Canadian SEO timelines depend on three variables: starting point (existing domain authority, technical health, content depth), competitive intensity (how saturated your target SERPs already are), and execution quality (the depth and consistency of monthly work). Quoting universal timelines is misleading; the patterns below reflect what we see across typical Canadian SMB engagements with mid-tier ($3,500–$7,500/month) programs. Months 1–3: foundational work. Technical fixes, on-page optimization, content structure, GBP optimization, citation cleanup. The first signals appear: low-competition long-tail keywords entering top 20; Search Console showing impression growth; local pack appearance for some queries. Revenue impact is typically minimal — this is foundation-laying. Months 3–6: first material lift. Long-tail commercial queries entering top 10. Local pack inclusion stabilizing for primary categories. New content beginning to rank for moderate-competition queries. Total organic sessions typically up 30–80% from baseline. Conversion volume starts to lift but lags traffic growth by 4–8 weeks as new visitors become qualified leads. Months 6–12: compounding begins. Multiple top-3 rankings on commercial-intent queries. Local pack dominance in primary categories. Sustained content velocity producing consistent new ranking pages each month. Revenue attribution from organic doubles or triples baseline. The compounding effect kicks in — earlier work amplifies later work as topical authority builds and internal link equity grows. Months 12–24: maturation. Competitive head-term rankings achievable. Brand search volume increases as awareness builds. Cost-per-acquired-customer falls steadily as organic share of total acquisition grows. Most clients with 18+ month engagements have achieved cost-per-acquisition advantages over paid acquisition that justify continued investment indefinitely. Local SEO specifically moves faster than this timeline: for Canadian SMBs with single locations in moderately competitive markets, local pack inclusion is often achieved in 2–5 months from engagement start. The reason: local SEO levers (GBP optimization, citation consistency, review velocity) produce faster algorithmic response than organic SEO levers (content depth, backlink acquisition, topical authority). National or enterprise programs take longer: timelines extend 30–60% beyond SMB benchmarks because the keyword sets are more competitive, the content production scale is larger, and the authority-building required is deeper. Bilingual programs add 20–40% to timelines because parallel content production in two languages slows total throughput. The honest expectation: SEO is a 12–24 month investment to produce sustainable competitive advantage. Programs that don't sustain through that timeframe rarely capture the compounding benefits. Programs that do sustain typically continue indefinitely because the unit economics improve continuously.