Most SMB owners who’ve hired SEO providers before don’t actually know what was being done with their money. We do the opposite. Here’s exactly what an FH SEO engagement looks like in the first 90 days, with no mystery and no trust-the-process hand-waving.
Week 1: audit and baseline
- Full technical SEO audit (site speed, crawlability, schema, internal linking, mobile experience).
- Keyword baseline: what you currently rank for, what your competitors rank for, what the gaps are. (GSC is where that baseline lives.)
- Competitive analysis: top 5 competitors, their content depth, their backlink profiles, their GBP strength. (The hour-long DIY version is here.)
- Conversion tracking audit: are we measuring the right things, are we measuring them correctly? (GA4 conversion events + Consent Mode v2.)
Month 1: technical fixes + GBP
The technical SEO issues from the audit get fixed first — site speed, schema markup, mobile experience, internal linking. The Google Business Profile gets a full pass: photos, services, categories, posts, Q&A. The review-velocity process gets set up. None of this is glamorous; all of it is foundational.
Month 2: on-page + content kickoff
Service-page rewrites for the pages that drive revenue — titles, headings, body copy, internal anchors, FAQ schema. Content production starts: usually 2–4 longer-form pieces per month, written against the keyword strategy and the buyer’s actual questions.
Month 3: link work + review of early signals
Backlink work in the legitimate sense — trade press, partnerships, supplier sites, industry directories. By the end of month 3, the early signals are usually visible: map-pack movement, impression growth in Search Console, the first organic ranking improvements.
