$100,000 in their first tax season, after two providers had failed

What I walked into

Two providers had already been through this business before me. An agency first, then an SEO freelancer. Neither produced anything the owner could point at.

The freelancer talked them into moving the site off WordPress and onto React, on the promise it would load faster. It did not. What the move did do was break the URL structure, leave the site answering on two versions of the same address, and replace a working design with one that was harder to use. The pages that had been earning attention were either gone or pointing nowhere.

They first contacted me in December, went quiet, then came back. The work started on 5 January 2026.

Why that start date mattered

This is an accounting firm in Canada. January to April is tax season, and tax season is the year. Starting on 5 January meant building while the season was already running, with no quiet period to hide the work in.

Most of the industry would have told them to wait: get the site right over the summer, expect results in eight months, aim at next year. That advice would have cost them this season.

Going back before going forward

I went through their hosting and found an old backup of the WordPress site. I restored it.

That one step gave back the URL pattern Google already knew, which is the part most rebuilds throw away without realizing what it costs. Keeping it meant the work that followed added to something instead of starting from nothing.

From there I rebuilt rather than patched: a new structure for the service pages, a new design, a new internal linking plan, and new content across the site. All of it went live inside the first month, in the middle of their busiest period.

Four weeks to pass their biggest competitor

The owner named the competitor they kept losing to. I built the plan around beating that one business, not around a list of keywords with no faces attached.

By the start of February, about four weeks in, we were ahead of them on most of the terms that bring in work. This is the reason I keep saying one to two months is usually enough to see SEO start working for a business. The eight month answer is what you get told when nobody wants to be measured.

Doubling the city pages

Once the approach had proved itself on the service pages, I doubled the number of city pages, using the same structure that had already worked rather than guessing a second time.

That is when the phone started doing something. Enquiries arrived through the season instead of after it.

Why I left the Google profile alone at first

Their Google Business Profile was new, with almost no review history behind it, because this was their first season trading under it. A new profile with no reviews does not win the map pack inside four months no matter how much attention it gets.

So I put the effort where it could produce inside the season, which was the website, and let the profile build quietly underneath. It still returned 34 calls and 808 interactions while it was the part I was not pushing.

What I would do differently

Nothing about the order, but I would want the reviews running from week one. The profile was the one channel that could not be hurried, and it is the one that will carry the second season.

This engagement ran on SEO, Web Design, Google Business Profile Optimization and Content Marketing. Results are measured the way the guarantee defines them: calls, leads, and booked work. Your own market decides your own numbers.