Client setup now says which steps are yours and which are ours

The setup checklist splits into the steps an agency does and the steps our team carries, and the Google accounts row names the account that is still missing. Underneath, our agents learned to work more directories and to read pages as words instead of markup.

Most of today was underneath: directory listings and the agents that write briefs. On the surface, the changes all came from things partners said out loud on calls this month.

For our partners

1. The client setup checklist now shows two lists: the steps you set up and the steps we carry from there.
2. The “Google accounts confirmed” row names the account that is still missing and links to the page that fixes it.
3. When a plan goes back for approval after your feedback, the notice reaches you.
4. Pasting a few hundred keywords keeps the Add keywords button in view, and the discovery request form now submits only from its button.

1. Who owns which setup step

The strategic alignment checklist used to list all twelve steps in one box with no owner, so it was not obvious where your part ended. It now reads as two boxes. Yours holds the things that need your knowledge of the business: the profile, the brief, competitors, the goal, the Google accounts and the locations. Ours holds keyword research, tracking, mapping, the technical audit, work plans and monitoring. The client portal keeps its single list.

3. Approval notices

A partner told us that a notice about a plan coming back for approval had not arrived. That is resolved. The notice is now recorded first and sent afterwards, and a send that does not go through raises an alert on our side instead of passing quietly.

Behind the scenes

Most of the day went into listings. For a growing set of directories, an agent now opens the account, fills in the business details, follows the confirmation email and stops only where the site asks for something a person has to give: an identity document, a PIN read off the business phone, a category judgement nothing on the record can answer. Each of those stops hands over with the form already filled and written instructions for the next step. Where a site refuses an automated browser outright, we record its steps in plain language instead of pretending. Directories also gained correction, takedown and duplicate-report paths, so a wrong listing can be put right, not just created, and every form now carries the business’s own contact person rather than anyone on our team.

The brief writer changed how it reads. A ranking page is mostly markup and the markup carries no meaning, so we had it read pages as words: about a tenth of the characters, with the same counts, quotes and sources coming out in the brief. We also made the brief name the piece. The working title is a keyword placeholder, and writers were choosing between two titles; now the title comes from what the piece actually covers.

Underneath the app, a client can hold more than one thing. A website now belongs to the client rather than to the SEO campaign, and each thing a client buys is recorded as its own line with its own definition and scope, so a one-time project can sit beside ongoing work instead of bolting onto it. Every existing campaign behaves exactly as it did.