We are asked to run campaigns for sites that are not ready for traffic more often than anything else. The money goes out, the visits arrive, and almost nothing happens. Here is the work that should come first.
Make sure the site can be crawled and indexed
Check Search Console for what is actually indexed rather than assuming. Missing canonical tags, accidental noindex directives, and pages reachable only through JavaScript are all common and all cheap to fix.
Fix Core Web Vitals
Largest Contentful Paint and Cumulative Layout Shift affect both ranking and conversion. Oversized images, render-blocking CSS, and images without width and height attributes account for most of the damage on most sites.
Add structured data
Organization, LocalBusiness, Service, Article and BreadcrumbList markup helps search engines understand what a page is. It is a small amount of work with a durable payoff.
Protect what you already rank for
If you are rebuilding a site, map every existing URL to its replacement and 301 redirect it. Skipping this is the single most common way a redesign loses traffic, and it is entirely avoidable.
Then check the page actually converts
A working contact form, a phone number that is tappable, and a clear next action. It sounds obvious. We have audited sites where every enquiry submitted for a year went nowhere because a form handler was never finished.
Do this first. Then buy traffic.