Stage · Series A to Series B
Make organic the line your board counts on.
You have content. You do not have a system behind it. Your first marketing hire is underwater and the board is asking about CAC payback. We rebuild the map around the queries that end in a vendor decision, then report demos and attributed pipeline instead of sessions.
Pipeline from organic and AI search · 4 quarters
The problem you’re living with
You have content. What you do not have is a system.
This is the stage where the channel either becomes a line item the board trusts or a cost nobody can defend. All three of these are usually true at once.
“We got twenty blog posts and no pipeline.”
The last engagement delivered on its scope and produced nothing you could take to a board. Volume was the deliverable, so volume is what arrived, against a keyword list nobody pressure-tested for purchase intent.
One person owns everything.
Your first marketing hire is running SEO, content, lifecycle and the website. There is no shortage of effort and no system: no map, no brief standard, no senior review, no repeatable path from query to booked call.
Nobody can prove CAC payback.
Organic gets credited with whatever the last-touch report says, which is usually too little. AI assistants strip referrers, so the fastest-growing surface you have is the one you can least evidence.
Why it is still broken
More output was never the missing piece.
At this stage the instinct is to add: another agency, another writer, another tool. Each one adds throughput to a map nobody has fixed, and each one costs you a quarter of board patience.
Fix 01 · Hire another agency
The last one did not deliver.
The new team inherits the same keyword map and the same success metric. Month one is an audit, month two is a content plan, month four is the same QBR with a different logo on the deck. Nothing about which queries you chase has changed.
Fix 02 · Publish more
We need to be more consistent.
Consistency against an unfiltered map produces more of the traffic you already had. The new pages compete with the old ones for the same low-intent terms, and the thin ones pull authority off the few pages that were converting.
Fix 03 · Buy an attribution tool
We need better reporting.
A tool inherits the gaps in your data. Self-reported attribution over-credits AI channels wildly and last-touch under-credits organic just as wildly. Without a reconciliation rule, you now have two numbers and no way to choose between them.
Fix 04 · Lean harder on paid
Paid is at least measurable.
Blended cost per demo looks defensible right up to the point the budget flattens. Meanwhile the organic and AI surfaces keep decaying underneath it, so the fix gets more expensive every quarter you delay it.
The diagnosis
Traffic reporting is why the channel keeps losing its budget.
Two things break at this stage and they compound. The map was never filtered, so effort goes to queries that end in an answer rather than a vendor. And attribution is either self-reported, which wildly over-credits, or last-touch, which wildly under-credits. Every query we chase goes through the kill test first: after ChatGPT or Google answers this, does the buyer still need a vendor? Then every demo gets counted under the Two-Witness Rule: a self-reported source is only credited when the CRM can corroborate it.
On one engagement, self-reported attribution claimed 809 AI-sourced leads. The CRM could corroborate 11. That is a 73× gap across 8,307 contacts. Both numbers were real. Only one of them was fundable.
What we actually ship
The system, and the number that proves it worked.
Not a content calendar. A filtered map, the pages buyers decide on, and an attribution model your CFO will sign, run by one senior team against one number.
Rebuild the query and prompt map
Every keyword and prompt runs the kill test before a word is written, so the map only holds queries that end in a vendor decision. The killed list is published, not buried.
- Full query and prompt inventory
- Kill test on every entry
- Paid search terms read for demo evidence
- Killed list published with reasoning
Moves: Share of buying queries
Build the pages buyers decide on
Solution-aware BOFU pages, hand-researched and senior-edited, written for someone who arrives already educated and is choosing between three vendors.
- Solution-aware landing pages
- Use-case and segment pages
- Senior editing on every piece
- Proof modules inside the page
Moves: Demo-intent traffic
Take the comparison surface
Comparisons, alternatives and best-of pages are the last thing a buyer reads. We take the ones you can own and go after the ones third parties control.
- Versus and alternatives pages
- Best-of and roundup inclusion
- Review-site presence
- Competitor claim checks
Moves: Shortlist inclusion
Rebuild the path to the demo
Ranking is half the job. The other half is what the page asks for and how hard you have made it to say yes.
- Offer and CTA placement
- Form length and friction cuts
- Trial path for self-serve motions
- Internal links from proof into the path
Moves: Page to booked call rate
Make it run without one person
The reason the last engagement did not compound is that nothing outlived it. Briefs, standards and review become assets your team keeps.
- Brief standard and template library
- Editorial calendar with owners
- QA and review checklist
- Onboarding for your next hire
Moves: Output that survives a departure
Attribution your CFO will sign
Two-Witness Rule from week one: raw always shown next to corrected, so the number you take to the board holds up when finance pulls the thread.
- CRM and GA4 wiring in week one
- Self-reported source captured at the form
- Corroboration rule applied monthly
- CAC payback modelled by channel
Moves: Budget you can defend
How the 90 days run
Diagnose, wire the measurement, then build in waves.
Same engine as the other stages. What changes here is that attribution ships in week one, because at this stage the number is the deliverable.
Week 1 · Diagnose and wire
CRM and GA4 wiring, the Two-Witness rule configured, technical audit, 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 · Build the waves
Wave one recovers the pages closest to a purchase. Wave two takes comparison and alternatives. Wave three widens into the segments that convert, refreshing wave one as data lands.
Always on · Grade it
Demos, pipeline and source recorded weekly. The monthly report compares actuals to forecast, shows raw next to corrected, and names what changes next.
The scoreboard
What we grade ourselves on.
Set before kickoff on your funnel data, graded monthly in writing. If the model cannot clear a 4× return, we tell you before you spend a dollar.
Counted in your CRM, not in analytics, split by source so the channel stands on its own in front of the board.
Graded monthly vs. forecast
Pipeline traced to a source under the Two-Witness Rule, raw always shown next to corrected. This is the number that defends the budget.
Reported to your board
Modelled on your funnel maths so organic can be compared to paid on the same terms the board uses.
Reported quarterly
Whether the demos are workable. Protects against a volume win sales quietly stops working.
Reported with the raw count
Results · From the monthly reports
Named clients, published numbers.
This is the stage we have the most evidence for. Demos booked, pipeline attributed, and the reconciliation that made both numbers fundable.
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
“We hired an agency and got twenty blog posts and no pipeline.”
We hear this on most first calls at this stage, and it is usually accurate. Here is the structural reason it happened, and what is different about how this one is graded.
Objection 01
“We hired an agency and got twenty blog posts and no pipeline.”
Because the deliverable was posts. Ours is a number, published before kickoff, on your funnel maths, and graded in writing every month with the misses named. The mechanical difference is the kill test: on the reference engagement we tested 412 queries and kept 37, then booked 59 demos against a 10-demo forecast. The previous programme was chasing eleven times more of the map and reaching fewer buyers.
Objection 02
“We already have someone in-house.”
Good, and we would rather you keep them. Most engagements at this stage run as capacity and seniority around that person: we own the map, the briefs and the QA, they own context, product truth and internal coordination. If the constraint is genuinely strategy rather than hours, Strategy and Consulting at $4,500 on the 90-Day Program is the right shape and they execute.
Objection 03
“How do we know the pipeline is real?”
Because we show you both numbers. Self-reported attribution is captured at the form and treated as a claim, not a fact, and only credited when the CRM can corroborate it. On one engagement that turned 809 claimed AI leads into 11 defensible ones. That number is smaller and it survives a CFO reading it closely, which is the only kind worth reporting.
Objection 04
“Our board wants results this quarter.”
Pages ship from week two and citations move in weeks. Demos usually move inside the 90 days. What we will not do is promise a closed-won number in a category with a 90-day cycle, because the maths does not allow it. You get leading indicators monthly, and the forecast says which quarter the pipeline should land in before you sign.
Fit · Before you fill anything in
Who this works for, and who it doesn’t.
We say no often, and early. The most common decline at this stage is a team that wants output rather than a system. Reading this saves us both a call.
Great fit
- Series A to Series B, $2-3M to $20M ARRA working sales motion, a demo or trial path, and a sales team that actually works the inbound queue.
- Someone owns the numberA VP Marketing or Head of Growth accountable for pipeline, usually with one under-resourced content or SEO person underneath.
- You want the system, not just the pagesBriefs, standards and review that outlive the engagement and onboard your next hire.
- 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 team that has already been burned by a content-volume engagement and needs a number the board will believe.
Not a fit
- You want a content vendorIf the ask is a fixed number of posts a month against a keyword list, we are the wrong shape and more expensive than the right one.
- Sales will not work inboundIf the queue is ignored, better demos will not fix it and we will be graded on something outside our control.
- 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 the deliverable is a number, not a page count. The forecast is published before kickoff on your funnel data and graded in writing monthly, misses included. Mechanically, the difference is the kill test on the map: 412 queries tested, 37 kept, 59 demos booked against a forecast of 10 on the reference engagement. Same effort, aimed at a tenth of the map.
Pages ship from week two, citations move in weeks, and demos usually move inside the 90 days. In categories with 90 to 120 day cycles you see the leading indicators first: demo requests from named accounts, then closed pipeline a quarter behind.
A demo is only credited to a source when two independent records agree: what the buyer self-reported at the form, and what your CRM and analytics can corroborate. It exists because self-reported data over-credits AI channels enormously and last-touch under-credits organic. We report raw next to corrected every month so nobody has to take our word for the delta.
No, and we will say so on the call if that is what you are hoping for. They keep product truth, internal coordination and institutional context. We bring the map, the brief standard, senior editorial capacity and the attribution model. If the honest need is a full-time hire rather than an agency, we will tell you that too.
We do not run your paid budget. We do read it, because your search terms report is the cheapest available evidence of which queries convert to demos. If a term buys demos on paid, it earns a page.
You get a re-forecast against actuals and a decision point. Roughly half of engagements move up a tier because the constraint has shifted from strategy to capacity. We are month to month either way, and we would rather you leave than renew into a channel the numbers say is not paying.
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