Knowledge Base / Disciplines / SEO
SEO
How Google actually works, the four kinds of SEO work we do, what the $299/mo plan delivers each month, and the honest timelines and myths. Sellers get answers; production gets the standard; owners get the strategy.
How Google works
The four kinds of SEO
Local SEO
The $299/mo plan
Timelines & expectations
Myths & red flags
How Google works, in three verbs
Crawl → index → rank: a page cannot rank if the earlier step failed
What decides rank once indexed, roughly in order: relevance (does the page answer the search?), quality signals (real content depth, good experience, speed), and authority (links and mentions from other trusted sites). Everything in SEO is one of those three levers.
The four kinds of SEO work
| Kind | What it covers | Who does it here |
|---|---|---|
| Technical | Can Google crawl, read and trust the site: speed, prerendered HTML, sitemap, robots, canonicals, schema markup, mobile, SSL, no duplicate versions | Baked into every build (see standards); audited on SEO-plan clients monthly |
| On-page | Each page targeting one search intent: keyword-bearing title, meta description, one H1, heading structure, internal links, image alt | Production at build; SEO plan optimizes continuously |
| Content | Publishing pages that answer what customers actually search: guides, service pages, FAQs, comparison posts | The SEO plan's monthly engine (our own site runs the same system) |
| Off-page | Earning links and mentions from other sites: guest posts, directories, partnerships, PR. Never bought links | Outreach drafted by us, sent under the client's or our name with approval |
On-page anatomy (the checklist per page)
- One target search phrase per page; the page genuinely answers it better than what currently ranks.
- Title ≤60 characters with the phrase near the front; meta description ~150 characters that earns the click.
- Exactly one H1 stating what the page is; H2/H3 in logical order.
- Internal links: to a money page, to related pages, and at least one inbound link from an existing page (no orphans).
- Schema for what the page is (Service, FAQ, Article, LocalBusiness); validated in the Rich Results test.
- Images compressed, sized, descriptive alt; page passes the speed bar.
Local SEO (most of our clients live here)
- The map pack is the prize. For "[trade] near me" searches, the three map results above the organic list get most of the calls. That is the battleground for plumbers, cleaners, tilers, pool services.
- Google Business Profile: claimed, complete (hours, photos, services, service area), categories right, and actively collecting reviews. This plus the website is the local one-two punch.
- Reviews: steady, real reviews with owner replies. We script the ask into the client's delivery flow ("send this link to your last five happy customers"). Never fake or incentivize dishonestly.
- NAP consistency: the exact same Name, Address, Phone everywhere (site, GBP, directories). Mismatches quietly erode local trust signals.
- Location pages: a real page per service area with unique content, not one page with fifty town names stuffed in.
- LocalBusiness schema on the site tying it all together.
What the $299/mo SEO plan delivers monthly
| Every month | Deliverable |
|---|---|
| Research | Keyword and competitor review: what to target next and why, prioritized by lead value, not vanity volume |
| Content | New optimized page(s)/post(s) in the client's voice, targeting the agreed keywords, internally linked |
| Technical | Site health check: speed, indexing, crawl errors, schema validity, fixes applied |
| Authority | Legitimate link-building motions: outreach drafts, directory/citation hygiene, review velocity support |
| Reporting | A plain-English report: positions moved, traffic, leads attributed, what we did, what is next. Numbers from Search Console/GA4, not estimates |
Setup requirement
Every SEO client gets Google Search Console + GA4 connected in week one. Without them we are guessing; with them every claim in the monthly report is measurable. (Same rule we apply to ourselves.)
Honest timelines (set these expectations at sale time)
The sentence for sellers: "SEO is a compounding investment, not a switch. Quick wins show in weeks; the real payoff builds over 3 to 6 months and keeps compounding after. Anyone promising page one in two weeks is lying to you."
Myths and red flags (protect clients from these)
| Claim heard in the wild | The truth |
|---|---|
| "We guarantee #1 on Google" | Nobody can. Rankings are not for sale to agencies. This claim is the #1 marker of an SEO scam. |
| "We'll submit you to 500 directories" | Bulk spam directories do nothing or hurt. A handful of real, relevant citations beat 500 junk ones. |
| "Buy this backlink package" | Purchased links violate Google's policies and get sites penalized. Links are earned, full stop. |
| "Just stuff the keyword in more times" | Keyword stuffing stopped working a decade ago; pages rank for answering intent, not repeating phrases. |
| "More pages = more rankings" | Thin, duplicated pages drag the whole site down (we fixed exactly this pattern on our own site). Fewer, deeper pages win. |
| "SEO is dead, AI changed everything" | Search behavior is shifting (AI answers cite sources), which makes structured, authoritative, well-marked-up content MORE valuable, not less. Being the cited source is the new page one. |