What to Do in Your First 90 Days of SEO
Most people spend the first 90 days of SEO writing blog posts. That is roughly the fourth thing on the list, and doing it first wastes months.
This is a first 90 days of SEO plan built for a Kenyan small business with no budget for tools and about two hours a week. It runs in order, because each month depends on the one before it.
First 90 Days of SEO, Month One: Fix and Claim
Nothing you publish matters while the foundations are broken.
Week one. Verify Google Search Console and confirm your site is indexed. Run the site search on your domain. Where nothing appears, find the block before doing anything else. Our post on checking whether Google indexed your website covers the causes.
Week two. Claim and verify your Google Business Profile. Complete every field, add ten photographs, set correct hours. For most Kenyan small businesses this is the single highest-return task in the whole ninety days.
Week three. Test your site on mobile data and time the load. Compress every image, remove plugins you do not use.
Week four. Fix your page titles. Each page needs a title naming what it is and where you are. Check that your business name, address and phone number match exactly everywhere they appear.
By the end of month one nothing has visibly changed. That is expected.
Month Two: Listen and Write
Now the foundations hold, work out what to publish.
Week five. Read your last fifty WhatsApp enquiries and write down every recurring question in the customer’s words. Add Google’s autocomplete suggestions and related searches. Our post on choosing keywords without tools covers the sources.
Week six. Sort your list by buying intent and specificity. Pick the five strongest.
Weeks seven and eight. Write two pages properly. One question per page, answered completely, in plain language. Two good pages beat eight thin ones.
Month Three: Extend and Ask
Week nine. Write two more pages from your list.
Week ten. Ask for links. Contact three suppliers, your professional association, and one client who publishes a website. Our post on earning first backlinks covers who to ask.
Week eleven. Ask five recent customers for a review on your listing, and reply to every review you have.
Week twelve. Open Search Console and read the queries report. Note which terms bring impressions without clicks, and rewrite those titles.
What You Should See by Day 90
Be realistic about the first 90 days of SEO, because traffic lags everything else.
Expect impressions rising, new queries appearing in Search Console, your listing showing for local searches, and perhaps the first enquiries attributable to search. Expect not to rank for your main commercial term yet.
Our post on how long SEO takes to work explains why month four is when most businesses quit and why that is the wrong moment.
What Not to Do in the First 90 Days
Do not buy links.
Do not publish daily. Volume without foundations is wasted effort.
Do not redesign. Changing everything makes it impossible to tell what worked.
Do not hire a monthly retainer before the basics are done, since a good agency will simply do these tasks and bill you.
Do not judge on traffic alone. Enquiries are the measure.
The Routine After Day 90
Two pages a month. One link request a month. A monthly fifteen minute Search Console review. Listing photographs updated monthly.
That routine, held for a year, puts most Kenyan small businesses ahead of their local competition. It is unglamorous and it compounds.
Frequently Asked Questions
Can I do the first 90 days of SEO myself? Yes. Everything here uses free tools and needs about two hours a week.
What if I have no website yet? Build it first, with clean structure and indexing configured. Our guide to getting a website in Kenya covers the components.
Should I run ads at the same time? Optional. Ads buy immediate traffic and teach you which terms convert, which informs your pages.
What if nothing happens by day 90? Check indexing again first. Genuine stagnation after six months warrants an audit.
How many pages should I have by day 90? Four new ones, written properly.
Is this enough for a competitive market? It is the correct foundation. Contested markets need more months, not different steps.
Order Matters More Than Effort
The first 90 days of SEO works because it fixes before it publishes, and listens before it writes. Two hours a week, in the right order, beats ten hours a week in the wrong one.
At Africa Web Experts month one is handled during the build. From KES 65,000, live in seventy two hours, with search setup and Search Console configured on launch day.
