Three months is the honest answer. But "working" means different things at 60 days versus 6 months, and if I just say three months and leave it there, I'm not actually helping you.
The First 60 Days
This is foundation work. Your Google Business Profile gets fully built out. Citations get cleaned up across Yelp, Apple Maps, Bing, and the other directories Google cross-references when it's deciding whether to trust your business information. Your website gets on-page basics done right: title tags, header structure, location-specific content.
None of this makes your phone ring immediately. But it all has to happen before anything else will.
You will start seeing your GBP get more profile views. More direction requests. Maybe a few more calls from the profile itself. That's real. It's just not the full picture yet.
90 Days In
This is when things start moving. You're in the map pack for some searches — probably not your main keyword yet, but the related ones. A plumber in McKinney might start ranking for "emergency plumber McKinney TX" before they rank for "plumber McKinney." The long-tail terms come first. The competitive ones take longer.
Reviews matter a lot here. If you've been asking customers consistently since day one, you'll have 10 to 20 by now. That compound effect is real. Google treats a steady stream of recent reviews as a signal that your business is active and worth ranking.
6 Months
This is where you start owning your market. If you've been consistent — monthly GBP posts, content targeting your keywords, citations clean, reviews coming in — you're now competing for the top 3 in the map pack on your core terms. Whether you land there depends on your competition and how long they've been at this.
The Real Variable: Your Category and Your City
If you're a landscaper in Anna or Princeton, you can own the map pack in 60 to 90 days. Competition in those markets isn't deep yet. If you're an HVAC company in Frisco going up against businesses that have been doing SEO for three years, expect 6 to 12 months to get where you want to be.
The businesses that see results fastest are the ones that start immediately, stay consistent, and actually answer their phones when the calls come in. Local SEO gets people to find you. Everything after that is on you.
Book a free 30-minute strategy call. We'll look at your rankings, your GBP, and your competition — and tell you exactly what's holding you back.