Wouldn’t SEO campaigns be so much easier if you could just flip a switch and watch them go? Alas, the Internet simply doesn’t work that way.
Launching an online marketing campaign takes a lot of time. To ensure extended success, Prospect Genius—and many standup companies like us—must run through an exhaustive, time-consuming process when setting up any new campaign.
If you’ve been asking yourself why your Core campaign took so long to get off the ground, then this blog post is for you. Here, you’ll get a thorough explanation of all the work Prospect Genius typically does when launching a Core campaign. You’ll also find out why this process is worth the wait.
Let’s jump in!

How We Create a Campaign

As soon as a new client accepts our terms of service, we pull the lever and get the ball rolling on your campaign. Each step leads to another, and they must be completed in the right order. We cannot skip ahead. Remember the game Mouse Trap? It’s kind of like that.
Here’s what the process looks like from beginning to end. By the time you get to the bottom of this list, you’ll understand how much work goes into getting a campaign off the ground:

1. Basic background check. Before beginning any work, we investigate what kind of information and listings are already out there for your company. This will inform us on how to proceed.
2. Address check. We need to ensure you can receive mail at the address you gave us. This is how Google verifies your business’s location. If you can’t receive mail there, we must figure out a legitimate workaround before we can continue.
3. Call forwarding setup. We order your call forwarding number, a.k.a. your CallTrax™ number, which allows us to track your incoming leads for you. Once we receive this number from our provider, we set up call forwarding and add it to our system.
4. Photo collection. We gather photos of your business found during our background check or submitted by you. We save these photos in a collection so we can use them when we build your LeadTrax™ site. If you don’t have any photos, we will find relevant stock photos for you.
5. Review collection. We search the Internet for reviews of your business. We record and save all of the positive reviews so we can display them on your LeadTrax site.
6. Google Maps setup. We find out whether you have an existing Google Maps listing. If you do, then we try to gain access to it by having you name us manager or by submitting a claim to Google.

And that’s just the initial setup! Now, your campaign moves on to the writing and assembly stage.

7. Keyword research. We do research to discover the most appropriate keywords for your site. This enables us to formulate the best approach for on-page SEO.
8. Fresh content creation. We write all of the copy for your LeadTrax site from scratch. No content is duplicated for new clients. You get totally unique content for your site.
9. Error proofing. Writing content from scratch means it has to be meticulously combed over for mistakes. We double- and triple-check your content to certify its accuracy.
10. Site building. Once your content has been crafted and carefully edited, we design and build your site based on our templates. Our templates leave plenty of room for customization, though, so it’s never a one-size-fits-all scenario.
11. Quality control. Before we launch your site, we check it one more time to make sure it looks great and represents your business accurately and positively.
12. Resource setup. After your LeadTrax site has been launched, we create Bing and Google accounts so we can set up Webmaster tools and resources for your campaign.
13. Social media setup. We also create social media pages for your business on Facebook, Twitter, About.me, and Foursquare.

This covers the first several weeks of your campaign. Then we move on to the trickiest part:

14. Online promotion. Over the next 60 days, we create and/or claim a series of online listings using the most up-to-date information about your business. However, this process is performed in multiple stages, spread out over weeks. (Find out why below.) The efficiency of this process is partially dictated by your cooperation in claiming and verifying listings.

Once this phase is complete, you’ve reached the end of what we call your “ramp-up period.” It usually takes about 90 days, or three months, to get here.

Why Does It Have to Be Done This Way?

We aren’t the only ones who take our time establishing a campaign. Any reputable Internet marketer knows a campaign can’t be launched overnight. Building the foundation for a long-lasting presence takes weeks and weeks and weeks of meticulous, strategic work.
Why do we thoroughly examine your company’s web presence before we even begin? Because we need to correct any past missteps and start your campaign on a solid footing. Otherwise, the actions of your campaign may contradict existing information and inadvertently work against you.
Why do we write all of your site content from scratch? Because we understand that your business is unique, and your content should represent you. Plus, copying content from other campaigns is a surefire way to get penalized by Google. Duplicate content is a huge no-no any way you look at it.
Why do we perform your online promotion in multiple stages? Because creating or updating all of your listings at once will lead Google to mark them as spam. We strategically spread out the creation of your listings week by week so your growing presence appears more organic. This nurtures your site’s rankings without risking penalties from Google.
In other words, we take our time because that’s the only way to do online advertising right.

How Come Other Companies Get It Done Faster?

It’s true—some companies can get your campaign up and running in a week. And after reading all about our setup process, you have to ask yourself, How is that possible?
There’s no simple answer to this, but it boils down to the fact that it’s easier to take shortcuts. Many Internet marketing companies sacrifice long-term presence for quick results. They set up your campaign as fast as they can, and then they forget about it.
But here’s the thing: You only get a super-fast turnaround when your web history hasn’t been thoroughly examined, when your content has been copied and pasted, when your business is promoted like spam, when your campaign is just another carbon copy.
So if an online advertising company is promising you unbelievable success within mere weeks, it’s because they’re cutting corners. Don’t take the bait.