Every client runs this path in order. Phases have hard exit gates — you do not skip a gate, ever. Track daily tasks in the Employee Console; record proof in SEO OS v8.0.
The eight phases
| Phase | What you do | Exit gate |
|---|---|---|
| P0 Intake & access Day 0–3 |
Intake questionnaire, client-owned access (GSC, GA4, CMS; GBP / GMC per lane), capture economics (margin or lead value, close rate), create charter + tick lane flags in SEO OS | No access = no audit. No economics = no forecast. |
| P1 Measurement Week 1 |
gsc_pull 16-month baseline, GA4 event dictionary, one live test conversion traced to CRM / orders, Bing WMT verified | Test conversion reaches the business system, not just GA4 |
| P2 Risk gate Week 1 |
Manual actions, security issues, unexplained-loss scan, migration history. Dirty = Lane L13 owns the roadmap | Clean pass recorded OR incident plan active |
| P3 Technical audit Week 2 |
Screaming Frog crawl, crawl_parse into findings, indexation reconciliation, redirects and status codes, robots / canonicals / sitemaps, CWV per template, mobile, HTTPS. Manually sample-verify 10 findings | Every finding has URLs + evidence + acceptance test |
| P4 Demand & strategy Week 3 |
GSC striking-distance mining (positions 4–15, CTR gaps) FIRST, serp_watch live SERPs, competitor page teardowns, intent map (one intent = one URL), opportunity scoring + human verdicts, forecast, client sign-off | No cluster approved without SERP evidence under 30 days |
| P5 Execution sprints Weeks 4–12 |
In strict order: P0 technical fixes → striking-distance optimization → bottom-funnel content → supporting clusters → GEO / entity work. Every URL passes the publish QA row | No URL ships without its QA row |
| P6 Authority | Link building per the GEO & Links page — only after foundations pass | Foundations gate + ethics rules |
| P7 Monitor & report Ongoing |
Weekly gsc_pull deltas, monthly Looker + narrative + cohort decisions, quarterly re-baseline and calibration | Every report ends in decisions with owners |
Why this order: capture existing intent before creating demand. P0 fixes and striking-distance wins arrive in weeks, fund client trust, and pay for the bigger content and authority bets later.
Publish QA row (memorize it)
Before any URL goes live: index / canonical correct · renders correctly · schema valid · analytics fires · CTA works. Any single fail = no publish. Log the row in SEO OS.