Realistically?

[Blueridgehotel]

I am an emergency service tradesman I have a small business and website. I only ever get emergency traffic. However I need to get in the top 3 or it’s pointless. My question is I get inundated by SEO companies offering to get me ranked number 1 in 3 months. Does anyone actually know how long it can realistically take? I’ve had someone working on it for 4 months and I’ve gone from 17 to 9. Is this normal?
Tia

 

[Community]

It depends on the competition of the phrases you need to rank for, how active your competition are, how authoratative they are and overall how good you are equipt to compete.

Realistically, regardless of any of the above, i would normally give indications of anything between 3 - 9 months for top 10 positions, breaking into the top 3 no one can say for sure unless its a phrase which probably wouldnt bring in enough conversions to warrent the SEO retainer outlay anyway.