§ Methodology · 01 — 05 · How we work

No secret sauce.
A process
you can watch.

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Five phases from the first URL to ongoing growth — each with a clear scope, fixed deliverables and an honest duration. You approve every phase before the next one begins.

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★ Five phases · fixed price · you approve each · First cohort open · Darmstadt · DACH

§ The overview

Growth is not luck. It is a process.

Most agencies sell you an outcome and hide the path to it. We do the opposite: the process is the product. You see every phase, every deliverable and every decision — in real time, not in a monthly PDF.

Five phases, built in sequence. Each solves a specific problem, each produces something you can hold, and each ends with your sign-off. If a phase shows you do not need the next one, we will say so.

Hand-drawn sketch of the SEO disciplines — architecture, content, backlinks, analysis, ranking.
Understand before we measure

Discovery

Duration · 3 — 5 days
The challenge

Rankings without context are noise. Before any number means anything, we need to know what you sell, to whom, in which cities — and how you actually define success.

Our approach

A structured discovery block: goals, audiences, locations, competitors and the one conversion event that matters to your business. We map your market before we touch it.

What you get · 4
  • Goal and KPI definition with one clear conversion event
  • Audience and search-intent profile
  • Location and competitor map
  • Access and tracking set up cleanly
Measure the current state without flinching

Audit

Duration · 24 hrs for the first analysis
The challenge

You cannot fix what you cannot see. Legacy stacks hide speed ceilings, crawl waste and schema gaps that cap your rankings — often without anyone noticing.

Our approach

A full crawl, Core Web Vitals per page type, a competitor benchmark for the same keywords and a projection of those numbers on a modern stack — all in one prioritised report.

What you get · 4
  • Technical SEO audit across the whole site
  • Core Web Vitals assessment per page type
  • Competitor benchmark for your top keywords
  • Prioritised action plan with effort and impact
Set the path, in writing

Strategy

Duration · 1 week to the scope
The challenge

Without a clear scope, every project becomes an open invoice. You need to know what gets built, in what order and what it costs — before the first move.

Our approach

A 30-minute strategy call, then a written scope: your top cities, your top 50 keywords, the first-quarter content roadmap and the milestone plan at a fixed price.

What you get · 4
  • Written scope with fixed price and milestones
  • Keyword and city prioritisation
  • Topical authority map (hub-and-spoke)
  • Content roadmap for the first quarter
Build on the stack Google rewards

Build

Duration · 4 — 8 weeks by scope
The challenge

Speed is now a primary ranking signal. Legacy architecture physically cannot reach the thresholds it demands — optimising after the fact only moves the ceiling, it does not lift it.

Our approach

A new build or migration on Astro and Vercel: pre-rendered HTML from the edge, under a second on mobile, programmatic location pages and nested JSON-LD schema. You approve every milestone.

What you get · 4
  • Astro + Vercel build with LCP under one second
  • 1:1 migration with a redirect plan, rankings move with you
  • Programmatic location pages from one template
  • Nested JSON-LD schema and llms.txt
Publish, measure, refine

Operate & grow

Ongoing · month-to-month, cancel anytime
The challenge

A launch is not an outcome. Holding and growing rankings takes steady, relevant content and an honest look at the data — not a monthly PDF that hides what did not work.

Our approach

Spindle starts publishing, every post under senior editorial review. You watch everything on a private live dashboard, 24/7. We refine content and links and meet monthly.

What you get · 4
  • 4 — 30+ posts a month via Spindle, editor-reviewed
  • Private live dashboard with direct Search Console data
  • Monthly citation tracking for AI answers
  • Earned link building through data studies
§ Tooling & transparency

The same data we see, you see too.

We do not work behind a wall. Every phase produces traceable artefacts, and from launch everything flows into a private live dashboard — direct access to Search Console, crawler data, AI citations and conversions, 24/7. The written recommendation sits next to the data, not in your inbox two weeks late.

  • Live dashboard instead of monthly PDFs
  • Direct Search Console and crawler data
  • AI citation tracking per engine
  • Every deliverable versioned and handed over
See the live dashboard
dashboard.seo216.com · live
Phase progress
100%
05/05
Phases visible
24/7
Live access
0
PDF wait
§ Common questions

What you usually ask.

Do we have to book all five phases?
No. Discovery and Audit stand alone; you decide after that. Build and Operate are sequential, but every phase is approved on its own. If a phase shows you do not need the next one, we will say so.
How long does the whole process take?
Discovery and Audit run in the first week, with the scope right after. A build takes 4 — 8 weeks depending on scope. Operate & grow then runs month-to-month and you can cancel anytime.
What exactly happens in the audit phase?
A full crawl, a Core Web Vitals assessment per page type, a competitor benchmark for the same keywords and a prioritised action plan with effort and impact estimates. We deliver the first analysis within 24 hours.
Do we get visibility during the build?
Yes. The build follows a fixed milestone plan, and you approve each milestone before it continues. There is no black box and no nasty surprise at the end.
Do our existing rankings move with us in a migration?
Yes. We preserve every URL, rebuild every page with 1:1 content fidelity and put a full redirect plan in place. Your search equity moves with the new stack.
§ The next step

Phase 01 is free. And commits you to nothing.

Send us your URL. Discovery and Audit cost you nothing — and show exactly where you stand.

Start your free audit Book a 15-min strategy call
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