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How I Work

No promises I can't keep.
No black-box methodology.

Here's exactly what working with me looks like: week by week, what I'll do, what I need from you, and what I won't do.

Schedule a Discovery Call

The Engagement

Engagements usually follow this structure

01
Week 1

Discovery

Get access to GSC, Analytics, the CMS, and dev environment. Understand the business, the goals, the constraints, the competitors, and the politics. Capture baseline metrics so we can measure everything we do from here.

Output A shared doc with everything I've found and the questions I'm carrying into Phase 2.
02
Weeks 2-3

Diagnosis

Full technical audit. Content and topical analysis. Competitive landscape. Cannibalization mapping. The goal isn't to find every problem, it's to find the 20% causing 80% of the issues.

Output A prioritized findings doc. Not "here's everything wrong" / "here's what to fix first and why."
03
Week 4

Strategy & Roadmap

Building the plan, with effort estimates and expected impact for each move. Tradeoffs, sequencing, resource needs. Whatever's blocking us getting flagged early.

Output A roadmap your team can actually execute. Not a 50-page PDF nobody reads.
04
Month 2+

Execution

Either I do the work or I support your team doing it. Bi-Weekly progress reviews. Adjustments based on what we learn. The boring, durable, compounding work.

Output Actual moves, measured. Not reports for the sake of reports.

What This Looks Like in Practice

Engagements work when expectations are clear. Here's what I'll need, and what I'll bring.

What I Need From You

  • Access: GSC, Analytics, CMS, dev environment, and anyone I need to talk to.
  • Honesty about constraints: budget, team capacity, political dynamics.
  • Decision-making access, or a clear escalation path when I need a call.
  • Patience through diagnosis. Most clients want answers in week 1. Real answers take 2 to 3 weeks.
  • Permission to say things you might not want to hear.

What You'll Get From Me

  • Weekly written updates. Not theatrical meetings.
  • Plain-language explanations of what's happening and why.
  • Honest assessments, including when something I tried didn't work.
  • Tools, scripts, and documentation you keep at the end of the engagement.
  • Real timelines, not aspirational ones.

What I Won't Do

Saying no clearly upfront saves both of us time later.

Link-building schemes

PBNs, link exchanges, paid placements. Not my game. Backlinks should be acquired though methods that won't cause your site to implode.

Guarantee rankings

Anyone who guarantees a #1 spot is lying to you. I'll commit to building fundamentals for your site, not to promising ranking outcomes I can't controls.

Fill reports with vanity metrics

If a number doesn't change a decision, it doesn't belong in the report. I'd rather send you four meaningful charts than forty meaningless ones.

Take wrong-fit engagements

If your situation isn't one I can actually help with, I'll tell you in the discovery call. Wasting your money is bad for both of us.

Frequently Asked

The questions I get most often, answered honestly.

How long until I see results?
Not immediately, that's guaranteed. Depending on the severity of the issues, quick wins (cannibalization fixes, indexation improvements) can show movement in 4 to 8 weeks. Topical authority rebuilds typically take 3 to 6 months to compound. I'll give you a realistic timeline after the diagnosis phase.
What's your typical engagement structure?
Most engagements are monthly retainers covering strategy, hands-on technical work, and content oversight. One-off audits are also available. I don't do hourly
Do you handle implementation or just give recommendations?
Both, depending on what you need. I prefer doing all the work: schema deployment, content pruning, internal linking, technical fixes, but that's entirely up to you. If you have a competent internal team, I can also oversee and review. I won't write a 50-page recommendations doc and walk away.
What if my dev team is slow?
I plan for it. Engagements include a parallel track of work that doesn't depend on dev. When dev capacity opens up, the tickets are ready. We don't lose months waiting.
Do you do link building?
No. There are other people who are better than me at it
Can you guarantee rankings?
Absolutely not.
What size of business do you work best with?
Publishing sites, marketplaces, SaaS products, and local businesses with multi-location footprints. I work best when there's real volume. If you're a 5-page brochure site, I'm probably not your best fit.
How are you different from an agency?
I treat every client website like my own. I don't sell "rewrite meta descriptions" as part of my strategy. I'm not a junior account manager fronting for an offshore team. The strategy, the execution, and the reporting all come from the same person who actually understands your situation.

Sound like a fit?

Let's talk. I'll be honest about whether I can help. If I can't, I'll tell you who can.

Schedule a Discovery Call