What Should an SEO Agency Do in the First 90 Days? A Deliverables Checklist

The short answer

In the first 90 days a good SEO agency should audit your site and baseline your numbers (month one), fix the technical and on-page problems that block rankings and align your Google Business Profile (month two), and publish the first new content while starting citation and link work (month three). You should see a written plan, every change logged, and a report that compares month three to the baseline. Ranking jumps inside 90 days are a bonus, not the test; the test is whether the groundwork is visibly done.

What should an SEO agency do before touching your site?

The first fortnight is about access and evidence, not changes. If an agency starts rewriting pages in week one, it is guessing.

Expect them to ask for access to Google Search Console, your analytics, your Business Profile and your website's content system. Google's own hiring guide makes a useful point here: during an audit, grant read access to Search Console, not write access. Full access comes once you have agreed a plan.

Expect them to record a baseline: organic clicks and impressions by page, which queries already bring traffic, how many pages Google has indexed, how many calls and direction requests your Business Profile logs, and how many enquiries your forms produce. Without this, the month-three report has nothing to compare against.

And expect questions about your business. Google's guide says a good SEO should be "interested in you and your business" and ask what makes it unique, who your competitors are and how customers find you. An agency that skips this will optimise for the wrong searches.

Month one: audit, keyword map, written plan

By day 30 you should hold three documents.

1. A technical and content audit. Which pages are indexed and which are not, crawl errors, broken redirects, duplicate titles, slow templates, thin or missing service pages. Google's Search Essentials describe the technical requirements a page must meet to appear in Search and the spam policies that get sites demoted; the audit should check your site against both.
2. A keyword and intent map. A list of the searches worth ranking for, each assigned to one page, each labelled by search intent (someone ready to hire versus someone researching). This is the document that stops two pages competing for the same term.
3. A prioritised plan with owners and dates. What gets fixed first, what the agency does, what needs your developer or your approval, and what "done" looks like for each item.

A month-one invoice without these three documents is the first warning sign. You are paying for discovery, so you should own the findings.

Month two: technical fixes and on-page work on the pages that matter

Month two is when changes start, in priority order from the audit.

• Indexing and crawl problems fixed first, because a page Google cannot read cannot rank.
• On-page work on your top ten pages: title tags, headings, first-paragraph clarity, internal links between related services, and images with descriptive alt text. Google's best practices put it simply: use the words people would use to look for your content, and place them in prominent locations.
• Structured data added where it fits. For a local business, Google's LocalBusiness markup requires name and address and recommends geo coordinates, opening hours, telephone and URL. Our guide to schema types worth adding covers the rest.
• Business Profile alignment: primary category, services, hours and address matched to the website. Whitespark's 2026 ranking factors survey rated the primary category the single strongest local pack signal, so this is not housekeeping. Our local SEO work treats the profile and the site as one project for that reason.
• Content briefs written and approved for the pages month three will publish.

Every change should be logged with the date and the page. Google's guide lists "will you share with me all the changes you make to my site?" as a question to ask before hiring; by month two you should be seeing the answer in practice.

Month three: first content live, outreach started, first honest report

By day 90 the first new or rewritten pages should be published and submitted for indexing, and the slower work (citations on the directories that matter, outreach to local organisations for links, a review-request routine) should have begun. Links and citations take months to pay off, so starting them in month three rather than month six matters.

The month-three report is the real deliverable. It should compare against the month-one baseline and focus on leading indicators, because rankings lag: more pages indexed, more queries showing impressions, early movement for long-tail terms, and the list of what shipped. Google's starter guide is frank that some changes take effect in hours and others take several months; our article on what happens in months 1, 6 and 12 sets out the usual pattern. If the agency promised page-one rankings by day 90, re-read the warning signs below.

Warning signs, from Google's own hiring guide and from experience

Warning sign	Why it matters	What to ask
Guaranteed rankings	Google states that "no one can guarantee a #1 ranking on Google"	"What do you expect, and in what timeframe?"
Claims of a special relationship with Google or "priority submission"	Google lists both as things to be wary of; neither exists	"Show me where Google documents this"
Secrecy about methods	Google warns against firms that "won't clearly explain what they intend to do"	"Walk me through month one, step by step"
Talk of link schemes or submitting to thousands of search engines	Both are named in Google's guide; link schemes breach its spam policies	"How will you earn links, and from whom?"
The agency owns the content, the site or the accounts	If you leave, you lose the work you paid for	"Confirm in writing that I own everything"
Reports that show only rankings	Rankings without traffic and enquiries are vanity numbers	"Show me leads by page, against the baseline"
Unsolicited approach	Google advises caution with firms that email "out of the blue"	Check references and work in your city and industry

Price alone is not a warning sign in either direction; our breakdown of what SEO costs in Canada explains why retainers vary so widely. If you also handle local search, our 20-point local SEO checklist is a handy way to audit what the agency has and has not done by day 90.

Key takeaways

• Month one should end with an audit, a keyword and intent map and a written plan that you own.
• Month two should show logged technical and on-page fixes on your most important pages, plus a Business Profile that matches the site.
• Month three should show published content, outreach under way and a report against the baseline that focuses on leading indicators.
• Guaranteed rankings, secrecy, link schemes and agency-owned accounts are the warning signs Google itself tells you to watch for.

Frequently asked questions

Should I expect ranking improvements within 90 days?

Sometimes, especially for long-tail terms and for sites with obvious technical problems. But Google's guidance is that changes can take months to show, so judge the first 90 days by the work completed and the leading indicators, not by page-one positions.

What should an SEO agency report each month?

What changed on the site (with dates), organic clicks and impressions versus the baseline, indexed pages, enquiries or calls attributed to organic search, and what is planned next. A report of keyword positions alone tells you little about revenue.

Is it a problem if the agency wants admin access to everything on day one?

For an audit, read access is enough, and Google's hiring guide says so. Grant wider access once you have agreed a plan, keep ownership of every account in your name, and remove access promptly if the engagement ends.

Sources

1. Do You Need an SEO? Tips for Hiring an SEO — Google Search Central
2. Google Search Essentials (formerly Webmaster Guidelines) — Google Search Central
3. Local Business (LocalBusiness) Structured Data — Google Search Central
4. Whitespark's Official 2026 Local Search Ranking Factors Report — Whitespark, November 6, 2025
5. Search Engine Optimization (SEO) Starter Guide — Google Search Central

How Flowmatix can help

We put this into practice for businesses in Toronto and around the world through our SEO & Performance Optimization services. Want to know what it would take for your business? Get a personalised quote in about 3 minutes.