# What happens in the first hour with GEO MarketMap?

A new project walks through 6 steps in a fixed order: the site is read, Google's AI answers are measured, the questions are agreed, the assistants are asked, the rivals are kept or dropped, and the niche is agreed. The first step is free and starts by itself. The chat opens when the sixth step lands, and the agent then proposes the strategy for the month.

## What are the 6 steps, and what does each one produce?

| Step | What runs | What you get | Usual time |
| --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1. Read the site | Starts by itself when the project is created. Free. | The Health tab: what stops you being quoted, what is worth fixing, what is already fine. | 1–3 minutes |
| 2. Measure Google's answers | One press. The report on Google's AI answers about your category. | The Reports tab: where you are named, the queries behind it, who is named instead, the market map. | 3–8 minutes |
| 3. Agree the questions | A card with the questions the market asks, measured ones first. | The tracked question set, which every later check runs on. | seconds |
| 4. Ask the assistants | One press. ChatGPT, Perplexity and Gemini answer every tracked question. | The assistants tab, filling question by question and assistant by assistant. | 5–20 minutes |
| 5. Keep or drop the rivals | The brands the answers named, each with its evidence. You keep, drop or add. | The rivals list, measured 1 rival at a time onto the market map. | 1–3 minutes per rival |
| 6. Agree the niche | Every question in the niche, judged against your project, the gaps first. | The questions worth winning, the pages to write, and an open chat. | seconds |

A 7th step, connecting Google Search Console, is optional and is offered only after the first draft exists. The order is fixed because each step is computed from the one before it: the assistants are asked the agreed questions, the rivals are the brands those answers named, and the niche is judged against both.

## Why does the chat answer every message with the same sentence during setup?

Until the 6th step lands, the chat is closed. A typed message gets 1 written sentence naming the step that is next, at no charge, with no model call behind it. The agent has not measured the project yet, and an answer given before the measurement would be a vague one.

> A proactive agent is not one that asks more questions. It is one that has already read the project, already knows what is missing, and arrives holding the work.
> 
> the product's own definition of the agent, from the team's working rules

The setup row above the conversation says which step is running and how many remain. Every step's control sits in the conversation itself, under the agent's last line, so there is 1 place to press. Read more on [how the agent works](https://www.geomarketmap.com/docs/the-agent).

## What does the first hour cost?

The site check is free. Steps 2, 4 and 5 are paid at the moment you press them, and every control says what it will cost before you press it. Nothing runs on a schedule unless you set one, and nothing is charged twice for the same measurement: a rival the Google report already measured costs nothing to keep. The rates are on the [pricing page](https://www.geomarketmap.com/pricing); how charging works is in [credits and billing](https://www.geomarketmap.com/docs/credits-and-billing).

## What should I expect to see when a step is on track?

- Step 1: the Health tab fills within 3 minutes, and its first line says how many pages were read and of what kind.
- Step 2: the 5 named stages advance in the working card; the Reports tab fills when the last one lands.
- Step 4: answers arrive continuously, with a count of answers collected out of the total asked.
- Step 5: the niche card fills rival by rival, with a running line saying which rival is being read.
- Step 6: the chat opens, and the agent's first message is a move with a reason, not a question.

If a step is silent for longer than the times above, it is the product's problem, not yours: the work is retried and refunded when it cannot finish, and the conversation says so.

## Can I skip a step?

No. Each of the 6 steps is computed from the one before it, and a skipped step would leave the next one with nothing to work from. The optional 7th step, connecting Google, can be skipped or done later.

## Do I need to upload anything?

No. The site is read from its public pages. Everything else the setup collects is measured from public search results and public assistant answers.

## Can I add a second project?

Several projects on one account are part of the Business plan. Each project has its own site, questions, rivals, strategy and conversation, and nothing is shared between them.

## Read next

- [How does the GEO MarketMap agent decide what to do?](https://www.geomarketmap.com/docs/the-agent)
- [What does GEO MarketMap measure, and what does "named" mean?](https://www.geomarketmap.com/docs/search-and-ai-visibility)
- [How does GEO MarketMap charge, and when is a charge refunded?](https://www.geomarketmap.com/docs/credits-and-billing)

Last updated 15 September 2026. Source: https://www.geomarketmap.com/docs/first-project