Launching a new site with SEO in place means working three phases — Pre-Launch foundation, Launch Day execution, and Post-Launch monitoring.

The goal shifts from ranking to being cited in the answer — optimizing for concepts, information gain, and E-E-A-T instead of literal keywords.

Set up Search Console with a DNS-verified Domain property, then submit the sitemap, link GA4, add users, and inspect priority URLs on day one.

AI answer engines run a query fan-out and synthesize from sources that show consensus and authority — so ordinary search visibility comes first.

Four compounding GEO strategies earn citations in AI Overviews: fact density and E-E-A-T, machine-readable structure, semantic coverage, and entity authority.