Inside the First 90 Days of an SEO Engagement: What I Actually Do

The first 90 days of an SEO engagement are the foundation upon which everything else is built. Properly managed, this period should produce a comprehensive understanding of your position, resolve the most immediately impactful issues, and establish the strategic framework for sustained growth. Here is exactly what that looks like in my practice — no vagueness, no filler.

Days 1-14: Discovery & Audit

The engagement begins with deep discovery — understanding your business model, competitive landscape, and current digital infrastructure. I conduct a comprehensive technical audit, crawl analysis, and content assessment. By the end of week two, I have a clear picture of your current organic health and the specific issues that need addressing.

Days 15-30: Quick Wins & Strategy

With the audit complete, I identify and implement quick wins — low-effort, high-impact changes that can produce visible improvements relatively quickly. These typically include title tag optimisation, fixing critical technical errors, implementing schema markup, and resolving indexation issues. Simultaneously, I develop the broader strategic roadmap.

Days 31-60: Foundation Building

This phase focuses on structural improvements — site architecture refinements, content consolidation, internal linking improvements, and beginning the content development programme. This is where the compounding work starts — each piece of content, each technical improvement builds on what came before.

Days 61-90: Measurement & Adjustment

By day 60, early signals of impact should be visible in Search Console data — improved impressions, better average positions for target keywords, and resolved technical issues. Days 61-90 focus on analysing these early results, refining the strategy based on real data, and accelerating the areas that show the most promise.