You built it. Now make them find it.
Every site you launch has the same afterlife. It goes live, the client is delighted, and six months later they quietly wonder why the phone didn't change.
That gap is the most valuable thing on your client list, and it's usually handed to somebody else.
Project revenue
Every January starts at zero
A good year and a bad year look identical in July. The pipeline is only ever as long as the next signed proposal.
You're never more than one quiet month from worrying.
Plus recurring
The same clients, still paying
Every launch adds a floor rather than a spike. Build work still happens on top — it just stops being the only thing holding the year up.
The base grows with every site you ship.
Illustrative shapes, not a promise. The point is which one you'd rather own.
Nobody commissions a website to have a website.
They commission it to get more work. Which means the thing you're judged on isn't the thing you were hired to do — and the gap between those two usually opens about a quarter after launch.
Week one
It looks better than what they had, works properly on a phone, and says what the business actually does. Real value, genuinely delivered.
Month two
The same people find them. A prettier site doesn't create demand it wasn't already receiving — but nobody explains that at handover, so nobody expects it.
Month six
The question arrives eventually, and it's a good one. It's also the moment the relationship either becomes ongoing or gets handed to someone else.
Month seven
You referred it out because it isn't what you do. Now there's another party in the account, and the next redesign conversation may not start with you.
Four things you can sell the week after launch.
None of these require you to become an SEO. They require the work to be doable and the reasoning to be explainable, which is what the modules produce.
Highest value, lowest effort
Google profile management
Categories, services, hours, photos and review replies — the part that decides whether a local business appears in the map pack at all, and the part almost no client is maintaining.
Edited in one place and pushed straight to Google — no separate login per client.
The obvious follow-on
Content, monthly
The service and location pages that were out of scope in the build, written and published on a schedule rather than promised and forgotten.
Full articles with images and schema, generated unattended.
What proves the retainer
A monthly report they read
Map pack position across the service area, profile actions, content performance — the evidence a client needs to keep saying yes without you having to ask.
Written from history the platform kept, not assembled by hand.
The one that wins the project
An audit before the build
Run a rank diagnosis during discovery and the redesign proposal stops being about taste. It's now about the specific things costing them visibility, which you happen to be fixing.
A branded PDF you can hand over in the pitch.
Sell it during the build, not after.
Six months post-launch, a retainer is a new purchase requiring a new decision. During the project, it's an extension of one they've already made — and the client is already in spending mode.
Running a diagnosis in discovery also makes the build better, which is the honest reason to do it in that order.
In discovery
The audit shapes the build
You learn which pages carry the demand, which terms the business can realistically win, and where the structure needs to go — before wireframes, not after.
In the proposal
Two lines instead of one
Build, then ongoing. Presented together, the second one reads as the natural completion of the first rather than an upsell arriving later.
At handover
The expectation is already set
Nobody is disappointed in month two, because the conversation about what a site can and can't do on its own happened at the start.
You've already built the pipeline.
Every site you've launched is a business that trusts you, operates locally, and almost certainly has an unmaintained Google profile. That's a warmer list than any new-business channel you could buy into.
Run one scan on a past client's profile and you'll have a specific, checkable reason to get back in touch — which is a better opening than "just checking in."
The profile fields most past clients have never revisited.
HeatmapA grid scan that shows exactly where they stop appearing.
Rank DiagnosisA branded audit that doubles as the reason for the call.
Content ReportThe monthly artifact that keeps a retainer renewing.
Every module is on every plan. Plans differ only in how many accounts you run.
Web designers, answered straight.
I'm a designer, not an SEO. Can I actually sell this?
When do I bring it up — during the project or after?
What do I actually deliver each month?
Won't this compete with agencies I refer to?
How many clients do I need for this to make sense?
Every plan includes every module.
There are no feature gates. Plans differ only in how many accounts you run and how much you generate for them.