Strategy is the part most businesses skip because it does not produce anything you can look at. Then a year later there is a website, a Google Ads account, an Instagram, an email list, and no answer to the question of who this is all for and why they should pick you.
SEO sits inside marketing strategy, not above it. If the positioning is wrong, ranking first for the wrong query just gets you found faster by people who will not buy.
What a strategy engagement covers
- Who the customer actually is, as opposed to who the business wishes it sold to. This is usually where the surprises are.
- Lifetime value over immediate return. Optimizing for this month’s ROAS is how companies talk themselves out of the channels that compound. Organic search is the clearest example.
- Channel fit. Some businesses should not be doing SEO first. If your demand is entirely referral-driven, or your category has no search volume, I would rather tell you that than sell you a year of it.
- Positioning and messaging, to the point where the website can say something specific instead of “quality service since 2011.”
Where this comes from
I spent a year at the Kellogg School of Business studying strategic marketing, alongside more than 15 years of doing the execution side. The combination is the useful part: strategy from someone who has never had to implement it tends to be unimplementable.
Strategy work is quoted separately from the 12-month SEO program. Many clients do not need it — their positioning is fine and they need execution. Start with a free audit and we will find out which one you are.