SEO that brings work, not just impressions
Rankings for terms nobody buys on are a vanity metric. Commercial intent is the only search worth chasing first.
Plenty of businesses rank well and still get no work from search. Usually because the terms they rank for are informational, and the people searching them are years away from buying.
Split your keyword list into three buckets: someone learning, someone comparing, someone ready. Build the ready pages first. They are fewer, harder and worth more than a hundred blog posts.
Technical foundations still matter, but only as a floor. Crawlability, speed and clean internal links let good pages be found; they do not make weak pages worth finding.
Local intent is the fastest win for service businesses. Consistent listings, real location pages and reviews often move enquiries before any content programme does.
Report on enquiries and pipeline, not positions. If rankings improved and the phone did not, the strategy targeted the wrong searches.
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