Building a digital brand isn’t as simple as “run ads” or “write content” anymore. It’s crowded everywhere: search results, paid auctions, social feeds, even email.
Most founders end up stuck in the same loop: you need results quickly, but the only way to get cheaper, steadier growth long-term is to build the boring foundations first. And when your team is small, those foundations are usually the first thing to slip.
Tracking is half-broken. Landing pages are “good enough.” Content exists, but it doesn’t match what people are actually searching for. Ads run, but every test changes ten things at once, so you never really learn what worked.
That’s why a 90-day plan helps. Not because it’s magic — but because it forces the right order of operations:
fix measurement
run a few clean tests
scale only what earns the right to scale
This guide walks through an integrated seo ppc 90 day plan that combines technical SEO, paid media testing, and conversion improvements under one measurement setup — so growth becomes something you can repeat.
This approach works best if you sell something people can buy (or sign up for) without a six-month sales cycle:
DTC ecommerce (including subscriptions)
Lead gen (services or SaaS with a clear “request a quote / book a call / submit form” event)
Subscription products where conversion and retention signals matter early
You’ll get the most value if you can ship changes weekly — landing pages, tracking, creative, content — and you’re open to running SEO and paid together instead of treating them like separate worlds.
Good to have (not required):
1 marketer + someone who can edit the site (or an agency)
GA4 + Search Console + at least one paid platform (Google Ads and/or Meta)
enough paid traffic to generate a few hundred clicks a week when you test
SEO and paid are better as a pair.
Paid gives you fast feedback. You can test messaging, pricing angles, offers, and audiences in days. SEO is slower, but when it works it keeps bringing in qualified traffic without paying for every click.
If you only do one, you usually end up in one of these traps:
Paid-only: results can come fast, but costs creep up and you’re always “renting” traffic
SEO-only: cheaper over time, but slow to learn what people actually respond to
When you run them together, they feed each other:
paid search terms and audience signals help you write better pages
better pages convert more, which makes paid cheaper
SEO pages reduce dependency on paid over time
That’s the core idea behind this roadmap.
By the end of 90 days, you should have:
tracking you trust (so you’re not guessing)
landing pages built around real intent (not generic home page traffic)
paid tests that actually teach you something
content that supports the funnel instead of floating on its own
a simple way to decide what gets budget next month
Marketing hasn’t stopped working — it’s just less forgiving than it used to be.
Platforms give you less data than before. Search results are more crowded and full of “answer boxes.” Social platforms push you toward broad targeting. Mobile experience matters more than ever, and people bounce fast when a page feels slow or vague.
A lot of brands are sitting in the same middle ground:
tags are installed but not audited
conversions exist but don’t map cleanly to the funnel
content targets broad keywords instead of buyer questions
budgets are spread across too many channels without clear winners
If you’ve felt like “we’re doing a lot but nothing compounds,” it’s usually one of those issues.
Typical early-test ranges (use these as a sanity check, not a promise):
Search CPC: $0.80–$3.50
Social CPC: $0.60–$1.80
TOFU conversion rate: ~0.5%–1.5%
BOFU conversion rate: ~2%–5%
Blended ROAS: ~2–4 once you find fit between audience, offer, and page
Most brands don’t fail because they lack tactics. They fail because the basics leak money and hide the signal.
People click, land, and bounce because the page is too generic or doesn’t answer what they came for.
UTMs are messy. Conversion events fire inconsistently. Different platforms tell different stories.
You can have great creative and still lose because the page takes too long to load or feels clunky.
If value is unclear and proof is missing, you pay more for clicks and less converts.
Too many changes at once, no clean control, no stop rules — so you spend and learn nothing.
Before you run experiments, agree on what “good” means.
Pick one main goal:
purchases (ecommerce)
qualified leads (lead gen)
paid signups (SaaS)
Then track a short list every week:
Revenue (or qualified leads)
CAC / CPA
ROAS (for ecommerce)
Payback period (how fast you earn back acquisition costs)
CPC (cost per click)
CTR (click-through rate)
CVR (conversion rate)
AOV (average order value)
Retention signals (repeat orders, churn, renewals)
one primary conversion per funnel step (purchase or lead submit)
consistent UTMs (source/medium/campaign/content/creative)
ad platforms and GA4 agree on event names + values
If you can’t answer “what did we spend and what did we get back?” without arguing about attribution, pause and fix tracking first. Otherwise you’ll scale guesses.
Month 1 isn’t about clever tactics. It’s about removing the stuff that makes every channel feel expensive.
The goal is to set up:
tracking that doesn’t lie
landing pages that match intent
content that pulls qualified traffic
paid tests clean enough to learn from
Set up GA4 with a documented event model
Configure key conversions:
ecommerce: add_to_cart, begin_checkout, purchase
lead gen: form submit, booked call, qualified lead
Make conversion values consistent (so CAC/ROAS math is real)
Standardize your UTMs across every campaign
Verify cross-domain tracking if you use multiple domains/subdomains
If you have the setup for it, consider server-side tagging
You don’t need a fancy BI stack. You need visibility.
Connect:
Google Search Console
Google Ads and/or Meta
Merchant Center/product feed if you’re ecommerce
Build a simple dashboard showing:
spend
sessions
conversion rate
CAC/CPA
ROAS (if ecommerce)
You’re not doing a full technical dissertation here. You’re doing fixes that unblock rankings and reduce bounce.
Focus on:
indexation: noindex thin pages, canonicalize duplicates
clean XML sitemap
fix top crawl errors
compress images, lazy-load below the fold
improve Core Web Vitals:
LCP < 2.5s
CLS < 0.1
If your pages load slowly on mobile, you’re paying a tax everywhere — rankings, paid efficiency, and conversion.
Before you build pages and ads, decide what you’re actually saying.
Write down:
jobs-to-be-done statements (why people buy)
3 value propositions (short, sharp, distinct)
2 proof types:
social (reviews, testimonials, press)
technical (numbers, guarantees, certifications)
1 primary CTA per page
This keeps your ads, landing pages, and content from drifting.
You need more than one generic page. You need pages that match intent.
Ship at least 3:
Problem–solution page (pain → mechanism → outcomes)
Comparison page (vs alternatives/competitors)
Offer page (BOFU) with risk reversal + trust marks
Add email capture:
exit intent or embedded capture
lead magnet / incentive (discount, guide, calculator, checklist)
Create 5 briefs around real buyer intent:
“how does X work”
“X vs Y”
“best X for [use case]”
“is X worth it”
“common mistakes when doing X”
Each piece should:
answer the query fully
link internally to the right landing page
include a single CTA (don’t clutter it)
add FAQ schema if it fits naturally
Month 1 ends with a plan, not a messy launch.
Define:
hypothesis
success metric
guardrails (when you stop)
landing page mapped to that hypothesis
Example:
“Audience A + value prop X + landing page B will produce CVR ≥ 3% with CPC ≤ $1.50.”
Month 2 is about learning fast while building organic momentum.
Search is where you find the “ready to buy” people.
Set it up clean:
2–3 tightly themed ad groups per core intent
start with exact + phrase match
add 20–40 negatives early
write 3 responsive ads per group with different angles:
urgency
proof
savings
Keep budgets modest at first. The goal isn’t scale — it’s signal.
Social is less about perfect targeting now and more about creative + message fit.
Build:
TOFU: broad/interest with 2 concepts × 3 variants
MOFU: retarget visitors and video viewers with proof + reminder
Don’t overcomplicate it. Two good concepts beat twelve average ones.
Publish the 5 planned posts and get them indexed.
Make sure:
each post targets a distinct intent
internal links point to the right commercial pages
each post has one CTA
you track assisted conversions in GA4 (even if imperfect)
Pick your highest-traffic landing page and test improvements.
Common wins:
rewrite hero (benefit + proof)
simplify pricing and remove “decision friction”
strengthen risk reversal (trial, guarantee, clarity on returns/shipping)
shorten forms / reduce steps
Rules:
don’t change 10 things at once
run tests long enough to matter
document outcome, even if it “failed”
Every week you should do:
export search terms
add negatives
spot new keyword opportunities
feed insights back into:
landing pages
ad copy
new content ideas
Add heatmaps/session recordings on key pages and a short on-site survey to capture objections in plain language.
If you sell products, your feed is a growth lever.
Clean up:
titles: brand + product type + differentiator
disapprovals and broken attributes
separate bestsellers into a focused test campaign
Month 3 is where most teams either make the jump or stall out.
The difference: do you scale what’s working, or do you restart with “new ideas” and lose momentum?
Increase budgets slowly:
20–30% per week on winners that hit CPA/ROAS thresholds
Expand carefully:
add match types only after you’ve stabilized performance
duplicate top performers into experiments:
bidding strategy tests
landing page variant tests
Once your core pages work, expand into:
competitor and alternative queries
comparison pages for the main “vs” options
BOFU content like:
“best alternatives to X”
“X for [use case]”
“reviews / results / proof-based use cases”
These tend to convert better than generic “what is…” content.
If you only focus on acquisition, CAC usually climbs again.
Implement:
cart recovery sequence
post-purchase onboarding email
simple lifecycle nudges (bundles, reorder reminders, upgrades)
If it fits your product, add a quiz/guided finder. These often lift conversion because they remove decision overwhelm.
You don’t need “100 backlinks.” You need a few relevant ones.
Aim for 3–5 placements via:
partnerships
podcasts/newsletters in the niche
pitching data stories (simple but useful insights)
Then strengthen proof on your best pages:
testimonials
badges
real examples
before/after outcomes
Once the basics are fixed, the next 10–20% of performance improvements are often “cheap wins”:
image CDN or next-gen formats
preconnect critical domains
optimize fonts
fix mobile tap targets
reduce form friction
At the end of 90 days, you should have real inputs:
which messages convert
which audiences buy
which pages work
what CAC and ROAS look like on winners
early signals of LTV and retention
That’s what your next plan should be based on — not vibes.
These are ranges you can use to spot obvious problems:
Organic CTR: ~3–8% by month 3 on branded + BOFU pages
CPC ranges:
Search: ~$0.80–$3.50
Social: ~$0.60–$1.80
Conversion rates (qualified traffic):
ecommerce checkout: ~2–5%
lead gen forms: ~5–12%
ROAS trajectory (common pattern when fit emerges):
Month 2 winners: ~1.5–2.5
Month 3 winners: ~2.5–4.0
If you’re far outside these, it doesn’t mean you’re doomed — it usually means one lever is off:
intent match, offer clarity, page speed, or tracking.
A new DTC wellness brand sells a $48/month supplement. Before the plan:
18,000 monthly sessions
1.2% conversion rate
AOV $53
attribution unreliable, no usable CAC
65% gross margin, target payback within 90 days
Month 1:
They set up GA4 with purchase values, cleaned up UTMs, and verified conversion events. They reduced index bloat, compressed images, and hit an average LCP of 2.2s. They launched three landing pages (problem–solution, comparison, offer page with 15% first order incentive), briefed five intent posts, and built a simple dashboard.
Month 2:
Search targeted three intent clusters (energy, focus support, brand terms) and stabilized at ~$1.35 CPC. Social tested two angles (expert-backed and customer stories) at ~$0.92 CPC. The comparison page converted at 3.4% and the offer page at 2.7%. Bundles lifted AOV to $57. Paid CAC averaged $36 by week 4. Organic content drove meaningful assisted conversions.
Month 3:
They scaled search budgets ~25% on winning ad groups, added competitor comparisons, and launched a retargeted bundle offer. A quiz increased email capture from 2.3% to 5.8%. Checkout conversion improved to 2.9% after simplifying PDP messaging. Paid CAC dropped to $31 with ROAS at 2.9. Organic sessions grew to 24,000 and branded CTR reached 12%.
The big takeaway: it wasn’t one “hack.” It was fixing measurement, matching intent, and scaling the few things that actually worked.
Keep it simple and consistent:
limit the number of active tests
publish content on a schedule
add stop rules so you don’t bleed budget
document everything
Weekly readout (30–45 minutes):
spend and pacing
CPC + CTR (what’s happening)
CVR + CAC/CPA + ROAS (what it’s producing)
what you learned
what you change next week
Archive every test with:
goal
setup
result
next action
The point is to build a system where every improvement helps everything else — SEO, paid, and CRO moving together.
If you want this adapted to your category, pricing, and data maturity, the fastest path is a focused engagement:
Audit + 90-day plan (tracking, SEO, paid, CRO priorities)
Implementation support (weekly sprints)
Training (so your team can repeat the system)
Send your site URL + your rough monthly budget range and I’ll outline what Week 1–2 should look like for your business.