixed fee without saying what they do: SEO without substantive work on your pages rarely delivers anything.
Expect three to six months before new pages sit steadily in the results, and longer when you compete on heavy commercial keywords. Google first has to discover your pages, understand them and weigh them against what already exists. What can move faster: claiming a Google Business Profile sometimes produces visibility within weeks for local searches, because the map sits above the ordinary results. Anyone promising a first position on a commercial term within a month is selling you something that does not exist.
Part of it, certainly. Claiming and fully completing your Google Business Profile, asking satisfied clients for reviews, and writing pages that genuinely answer your customers' questions: you can do that yourself and it delivers the most. Where it gets harder is the technical side, such as load speed, structure and structured data, and judging which keywords you stand a chance on at all. In our experience, business owners who write the content themselves and outsource the technical work get the best result, because you know your trade and we know visibility.
SEO concerns the ordinary search results, which you do not pay per click for; SEA stands for search engine advertising, meaning Google Ads, where you pay per click. The big difference is timing and durability: ads bring visitors immediately but stop the moment you stop paying, whereas SEO needs months but keeps running afterwards. In practice the combination works best: advertise to get enquiries now, while working on SEO so that in six months you depend less on ad budget.