Anyone promising rankings in thirty days is selling something. Here is the honest shape of an engagement.
Months one to three
Technical fixes, crawl and indexation cleanup, and the first content briefs. Traffic rarely moves much yet.
Months four to six
Published content starts ranking on longer-tail terms. Internal linking begins to compound.
Months seven to twelve
Authority builds, head terms become reachable, and organic typically becomes the cheapest channel in the mix.