Authority baseline
Stop being invisible. This phase is mostly one-time work whose value compounds for years.
You are done with this stage when: DR ≥ 20, 30+ referring domains, 50+ pages indexed, and one launch moment shipped.
Objectives
- Build the pages the links will point at
Directories are the source of link equity; these are the destination. Submitting first wastes the listing.
- Raise Domain Rating to 20
DR is the gate on every competitive keyword you will ever want. It is bought with an afternoon of forms.
- Get indexed at scale
Pages that are not indexed do not exist. This is where most content investment quietly dies.
- Become citable by answer engines
AI-referred traffic converts far above organic search because the assistant pre-qualified them, and movement here leads revenue by about a quarter.
- Run the launch moment
Post-mortems of failed launches blame two things most often: no warm audience, and asking for upvotes.
- Run the 10-in-30 review drive
A zero-review G2 listing is worse than no listing. Ten reviews is the threshold that matters.
- Build consumer review proof
The B2C counterpart to a G2 grid: buyers check a public rating before they trust a card form.
- Publish the founding content set
Ten pieces that answer what your buyers actually search, not what you find interesting.
- Win the store listing
Store search is where most app installs begin, and the listing is the whole funnel: it is the ad, the landing page and the checkout in one screen.
- Work the sources that already decide the answer
Your site makes the claim; the rest of the internet is what validates it. The most important page for a query you want is often not yours.