How we work

01 — Why

Why this page exists

We have no client work to show yet, so this is the method instead. It's more useful than a case study would be anyway: a case study tells you what happened to somebody else's business, while this tells you what will happen to yours.

02 — Method

The method

Four stages, and it's a loop rather than a line. After the first pass, stages two to four repeat for as long as we're working together.

1. Baseline

Find out what is actually true before changing anything. Access, audit, and a check that conversions are being counted at all. Most engagements uncover at least one thing nobody knew was broken, and we'd rather find it in week one than be blamed for it in month three.

2. Fix

Repair what is losing you something now: technical errors, wasted ad spend, broken tracking, cannibalised pages. Fixing precedes building, because building on top of a broken foundation produces more of the same problem, more expensively.

3. Build

Add what isn't there: pages, campaigns, structure, links, answers. This is the part that takes time, and it's the part that compounds.

4. Report

Write down what was done, what it produced, what didn't work, and what happens next. Then the loop starts again with what the report revealed.

There's no proprietary name for this and no trademarked diagram. It's the sequence any competent practitioner follows, written down so you can check we're following it.

What it costs →

03 — 90 days

The first 90 days, in full

1. Weeks 1–2

   Baseline

   • Delegated access to the accounts you already have, set up so it can be revoked by you at any point
   • A technical and account audit, written down rather than presented
   • Conversion tracking checked before anything is touched, on every engagement, whatever you hired us for
   • A content and keyword inventory for SEO work, or a search-terms and structure review for paid
   • A competitor comparison — what they have that you don't, structurally
   • A priority list, agreed with you in writing, ordered by impact rather than by ease

   What you receive

   The written audit. The priority list. A first report at the end of the period covering what was found.

   Observable by then

   Nothing about performance. Anything presented as a result in week two is noise, or it's the weather.

2. Weeks 3–6

   Fix and build

   • The highest-impact technical fixes, applied by us where we have access or specified precisely for your developer
   • Internal linking restructured; indexation and crawl issues cleared
   • First content or page rewrites published; structured data applied
   • On paid accounts: negative keywords, structure changes, bid strategy set to match the data the account actually has, first ad copy tests
   • Conversion tracking fixed and verified where the baseline found it broken

   What you receive

   The written report, including the list of specific tasks completed rather than "ongoing optimisation".

   Observable by then

   Paid media produces real click and conversion data, because it works in days. Organic changes are indexed and beginning to register impressions. Rankings usually haven't moved and shouldn't be expected to.

3. Weeks 7–12

   Iterate

   • Iteration driven by what the data says rather than by the original plan
   • More content, more pages, further technical work
   • Bid, budget and audience adjustment on paid
   • First outreach where link acquisition is in scope
   • Review of the priority list against what the first ten weeks revealed

   What you receive

   The report. A revised priority list. A plain statement of what has and hasn't worked.

   Observable by then

   Paid has enough data to compare periods honestly and to make real decisions about scale. Organic movement, where it happens, tends to start on lower-competition terms here. The terms you actually care about usually take longer, and the industry's own consensus is that a fair judgement of SEO takes closer to six months than three.

04 — Ongoing

After 90 days

The loop continues, and the shape of the work changes. Less repair, more building. The audit document keeps being updated rather than filed.

There are two natural review points and we use them deliberately. The first is at the end of the initial term set out in your agreement: a plain conversation about whether this is working, what changed, and what should change next. The second is whenever the data says the plan was wrong, which happens, and which we'd rather raise ourselves than have you notice first.

Scope changes are agreed in writing before they happen, not applied and invoiced afterwards.

05 — Reporting

Reporting

Written reporting is included in every retainer and is never billed separately.

Every report leads with enquiries: how many, from where, and what each cost. Then spend against plan, traffic by channel with a fair comparison period, the organic or paid detail relevant to your services, an AI visibility sample where that service is running, the named tasks completed, what's next and why, and what went wrong. Something always goes wrong. A report with no bad news in it is a sales document.

It's a written document in plain language that stands on its own without somebody narrating it. Not a platform export with a logo on it, not thirty screenshots, not a dashboard link standing in for analysis — you'll have dashboard access anyway, and access is not analysis. It's written by the person doing your work.

How often it arrives is agreed in writing before work starts, alongside what it contains, rather than left to habit. You'll know the cadence before you sign.

What we set up to make this measurable →

06 — Contact

Communication

Email is the main channel, because it produces a record both of us can refer back to. Calls happen when something needs discussing rather than on a standing schedule that exists to look attentive.

Two commitments we can make without inventing an availability window. First, you'll know who to contact and how, in writing, from the start. Second, if something significant changes on your account — a campaign paused, a fix that broke something, a result that contradicts the plan — you hear it from us rather than finding it in a report a month later.

We don't publish response times, because we're not going to promise a number we can't yet stand behind. If a response-time commitment matters to you, raise it before signing and get it written into the agreement, where it means something.

07 — Staffing

Who does the work

Undisclosed subcontracting is one of the things that ends agency relationships, and the way it happens is always the same: a website describes a team, and the account is handed to someone the client never hears about.

So the commitment is disclosure, in writing, before you sign: which people or which contracted specialists handle each part of your account, and notification if that changes during the engagement. If part of your work is carried out by a contractor rather than directly by us, you're told before it starts, not after you notice a different writing style.

Ask us this before you sign anything. Ask everyone else too, and notice who gets vague.

How we're set up →

08 — Ownership

What you own

09 — Exit

How to leave

Stated as policy, because the time to read this is before you sign, not when you want out.

Access. You revoke our access yourself, from inside your own accounts, whenever you decide to. You don't need our cooperation and you don't need to give a reason. Nothing we hold is required for your accounts to keep running.

Your work. Everything produced for you is yours: the audits, the reports, the content, the keyword lists, the campaign structures, the documentation. On request we export and hand over anything held in our own tools, in a usable format. Nothing is withheld, and nothing is priced at the exit.

Work in progress. At the point notice is given, we tell you in writing what is finished, what is half-finished, and what happens to each. Half-finished work is either completed within the notice period or handed over in whatever state it's in, with notes, and you're not billed for work that isn't delivered.

Handover. If a new agency is taking over, we'll answer their reasonable questions about what was set up and why. There's no charge for that and no sulking.

The term itself. The initial term and notice period are in your agreement and you see them before signing. We won't write "cancel anytime" here, because that's a contract term, and printing it on a marketing page wouldn't make it one.

10 — Refusals

What we will not promise

What's left after removing all of that is a description of work, cadence and deliverables, which is what you are actually buying. Some agencies fill that space with confidence instead. We'd rather the space stayed honest.

11 — Questions

Questions about delivery