How the work runs

Six stages, in this order

Most agencies keep the process vague, because vagueness leaves room to move later. Here is exactly what happens, roughly when, what you get at the end of each stage, and what I need from you to make it happen.

Stage 01

Teardown

Week 1

Before anything gets designed, I find out what is actually wrong. Current rankings and which of them make money. Crawl and index state. Core Web Vitals on real page loads. What your three closest competitors are doing that you are not. Where your existing traffic comes from and what it does when it arrives.

What you get
A written findings document with the problems ranked by what they are costing you. You keep it whether or not you hire me.
What I need from you
Access to analytics and Search Console if they exist, and thirty minutes to tell me what you actually want more of.
Stage 02

Architecture

Week 2

Sitemap, URL structure, keyword map and internal linking plan. Which pages exist, what each one is for, what it should rank for, and how they connect. This is the stage everyone skips and it is where most projects are quietly won or lost.

What you get
An approved sitemap and keyword map. Every page on the finished site traces back to a line on it.
What I need from you
One review pass. If a service is missing or a term is wrong, now is when it costs nothing to fix.
Stage 03

Design

Weeks 3 to 4

A real working page, in a browser, that you can scroll on your phone. Not a flat image in a presentation. You see the actual typography, the actual motion and the actual behavior at the actual sizes people will use.

What you get
An approved homepage direction, plus the design system every other page is built from.
What I need from you
Honest reaction. If something feels wrong, say so at this stage, because changing it later costs multiples.
Stage 04

Build

Weeks 5 to 8

The theme gets written. Templates, content, schema, forms, analytics, accessibility. Everything is assembled on a staging site you can review at any point, with nothing touching your live domain until you have signed off.

What you get
A complete site on staging, with the performance numbers measured and shown to you before launch.
What I need from you
Content review, and any photography or material only you can supply.
Stage 05

Launch

One evening

DNS cutover, scheduled deliberately. Mail records are never touched, so email keeps working through the whole thing. Every old URL is mapped to its closest new equivalent with a permanent redirect. Search Console verified, sitemap submitted, analytics confirmed firing.

What you get
The new site live, with a redirect map and a launch checklist you can see the state of.
What I need from you
Access to your domain registrar, or twenty minutes on a call while you make the changes yourself with me talking you through them.
Stage 06

Compound

Ongoing, optional

Search results are not a launch, they are an accumulation. Content, links and technical fixes on a monthly cadence. Month nine looks nothing like month two, and the businesses that get results are the ones that were still doing this in month nine.

What you get
Monthly reporting on enquiries and rankings. Not impressions.
What I need from you
Whatever cadence of input you can genuinely sustain, agreed honestly up front.

The honest part

Where projects actually slip

Almost never the code. The two things that push a launch date are content and approvals.

If you cannot get me the photos, the service descriptions and the sign off in reasonable time, the timeline moves, and no amount of effort on my end compensates for it. I would rather say that now than send a passive aggressive email in week seven.

If writing content is the blocker, say so at the start. I write it. It is not a problem unless it is discovered late.

Start here

Tell me what you are trying to fix

Send over the site you have now, or the one you wish you had. I will tell you honestly whether I am the right person for it.

Start a project
info@palmprojects.com