The first month of SEO usually ends the same way: you open Search Console, see a small number, and conclude it doesn’t work. Month six looks different, not just because there are more numbers: it changes what you look at. Here’s the difference, with data from our own site up front.
What happens in the first month
In the first month there’s barely any data to interpret—and that’s normal. Google has to discover your pages, index them, and test them in results before giving them a stable position. The most common things you’ll see are:
- Lots of pages with zero impressions.
- A few stray impressions in distant positions, 30 and beyond.
- Clicks that are almost non-existent.
An example with dates. We published the article «99 image prompts for ChatGPT» on graphemics.net on September 2, 2026. Search Console didn’t register a single impression until September 11: nine days of total silence. If you’d measured after a week, you’d have said the article doesn’t work.
What does make sense to review in month one is something else—and it’s a yes/no:
- Is the page indexed? Check in Search Console with the URL inspection.
- Does it show up for any query yet? Even if it’s in position 40.
- Does the title match what people search for? It’s the one thing you can fix fast and notice quickly.
Measuring clicks, traffic, or sales in the first month is measuring too early.
What happens next: the same article, three weeks later
That same page, so far in September, added 743 impressions and 32 clicks, with an average position of 7,3. And from October 1 to 7, another 277 impressions and 4 clicks, at position 7,4. It took nine days to appear, and within three weeks it was on page one.
That page answered a specific search—a list of prompts—with a title that said exactly that. And it weighs a lot: 32 of the 46 clicks in September for the entire site came from it, 70%. That’s the pattern you see by month six: a handful of pages do almost all the work, and you know which ones because you measure by page, not by site.
What six months of our site show
These are graphemics.net’s monthly totals in Search Console, from April to September 2026:
- April: 16 clicks · 7.650 impressions · average position 9,2
- May: 7 clicks · 5.231 impressions · position 11,3
- June: 10 clicks · 4.571 impressions · position 13,6
- July: 4 clicks · 4.164 impressions · position 14,6
- August: 6 clicks · 4.792 impressions · position 14,0
- September: 46 clicks · 6.185 impressions · position 10,2
Two takeaways—and they’re what separate a beginner from someone who’s been at it for months:
First: clicks don’t rise in a straight line. They went from 4 in July to 46 in September, and what moved the number was mostly a single page that found its query. If we’d evaluated SEO by the April–August average, we’d have concluded it brings nothing.
Second: impressions without clicks also say something. Over those six months the homepage racked up thousands of impressions with very few clicks: in the last 90 days, 9.773 impressions and 4 clicks, at an average position of 4,5. That’s not a ranking problem; it’s a title and description problem. And that’s a question you can only ask once there’s data.
What to watch at each stage
Month 1 — can they find me?
- Indexed pages.
- First impressions, even if they’re few.
- Crawl errors and excluded pages.
Months 2 and 3 — what do they show me for?
- The actual queries that trigger each page, which are almost never the ones you imagined.
- Which pages are already between positions 8 and 20: they’re the closest to producing results.
Months 4 to 6 — are they clicking?
- CTR by page, compared with other pages in similar positions.
- Titles and descriptions you can rewrite without touching the content.
- Which pages deserve more internal links, because they’ve already proven they work.
What to do with a page that’s already in positions 8 to 20
It’s the most profitable month‑six situation—and the most ignored: the page already has proven demand, but it’s on the edge of page one or barely on page two. You don’t need to write anything new. What usually moves the needle, in this order:
- Rewrite the title to include the exact query it already shows up for.
- Add to the copy the related questions Search Console shows for that page.
- Link to it from the pages on your site that already get visits.
- Wait two to six weeks before touching it again, so you know which change worked.
To find them, just filter in Search Console by position between 8 and 20 and sort by impressions. The list is usually short, and it’s the best starting point for the following month.
The mistake at each stage
The mistake in the first month is giving up: measuring results when there isn’t data yet to measure. The mistake in month six is the opposite: keeping on producing new content without looking at which pages already work, which appear without clicks, and which never appear. The first is fixed with patience; the second with an afternoon of analysis.
A practical rule: in the first 30 days, review weekly, but don’t change anything that isn’t broken. From months 2 to 6, review monthly and compare by page, not by site.
Indicative timelines
Timing depends on competition, domain age, and how specific the query is, so take these as ranges, not promises:
- First impressions: from a few days to a few weeks. In our case, it was nine days.
- Title and description changes: generally show up in two to six weeks.
- A new service page: three to six months to settle.
- An entire site with a visible trend: six to twelve months.
Anyone promising first position in 30 days is selling you something else.
If you want us to look at it together
If you already have Search Console connected and don’t know which pages are working, which titles to fix, or whether what you see is normal for your month, write to us. We’ll review your data page by page and tell you which stage you’re in and what to do now.
Google Search Console data from graphemics.net, checked on October 9, 2026 (from April 1 to October 7). Figures change daily; timelines are indicative and vary by site.
Versión en español: Tu primer mes de SEO y el sexto: qué se ve distinto
