Search, engineered from the logs up.
YSM Digital is an SEO-led marketing consultancy in Johannesburg. Technical SEO is the core, diagnosed from server logs and field data rather than opinion, with PPC, social media and web design built on the same evidence. For professional practices, businesses and ecommerce, and agencies that need technical SEO under their own brand.
- location
- Johannesburg, ZA
- coordinates
- 26.20 S, 28.03 E
- timezone
- SAST, UTC+2
- experience
- 7+ years
- model
- senior-led, SEO first
- pipeline
- logs → BigQuery → Looker Studio
Most SEO advice starts at the content layer. Most ranking problems don't.
A page that isn't crawled can't be indexed; a page that isn't indexed can't rank; a page that ranks slowly loses to one that ranks fast. Every engagement works that stack in order, and never recommends a content fix, or a bigger ad budget, for what the logs show is a crawl problem.
SEO at the core, marketing around it
Crawl and indexation
Raw server and CDN logs, not sampled crawl stats. Googlebot hit frequency verified by reverse DNS, status codes over time, crawl budget by URL template, canonical resolution, noindex leaks in headers and meta.
Core Web Vitals
Field data decides; lab data diagnoses. Work at the template level: hero images and render-blocking plugins for LCP, injected booking widgets for CLS, tag managers for INP.
Structured data and AI search
JSON-LD that validates in both the Rich Results Test and the Schema.org validator. Entity clarity, consistent practitioner credentials and quotable declarative copy so AI Overviews, ChatGPT and Perplexity can cite the right source.
Edge SEO
When the CMS is locked or the dev queue is long, Cloudflare Workers ship the fix: header injection, redirect logic, bot response shaping, hreflang.
Measurement
Search Console bulk export into BigQuery, reported in Looker Studio. GA4 and Business Profile blended for the client view; log-level detail kept in internal views.
Tooling
Python where the work is repetitive: a bulk redirect mapper, an audit pipeline, scrapers and converters. Working code, not pseudocode, handed over with the findings.
Paid search
PPC run from the same data as the organic work: search terms mined from Search Console, landing pages that pass Core Web Vitals, and conversion tracking verified before the budget goes live.
Social media
Content and scheduling that carry the same services, entities and proof points as the site, so every channel reinforces what search engines and AI models already know about the business.
Web design and development
Static and WordPress sites designed to be fast, crawlable and indexable from the first deploy, with structured data, clean URLs and no third-party weight. This site is the reference build.
Real technical work, with outcomes
Notes from the work
Server logs are the only crawl data that isn't sampled
Search Console shows a sample. Logs show every request. The standard cuts, and how to verify Googlebot before you trust a line.
2026-08Field data decides, lab data diagnoses
Why a green Lighthouse score can still fail Core Web Vitals, and the four usual suspects on WordPress healthcare sites.
2026-07Structured data for practices, and what AI engines actually read
MedicalClinic and Physician JSON-LD, two validators that disagree, and the entity work that gets a practice cited.
Three pieces at launch. The blog is where the method gets written down, so clients can read the reasoning behind a recommendation instead of taking it on faith.
All writingSend the site. Get a diagnosis, not a pitch deck.
A short scoping call, then a fixed-fee audit or a monthly retainer, SEO first, with PPC, social or web added where they earn their place. Replies from Johannesburg, usually the same working day.