SEO for a New Website: A First 90 Days Plan

In its first 90 days a new website should aim for three things: every important page indexed, a small set of pages that each answer one search properly, and clean measurement. Traffic in this period is usually low, and that is normal. This plan puts the work in the order that pays back, week by week.

What to expect from a new site in 90 days

Expect indexing within days to a few weeks, impressions for long and specific searches within the first two months, and few clicks for competitive terms. A new domain has no history and no links, so Google has little reason to rank it above established sites yet. Your job in this window is to remove every reason for it to hesitate.

Set expectations with whoever pays the bills. If the business needs leads this quarter, run ads or outreach alongside SEO. Organic search is the channel that gets cheaper over time, and it starts slowly. Our guide to what SEO costs in Canada covers how to budget for that.

Days 1 to 14: set up so Google can find and read the site

The first two weeks are a checklist. None of it is clever, and skipping any item can cost you months.

1. Verify the site in Google Search Console at domain level, so every version of the address is covered.
2. Verify in Bing Webmaster Tools too. Bing's index feeds several AI assistants, and you can import your settings from Search Console.
3. Install analytics and set up the conversions that matter: form submissions, calls, bookings, purchases.
4. Publish an XML sitemap and submit it in both tools.
5. Check robots.txt and your page templates for leftover staging settings. A noindex tag carried over from the development site is the most common launch mistake.
6. Choose one address format (https, with or without www) and redirect the others to it.
7. Confirm each page has its own title, one clear main heading and a canonical tag pointing to itself.
8. View the page source, not the browser inspector, and confirm your main content is in the HTML. Content that only appears after JavaScript runs can be missed by some crawlers.
9. Test the main templates on a phone and check speed on a mid-range connection.

You can check most of this list in one pass with our free audit tool: enter your homepage, then your most important service page. If the site was a rebuild of an older one, add a redirect map from every old URL to its new home before anything else. Our technical SEO page explains what migration protection involves.

Days 15 to 45: publish the pages that can win first

Build your core commercial pages first, then a small number of supporting pages that answer the questions buyers ask before they call. A new site cannot rank for broad terms yet, so aim each page at a specific search where the current results are weak or generic.

For each page, write the answer in the first two sentences, then support it. Use the words your customers use, which you can find in your own emails, call notes and sales conversations. Link related pages to each other in the body text, so both readers and crawlers can move between them.

Avoid the shortcut of generating a page for every town and service combination. Google's spam policies treat scaled pages with little original value as abuse, and a new domain has no reputation to absorb the hit. Our content strategy service page explains how we choose topics, and on-page SEO covers how each page is structured.

Days 46 to 90: earn the first signals of trust

Once the pages exist, the constraint becomes trust. Search engines learn that a new business is real from consistent details across the web and from other sites mentioning it.

• If you serve customers at a location or in a service area, claim and complete your Google Business Profile: correct category, hours, services, photos. Keep the name, address and phone identical to your website.
• Ask your first real customers for reviews, with a direct link. Do not offer rewards for them and do not review yourself.
• List the business in the few directories that matter in your trade: industry associations, suppliers, chambers of commerce. Skip bulk directory packages.
• Tell partners, suppliers and clients the site exists. A link from a real business you work with is worth more than any number of bought ones.
• Publish one piece that is useful enough to be referenced: a price guide, a checklist, original numbers from your own work.
• Do not buy links. Paid links violate Google's spam policies, and the risk lands on your domain, not the seller's.

If most of your customers are nearby, read our guide on choosing between local and national SEO before you spend this effort in the wrong place. The link building and digital PR page explains how links are earned without paying for them.

What to measure in the first 90 days

Measure leading indicators first: whether pages are indexed, whether they earn impressions, and whether the right searches trigger them. Clicks and leads follow those, usually later than owners hope.

If a page has been live for a month and is still not indexed, inspect it in Search Console. The usual causes are a noindex tag, a canonical tag pointing elsewhere, no internal links to the page, or content too similar to another page. Our analytics and reporting page describes the reporting we set up in month one.

Mistakes that cost new sites months

• Launching with noindex or a robots.txt block left over from staging.
• Changing URLs repeatedly in the first weeks without redirects.
• Publishing dozens of thin or near-identical pages to look bigger.
• Targeting only broad, competitive searches that a new domain cannot win yet.
• Buying a link package or an expired domain for its old links. Google's spam policies name both.
• Hiding the main content behind scripts, tabs that never load in the HTML, or images of text.
• Judging the project at week six on sales alone, then stopping just as impressions begin.

When to do it yourself and when to get help

An owner with a modern CMS can do the setup checklist and write the first service pages without outside help. Help earns its cost when the site is large, when it replaces an older site with existing rankings, when the market is competitive, or when nobody on the team has the hours.

If you want a second opinion before hiring anyone, start with the free audit. If you want the plan built and run for you, our Starter plan is $2,200 a month, month to month, and month one is the audit and the 90-day plan. The pricing page lists what each plan includes, and you can book a strategy call once you have looked.

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