Client Onboarding (9 steps)

When you add a client, the project opens into a locked onboarding journey instead of the workspace. You work through nine steps — with an AI research team drafting most of them for you — and the workspace unlocks at kickoff. This page is what the "View onboarding guide" link in that sidebar points to.

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Why it's locked

The whole strategy is keyword-grounded. Approving a plan before anyone has chosen what the client should rank for approves nothing, and a workspace full of tabs before that point is just noise. So the journey runs first, in order, and the workspace opens once you kick off.

Progress is derived from what you've actually saved, never from screens clicked past. Leaving and coming back lands you on the step you were on, and you can revisit any completed step from the rail without re-locking anything after it.

Two ways through: AI Guided or Manual

AI Guided Discovery (recommended) asks for one thing the agents can't derive — the client's market (country, optionally a city) — then a team of six specialist agents researches the business from its own site and real search data: a business profile, competitors, keywords, technical findings, content gaps and a ranked action plan. It takes 6–12 minutes; you'll get an email and can close the tab.

When it finishes, a "Your Discovery Team is back" card summarises what was found — business read with a confidence score, competitors drafted (plus any SERP giants deliberately flagged as benchmarks rather than rivals), keywords found and shortlisted, technical issues, content gaps — and everything lands in the steps below as editable drafts, each labelled with its source and evidence. Nothing is locked without you; steps 8 and 9 always stay human.

Manual works the same nine steps by hand; "Read the site" pre-fills the business profile from the client's homepage.

The nine steps

1 · Business Understanding

Who the client is, and the Client Mission — the single outcome this engagement exists to move; every later recommendation ties back to it. The profile (name, logo, industry, business model, description, services, location) feeds the AI that writes keywords, content and fixes — fuller answers here mean better output everywhere.

The "What an enquiry is worth" section is optional: it turns findings into client money on the proposal and reports ("+40 visits/mo" becomes "≈ ₹58,000/yr"), and your hourly rate powers the agency-only ROI view. Skip it and conservative defaults apply.

2 · Competitors

The rivals to measure this client against — up to your plan's limit, each crawled with the same engine as the client's own site. AI-drafted competitors carry a one-line why (which searches they appeared for, and how their size compares), and domains that rank everywhere but aren't real rivals — platforms, media sites, giants far outside the client's size range — are listed separately as benchmarks, not competitors.

"Analyse competitors" states its live-data cost before you click, then fills in share of search, the keyword gap, and shared link sources.

3 · Access & Tracking

What you can actually see into: Search Console, Analytics, Business Profile and the CMS — connected, requested (with the date, so "they never sent it" is a record, not an argument), or not asked yet — plus who ships the technical fixes. Nothing here blocks you, but a promise made without this is a promise made blind.

4 · Keyword Research — the lock

One recommended list, shown the moment the step opens: keywords found on the client's site and the Discovery run's researched shortlist, each with real search volume and a difficulty meter. Pick, swap, import a Semrush/Ahrefs export, generate more ideas, or add your own; agree the list with the client via a review link if you like.

Locking is the real gate of the journey, and it asks for a deliberate confirmation: the site strategy, page mapping and the proposal your client signs are all built from this set, and the approved plan keeps this exact set as what was agreed. You can still adjust keywords later from the workspace — but that means re-planning, so lock when you and the client are settled.

5 · Website Strategy

Computed from the client's real crawl: what to fix in order (with owner), how their site's structure compares to the competitors', which locked keywords have no page, the proposed target structure, internal linking, and what AI assistants say about them today. Panels that are waiting on data say so — nothing here is a sample.

6 · Proposal & Plan

The scope and sequence you'll present — led by "What this could be worth", a yearly value range computed from the client's own economics and sized keywords, with its assumptions printed so the client can argue with them. "What's realistically winnable" splits near-term targets from ones that need authority first. Under Put it in writing, you record the engagement scope and the success targets (KPIs) the client will sign — a metric without a reading yet is kept as baseline pending and starts measuring when its source connects.

7 · Page Mapping

Which page owns which keyword. The Content Strategist's proposed pages are listed for per-row accept (or accept all), and contested keywords — two of the client's pages competing for one search — get a "Make owner" control; resolving those is usually the fastest win of the first month.

8 · Approval

The sign-off. Four attestations you tick (including that you've walked the client through the quiet first two months), a live ledger of which steps were actually reviewed (each un-reviewed row jumps you straight there), and the KPI promises restated. Approving writes an immutable record — changing the plan later never rewrites what the client agreed to.

9 · Kickoff

A recap of what this onboarding produced — audit score, keywords locked, competitors under watch, targets signed — plus client reporting setup (cadence and recipients; empty reports are skipped rather than sent with your logo on them) and the client's single always-live report link. Finish onboarding & open workspace stamps kickoff, ends onboarding for this client permanently, freezes the baseline readings your progress is measured from, and opens the workspace — where a short tour points out the Action Center, the business-impact numbers and the Share-with-client button.

Existing sites

Sites added before this journey existed, and non-agency plans, use the lighter setup described in Setup & This Week.