Stage · Pre-seed to seed
No authority, no time, and pipeline due this quarter.
New domain, no authority, and one quarter to show something. We skip awareness content entirely, start at the queries that end in a vendor decision, and use AI search as the wedge, because a model can cite a two-month-old page long before Google will rank it.
Demos booked · 90 days · CRM-verified
The problem you’re living with
You need the bottom of the funnel. Everyone sells you the top.
The founder is usually the one who books this call, and it is rarely about content. One of these three is the real constraint, and all three point the same direction.
No authority, no rankings, no time.
Domain rating near zero while every keyword worth having belongs to someone with a decade of links behind it. The honest read on standard SEO is that you cannot win those terms this year.
The founder is still doing marketing.
You are picking the keywords, briefing the freelancer, and editing the drafts between investor calls. The channel moves only in the weeks you happen to have time.
Runway makes twelve months unaffordable.
The standard answer to SEO is patience. You are underwriting a quarter at a time and cannot sign up for a channel that pays out after your next raise.
Why it is still broken
The advice you have been given makes it worse.
Almost every playbook written for early-stage SEO assumes you have time and authority. You have neither, so each of these spends the quarter you were trying to protect.
Fix 01 · Publish awareness content
Start top-of-funnel to build authority.
Those are exactly the queries a language model now answers in full, and exactly the terms your competitors’ decade of links already owns. You end up producing the content least likely to rank and least likely to reach a buyer.
Fix 02 · Hire a cheap freelancer
Get volume up now, fix quality later.
Unresearched pages against an unfiltered keyword list. On a new domain, thin pages are worse than no pages: they dilute the handful that could have earned authority and they all need rewriting anyway.
Fix 03 · Chase the category head term
We need to rank for [category].
That term is a proxy for the whole market and it is defended by everyone in it. It is also the query most likely to be answered without a click. You can spend the entire runway not reaching page two.
Fix 04 · Fund paid instead
Ads work now, SEO can wait.
Paid rents the demand. It is the right call for a fast read on messaging, and the wrong call as a substitute, because you finish the quarter with the same domain you started with and no asset to show for the spend.
The wedge
A new domain can be cited before it can rank.
Google weights authority heavily, which is why a young domain waits regardless of how good the page is. Language models weight something else: a clearly described entity, a claim with a source attached, and a page that answers the exact question asked. That is why a two-month-old page can be named inside a ChatGPT or Perplexity answer while it sits on page four of Google. It is the only real head start available at this stage. Before any of it, every query still goes through the kill test: after the model answers this, does the buyer still need a vendor?
Two surfaces, two scoring systems. Google scores authority, which you do not have yet and cannot fake. Models score answer fit, which is buildable in weeks. We take the second while the first compounds underneath it.
What we actually ship
Everything that has to exist before a buyer can find you.
Not a content calendar. A map cut to purchase intent, the pages a buyer decides on, and the entity work that gets you named in AI answers, run by one senior team against one number.
Cut the map to purchase intent
Every keyword and prompt runs through the kill test before a word is written, so a small budget only ever buys queries that end in a vendor decision.
- Full query and prompt inventory
- Kill test on every entry
- Competitor gap read against your niche
- Killed list published, not buried
Moves: Share of buying queries
Build for the models first
Entity clarity, sourced claims and answer-shaped pages, tracked run to run across five engines. This is the surface that does not wait on domain authority.
- Entity and schema foundation
- Claims written with sources attached
- Answer-shaped page structure
- Citation tracking across 5 engines
Moves: Citations in AI answers
BOFU pages before anything else
Solution-aware pages for someone who already knows the problem and is choosing a vendor. No awareness content until the bottom of the funnel is covered.
- Solution-aware landing pages
- Use-case pages for your exact niche
- Senior editing on every piece
- Proof modules inside the page
Moves: Demo-intent traffic
Get named in the comparison
Alternatives and best-of pages are what a buyer reads last. On a new domain, inclusion in someone else’s roundup arrives before your own page ranks.
- Alternatives and versus pages
- Roundup and directory inclusion
- Review-site presence
- Competitor claim checks
Moves: Shortlist inclusion
Only the technical work that pays now
Enough architecture to be crawled, understood and linked. No six-month replatform, no audit theatre.
- Indexation and crawl basics
- Site structure and internal links
- Core Web Vitals where they bite
- A link base built from assets, not volume
Moves: Ability to rank at all
Grade it against a forecast
The forecast is set before kickoff on your funnel numbers, then graded in writing every month, so the channel earns its next quarter on evidence.
- CRM and GA4 wiring in week one
- Demo and trial source captured
- Monthly actuals versus forecast
- What we are changing next, named
Moves: A number your board can read
How the 90 days run
Wedge first, pages in parallel, graded from week one.
Same engine as the other stages. What changes is the order: the fastest-moving surface goes first, because you are buying a quarter, not a year.
Week 1 · Diagnose
Analytics and CRM wiring, a technical read on the domain, then the kill test across the full query and prompt set. You get the map, the killed list and a three-scenario forecast before anything ships.
Weeks 2 to 12 · Wedge, then pages
Entity and citation work starts immediately because it moves fastest on a young domain. BOFU pages ship in parallel from week two, comparison and alternatives last, once there is something to compare.
Always on · Grade it
Demos, trials and citation share recorded weekly. The monthly report compares actuals to the forecast and names what changes next, including what did not work.
The scoreboard
What we grade ourselves on.
Set before kickoff on your funnel numbers, graded monthly in writing. If the model cannot clear a 4× return inside your runway, we tell you before you spend a dollar.
Counted in your CRM, not in analytics, and split by source so a new channel has to stand on its own.
Graded monthly vs. forecast
Share of tracked buying prompts where you are named, run to run across five engines. On a new domain this moves first.
Graded monthly vs. forecast
Whether the demos are workable. Protects against a volume win the founder ends up disqualifying.
Reported with the raw count
Read against your blended paid number, so the comparison a founder actually makes is on the report.
Reported every month
Results · From the monthly reports
Named clients, published numbers.
Three engagements further along than you are. They are here because the mechanism is identical: cut the map, take the buying surfaces, get graded on pipeline.
AI search became a demand channel in one quarter
Organic sessions, AI referrals, category presence and attributed demand all moved together one quarter after launch.
Four months in, running ahead of forecast
Nearly half the demo pipeline was filed as Direct. The Two-Witness Rule recovered it, and the page program kept feeding it.
AI search and organic became the growth engine
A page set that did not exist twelve months ago now carries the growth and is the most-cited name in the category’s AI answers.
The objection
“SEO takes twelve months and we need pipeline this quarter.”
This is the objection every founder raises, and it is a fair read of standard SEO. Here is why this is not that, and the two follow-ups that always come next.
Objection 01
“SEO takes twelve months and we need pipeline this quarter.”
Standard SEO does, because it starts at the top of the funnel and waits on authority. We start at the bottom, where the queries are smaller, less defended and closer to a purchase, and we take the AI surfaces first because citations do not wait on domain age. Pages ship from week two. The forecast is set before kickoff on your numbers, and if it cannot clear a 4× return inside your runway we say so before you spend.
Objection 02
“We are too small to hire an agency.”
Then do not hire the full engine. Strategy and Consulting is $4,500 a month on the 90-Day Program and you execute in-house against our map, briefs and QA. Or take the Power Hour at $500 and leave with the prompt map and the sequence, whether or not you ever work with us. We would rather you start correctly at a smaller number than badly at a larger one.
Objection 03
“Our competitors have a decade of links.”
They also have a decade of content written for a search engine that now summarizes it, and a site architecture built for a different era. Links win the head terms you were never going to reach this year. They do not decide who gets named in an AI answer, and they do not decide who owns “best [category] for [your niche]”, which is where your first demos come from.
Objection 04
“What if it does not work?”
Then you will know inside 90 days, from a report that compares actuals to a forecast we published first. We are month to month. The uncomfortable version of this answer is that we would rather lose the retainer than keep charging for a channel the numbers say is not paying.
Fit · Before you fill anything in
Who this works for, and who it doesn’t.
We say no often, and early. Pre-PMF is the most common reason we decline this stage. Reading this saves us both a call.
Great fit
- Pre-seed to seed, with a real productA product in market, paying customers you can describe, and an ICP that has held steady for a couple of quarters.
- A founder who will show upYou or a senior operator can answer product and buyer questions in a working session, not delegate them.
- B2B SaaS with a real categoryA competitor set you can name, and buyers who compare vendors before they choose.
- You can ship changesModern CMS and a willingness to make technical and on-page edits.
- Pipeline is the measureDemos, trials and pipeline are how we are both graded, not sessions.
Also a fit: a founder who has been doing marketing alone and needs the channel to run without them.
Not a fit
- Pre-PMF or still hunting the categoryIf the ICP might change next month, the map changes with it and you would be paying us to rebuild it.
- You need leads next weekPages ship from week two and citations move in weeks, but this is still a 90-day read, not a spigot.
- B2C apps, DTC ecommerce, or local servicesDifferent playbook, different channels. Not our specialty and not our pricing model.
- You want content volume without strategyWrong expectation. We decline these even when the budget is there.
- You can't make on-page or technical changesThe methodology does not work without them.
- Traffic is the KPIIf the goal is sessions and impressions, we will disappoint you on purpose.
- Not willing to let us driveIf every decision needs a committee and a month, the program stalls.
If that’s you, we’ll say so on the first call and point you somewhere better. No sequence, no follow-up.
In their words
The people who signed off on it.
"Justin and his team have been phenomenal from Day 0, and the consistency in quality and the measurable results they have delivered have been a true transformation to our business. We are extremely happy and we have already recommended them to our friends."
"The partnership with Rock The Rankings contributed to clear improvements in organic performance across Canada and Australia, particularly for MoonPay's high-value transactional keywords and pages."
"Rock The Rankings delivered great work for us. We came in with a massive index bloat issue, and Justin and team quickly figured out what needed to be done and helped us implement his suggestions on the site."
"Rock The Rankings have really gone above and beyond, in terms of exceeding our expectations in both their communications and their strategies around marketing. They're very specific at what they do. They've been able to help us get to positions 1 and 2 for our most valuable keywords."
"They simply get SEO: which levers to pull and when. During my search for the right partner I already had a pretty clear idea about what was needed, and they shared a very similar vision."
"The workflow was seamless between our teams. Overall, their process was very close to ours, so it was a great fit from the get-go. Most importantly, we learned a ton from their approach."
"Justin and his team helped us strengthen our SEO strategy, enabling us to adopt a more in-depth and strategic approach, and to better anticipate and organize our content operations."
"We set out to get valuable backlinks and they have just been a fantastic partner in making that happen. It's been an amazing experience working with Rock The Rankings, and I highly recommend that you try them out."
Straight answers
Asked on every call.
If yours isn’t here, bring it to the call. Same unpolished answer either way.
Because we do not start where standard SEO starts. No awareness content, no head terms, no waiting on authority. We start at the queries a buyer uses in the last week of a decision, and we take the AI surfaces first because those score answer fit rather than domain age. Pages ship from week two and the first read is at 90 days against a forecast published before kickoff.
It can, and that is the mechanism this page is built on. Models weight entity clarity, sourced claims and how directly a page answers the question asked, none of which require the link profile Google wants. We are not going to quote you a client number for this yet, because the honest position is that we have seen it work and we are still building the public case study. What we will do is put the citation share on the monthly report so you can watch it, or not.
It usually helps. There is no decade of content decisions to unwind and no traffic to protect, so the map gets built around purchase queries from the start. The forecast is built on your funnel maths, not on a multiple of existing sessions.
Often yes, in parallel. Paid gives you a fast read on messaging and, more usefully to us, a search terms report that shows which queries actually convert. We do not run your paid budget. We read it, and any term that buys demos there earns a page here.
A 60-minute kickoff, a working session on the buyer and the category, and product answers when a page needs them. Roughly two hours a month after week two. If it needs more of you than that, we have designed it wrong.
If you are pre-PMF, if the category is still changing shape, or if you need leads inside a fortnight, do not hire us. This stage rewards founders who have found the buyer and now need the channel that reaches them without the founder in the loop.
Next step
Your GEO plan, built on your numbers.
Give us your domain and your pipeline goal. We map the prompts your buyers are asking, build your GEO marketing plan against them, and forecast the pipeline the next 90 days can realistically produce.
What we walk through