1. The 7-day delivery plan

Day	Focus	Output
0 (Mon)	Onboarding form complete; kickoff call	Brief, brand assets, GBP access
1 (Tue)	Sitemap, IA, copy briefs	Sitemap doc, copy brief per page
2 (Wed)	AI generation + edit pass	First draft of all pages
3 (Thu)	Design polish, photos, brand	Visual draft on staging
4 (Fri)	Speed, schema, mobile, forms	Tech-complete site on staging
5 (Mon)	QA checklist + client review	Sign-off list of edits
6 (Tue)	Edits + final QA	Approved site
7 (Wed)	Launch + handoff	Live site, training video, GA/GBP wired

2. The discovery brief — exact questions

Send before the kickoff call. The kickoff is to clarify, not to extract.

1. Business name, tagline, and one-sentence pitch.
2. Top 3 services. Which is most profitable?
3. Service area cities (in priority order).
4. Top 5 competitors (with URLs).
5. 3 websites you like and why (any industry).
6. Brand colors, logo, fonts (or "I have none").
7. 10–20 high-quality photos of work, team, location.
8. The exact phone number and email used for inbound leads.
9. Booking system you want (Calendly / Hermes form / phone-only).
10. Any social proof: reviews to feature, awards, certifications, "since 1998."

3. Information architecture for local sites

Default sitemap for a local-business site (8–12 pages):

• Home — hero with city + service, social proof, services overview, GBP/reviews, CTA
• About — story, team, certifications, photo proof
• Services hub — list of services with one-line descriptions
• Service detail × 3–5 — one per major service (e.g., "Drain cleaning", "Water heater repair")
• Service-area pages × 3–8 — one per city/neighborhood (the "geo pages" — covered in Course 05)
• Reviews / Testimonials
• Contact — form, map, phone, hours
• Blog — index + first 3–5 articles
• Privacy / Terms

4. AI copy briefs that don't read like AI

The single biggest reason AI copy reads as AI: vague briefs. Your prompts should give the model context the model couldn't already guess.

4.1 Copy brief template per page

Page: {{ page_name }}
Audience: {{ specific_persona, e.g. "homeowners in Phoenix
            with a slow-draining sink, not contractors" }}
One sentence promise: {{ ... }}
Tone: {{ 3 adjectives — e.g. "direct, warm, low-jargon" }}

Key facts (do NOT invent beyond these):
- {{ fact 1 }}
- {{ fact 2 }}
- {{ fact 3 }}

Required H1: {{ ... }}
Required CTA: {{ "Call now" / "Book a free estimate" }}
Length: 350–500 words
Avoid: superlatives ("best", "world-class"), hype, 
       generic AI phrases ("In today's fast-paced world").

Examples of voice we like:
{{ paste 2 paragraphs from competitor sites the client liked }}

4.2 The two-pass system

1. Pass 1 — generate. Use GPT-4 / Claude with the brief. Get a full draft.
2. Pass 2 — humanize. Have a separate prompt rewrite for "specificity, sentence-length variation, contractions, and one concrete number per paragraph." This step is what kills the AI tell.

5. Design choices

You don't need a designer for the first 50 sites. You need three things.

5.1 Tokens, not pixel-pushing

Lock in a brand kit per client: 1 primary color, 1 accent, 2 fonts (or 1 with weight variation), 1 radius scale, 1 spacing scale. Anything that doesn't follow tokens gets fixed before launch.

5.2 Photos

Real client photos > stock. If they don't have any, schedule a 30-minute phone shoot with the client (most have decent phones). Otherwise: Unsplash + Pexels for hero scenes, but never for "team." Stock team photos kill conversion.

5.3 Social proof above the fold

Logo strip, 5-star average + review count, a featured testimonial, or a "trusted by" line. Pick one. Skip none.

6. Technical foundations

• Mobile-first. 70%+ of local-search traffic is mobile.
• Core Web Vitals. LCP < 2.5s, INP < 200ms, CLS < 0.1. Hermes hits this by default; verify with PageSpeed Insights before launch.
• Schema markup. Add LocalBusiness schema with name, address, phone, hours, geo, areaServed, sameAs (social URLs), aggregateRating. JSON-LD only.
• Click-to-call on every page header on mobile.
• HTTPS, www → non-www (or vice versa) redirect, sitemap.xml, robots.txt — non-negotiable.
• Forms with proper labels and a thank-you page — required for conversion tracking.
• Pixel + GA4 wired before launch.

7. QA checklist (38 items)

Run this before any client review. If you skip it, you'll lose a Saturday firefighting.

Content

• No Lorem ipsum anywhere
• No "[insert name]" or "[city]" placeholders
• Phone number identical on every page
• Service area cities listed consistently
• Hours match GBP
• Spelling check (Grammarly or LanguageTool)
• Reading level ≤ grade 9

Design

• Logo crisp on retina
• Photos load < 200kb each
• Buttons are buttons (not divs)
• Touch targets ≥ 44px
• No layout shift on hero load
• Color contrast WCAG AA on all body text

Tech

• HTTPS everywhere
• Canonical tags on every page
• 404 page exists
• sitemap.xml and robots.txt
• Open Graph tags + Twitter card
• Favicon (16, 32, 180, manifest)
• Schema validates in Rich Results Test
• PageSpeed mobile ≥ 85

Forms / Conversion

• Contact form delivers to client's real inbox
• Thank-you page exists
• GA4 + Pixel event firing on form submit
• Click-to-call on mobile header
• Calendly/booking redirect works

SEO

• Unique title + meta description per page
• One H1 per page
• Internal linking between geo pages and services
• Image alt text everywhere
• Submit sitemap to Search Console
• GBP linked to website

Final

• Backup of staging before going live
• DNS TTL lowered 24h before switch
• Old site redirected URL-for-URL where possible
• Client signed off on the QA list

8. Launch and handoff

1. Pre-launch. Stage on a temporary domain. Walk the client through it on a recorded Loom. Get written sign-off (email is fine).
2. DNS cutover. Schedule for early morning local time. Watch SSL provision. Verify forms.
3. Submit & verify. Submit sitemap to Google Search Console + Bing Webmaster Tools. Update GBP website link if changed.
4. Training video. 5-minute Loom showing the client how to: edit text, add a blog post, change hours. Always.
5. Kickoff the retainer. Within 7 days, send the first SEO content brief (see Course 06). Don't let momentum die.

What to do this week

1. Build your discovery brief as a Tally / Typeform that auto-creates a Notion page.
2. Save the QA checklist as a duplicable template.
3. Build a "starter" Hermes template you can duplicate per client (you only need to do this once).
4. Practice the 7-day plan on a fake client. Time it. The first one always slips; that's fine.