Short answer
Follow a 90-day plan. In month one, fix the foundations so Google and AI assistants can read your site. In month two, write useful pages and strengthen your local presence. In month three, prepare for AI answers and set up simple measurement. It takes a few hours a week and no agency, and nobody can promise results: expect early signals in weeks and real movement in months.
How is the 90-day plan built?
The order follows what has to be true before the next step can work: a site that can be found and read (month 1), pages worth finding (month 2), and a way to see whether people and AI assistants are finding them (month 3). It also fits the expectations for 2027, which are expectations and not facts: search stays large, AI answers and agents grow, citations join rankings and original content gains value. Read what SEO may look like in 2027 for the reasoning.
Month 1 (days 1 to 30): foundations and fixes
- Get your site into Google
Set up Google Search Console, submit your sitemap and look for pages that are not indexed. Getting indexed explains the steps.
- Run an audit and fix the top problems
Broken pages, missing titles and descriptions, slow or hard-to-use mobile pages come first. What an SEO audit checks lists them.
- Make your business facts identical everywhere
Use the same name, address, phone, hours and services on your site, your Google Business Profile and directories.
- Check you are not blocking anyone
Make sure robots.txt and your host's bot protection do not turn away Google or the AI crawlers you want. Blocking training bots does not remove you from Google Search, so that choice is yours.
Month 2 (days 31 to 60): content and local
- Build one strong page per service
State who it is for, what it costs or a price range, how long it takes and where you work, with your own photos.
- Answer real customer questions
Turn the questions customers actually ask into a FAQ page, each with a short direct answer first. This suits Google and AI assistants alike.
- Complete your local profile
Fill in every field of your Google Business Profile, ask happy customers for honest reviews and reply to each one.
- Show who is behind the site
Add an About page, named authors, a contact page and clear policies. E-E-A-T explains why trust signals matter.
Month 3 (days 61 to 90): AI-answer readiness and measurement
- Add original facts
Publish numbers only you have, such as typical turnaround, prices or what you learned from past jobs. The 2024 GEO paper linked statistics and cited sources to higher visibility in generative answers.
- Ask the assistants
Write ten questions a customer might ask, put them to ChatGPT, Gemini and Perplexity, and note whether you are named or cited. Repeat monthly. See AI visibility.
- Measure the basics
Track impressions and clicks in Search Console, and count calls, forms and bookings. Ignore daily rank changes.
- Refresh and plan
Update anything stale and choose the next 90 days from what the data shows.
What can you safely ignore?
- llms.txt as a priority. Google says it does not use it for Search, and Ahrefs found 97% of such files got zero requests in a study of 137,210 domains in May 2026. It is a cheap extra, not a plan.
- Bought backlinks and keyword stuffing. Earn links instead, as getting backlinks without buying them explains. Stuffing was the worst of the nine tactics in the GEO paper.
- Promises of a top spot in ChatGPT. Nobody can guarantee one.
- Mass AI-written pages. Google's spam policy targets scaled content made mainly to manipulate rankings, however it is produced.
What does it cost in time, and what should you expect?
Plan on roughly three to five hours a week for the 90 days, which is a rough estimate and not a measured figure. Most of the tools you need are free: Search Console, a Google Business Profile and a spreadsheet. Arcline's Free plan costs nothing and covers one website with a scan, scores and a to-do list (see pricing); Premium, which adds the autopilot and AI-answer tracking, is $9 per month, and you can cancel any time.
On results, be realistic. Early signals such as more impressions often appear within weeks, and real movement usually takes months, as how long SEO takes explains. A competitive market takes longer. Treat the 90 days as the start of a habit, not a finish line, and review the plan each quarter as the search picture changes through 2027.