seo-performance-review

name

seo-performance-review

description

Applies to Mini Diarium's marketing site (`website/`) and its SEO data under `docs/seo/`. Use this recurring, data-driven review when the user has fresh (or wants to pull) Google Search Console / Bing Webmaster performance exports and asks to turn them into ranked, actionable recommendations. Triggers include "SEO performance review," "GSC data," "Search Console export," "Bing keyword report," "how are we ranking now," "what should I write next," "SEO content briefs," "striking distance," "CTR gaps," "update the SEO action plan," or "run the SEO cycle." This is distinct from `seo-audit` (technical on-page auditing): this skill analyzes performance data over time and produces content briefs and an updated action plan. If the user wants a technical/on-page audit instead, use `seo-audit`.

SEO Performance Review

You convert each new Google Search Console + Bing Webmaster export into ranked, actionable recommendations for Mini Diarium. This is a performance-data skill, not an on-page audit. For technical/on-page issues use seo-audit. The two are complementary and share the docs/seo/product-marketing-context.md brand context.

Cadence: recommend bi-weekly at the current traffic (~455 Google clicks / quarter). Weekly is noise; GSC also lags 2-3 days. Do not run more often than the data can support.

Step 0 - Read context first

Read, in this order, before touching data:

1. docs/seo/product-marketing-context.md - brand, ICP, owned topic, the password/lock accuracy guardrail.
2. docs/seo/STRATEGY.md - the analysis framework, the keyword & topic-cluster map, the budget model (transfer/freeze/flip), and the measurement regime this skill executes. The cluster map in STRATEGY.md §3 is the scoring rubric for topical coverage.
3. docs/seo/action-plan.md - the live fix queue and the hypothesis log you will update.
4. The previous docs/seo/STATUS_REPORT_*.md (most recent by date) - the prior snapshot you compare against for movement.

Do not re-derive the strategy. Apply it.

Step 1 - Locate the latest exports (by pattern, never hardcoded names)

Exports live under docs/seo/performance/. Match by filename pattern, because names have changed before (the Bing overview file was renamed once, and a GSC *-Performance-on-Search-*.zip bulk export also lands here). Expect four surfaces:

• GSC per-dimension CSVs, usually inside a google-search-console_YYYY-MM-DD/ folder or a *-Performance-on-Search-*.zip bulk export: Queries.csv, Pages.csv, Countries.csv, Devices.csv (also Chart.csv, Filters.csv). If only the .zip is present, extract it to a temp dir; do not commit the extraction (the folder form is the tracked copy).
• Bing overview CSV: *SearchPerformanceOverview*.csv (daily clicks/impressions/CTR).
• Bing query-level CSV: *KeywordReport*.csv (per-keyword impressions/clicks/CTR/position).

Find the newest set and the immediately prior snapshot (the last STATUS_REPORT and its dated performance folder). If the newest export is older than ~3 weeks, it is stale: guide the user to pull fresh data before analyzing (Step 1a). Do not analyze stale data silently.

Step 1a - Guide a fresh pull when stale

If exports are stale or missing, walk the user through it (this is manual; the skill cannot authenticate):

• Google Search Console (search.google.com/search-console): Performance > Search results > set date range to Last 3 months > Export > download the zip, or export each of Queries / Pages / Countries / Devices. Save under docs/seo/performance/google-search-console_<today>/ (or drop the *-Performance-on-Search-*.zip in docs/seo/performance/).
• Bing Webmaster Tools (bing.com/webmasters): Search Performance > export the overview CSV; then the Keyword report > export the query-level CSV. Save both under docs/seo/performance/ with their default names.

Step 2 - Run the analysis framework, per engine

Execute the measurement regime from STRATEGY.md §5 for both engines. Respect the GSC caveats: position is an average, data is sampled (low-impression rows dropped), reporting lags 2-3 days. Aggregate low-impression rows before drawing conclusions; single-digit-impression rows are statistically fragile.

Produce these tables (Google from Queries.csv/Pages.csv, Bing from KeywordReport):

1. Branded vs non-branded split. Branded = "mini diarium" and close variants. Report the clicks share and whether generic demand is being captured.
2. Striking distance (position ~8-20 with real impressions). These are the near-term rank wins. Rank them by impressions.
3. CTR gap (high-impression / low-CTR relative to position). These are the title/meta levers. A page at position ~7 with sub-2% CTR is a flag.
4. Topical-coverage score against the cluster map (STRATEGY.md §3). For each cluster, note the owning page, its position, and whether a gap exists (demand with no strong owning page). Prioritize procedural/comparison gaps (highest LLM absorption).
5. Movement vs the previous snapshot. For the tracked queries/pages, note direction of change. This validates the prior cycle's hypotheses (see the hypothesis log).
6. Google-vs-Bing divergence check. Bing is Windows/PC-first and surfaces predecessor ("mini diary" successor) and feature-intent ("does diarium have a password", "offline encrypted diary") demand that Google under-reports. Every recommendation must account for both engines: Google = topic/positioning terms; Bing = platform + successor + feature intent.

Step 3 - GEO citation spot-check

Run the fixed ~30-query set in references/geo-citation-queries.md across ChatGPT, Google AI Overviews, Perplexity, and Copilot. This is a separate KPI from GSC (citation visibility, not ranking) per STRATEGY.md §5.

• Attempt automation with the available web/browser tools where possible (e.g. Perplexity and Google AI Overviews via the browser tool). Record, per engine and per query: (a) whether mini-diarium.com is cited, and (b) whether the answer language was absorbed (the answer reflects the site's framing).
• Fall back to a manual checklist when a platform cannot be automated (most chat UIs). Present the query set as a checklist for the user to run and paste back.
• Do not overstate. AI citation is volatile and engine-specific; report presence/absorption as a directional baseline, compared to the prior cycle, not as a precise metric.

Step 4 - Output prioritized content briefs (do not auto-draft)

For each recommended new or refreshed post, output a content brief using references/content-brief-template.md. Rank briefs by expected leverage (impressions x CTR-gap or striking-distance proximity). Each brief:

• Target query + cluster placement (from STRATEGY.md §3).
• Current position / impressions / engine.
• Working title (<=60 chars, click-worthy, not a feature list).
• BLUF (50-80 words, self-contained, names products/trade-off/constraint) for BLUF_MAP.
• H2 outline (each section a distinct purpose; include H2/H3 Q&A for question intent).
• Required internal links (>=2 of /encrypted-journal/, /compare/, related posts).
• Any accuracy guardrails that apply (e.g. the password/lock rule for that cluster).

Do not write the post. Hand the brief to the blog workflow (website/CLAUDE.md) so the human/author controls voice per WRITING_STYLE.md and the AI-writing rules. Also decide, for existing pages, refresh vs new: if a page already owns the cluster (e.g. mini-diary-alternative for predecessor demand), recommend strengthening it rather than a new post.

Step 5 - Update the action plan and hypothesis log

1. Write a new dated status report if the user wants a full snapshot: docs/seo/STATUS_REPORT_<YYYY-MM>.md (follow the structure of the existing one). Otherwise update the existing snapshot's "movement" notes.
2. Update docs/seo/action-plan.md: mark completed items, re-rank open items against the new data, add new items (with file/location, exact change, expected effect, verification command).
3. Append to the hypothesis log in action-plan.md: validate last cycle's hypotheses by directional movement (we cannot prove causation at this traffic scale), and record this cycle's changes as new hypotheses with expected direction. Append, never rewrite history.
4. If the cluster map's positions have shifted materially, note it so STRATEGY.md §3 can be refreshed (positions there are a point-in-time snapshot).

Guardrails

• Never auto-draft blog posts. Produce briefs; the author writes.
• Respect the password/lock accuracy guardrail (docs/seo/product-marketing-context.md, read in Step 0) in any brief for the secure/password cluster: whole-journal AES-256-GCM + per-entry edit-lock, never per-entry encryption.
• Honest about scale. ~455 clicks/quarter is far below the ~500k monthly visitors needed for valid split testing. Report directional signals and hypotheses, not causal claims.
• Freeze non-transferring signals. Do not recommend keyword-density, anchor-text, paid-link velocity, or SERP-feature chasing work (STRATEGY.md §4).
• This skill reads and writes docs/seo/; it does not touch website/ HTML directly. On-site changes go through the blog/docs generators and the action plan.

References

• references/geo-citation-queries.md - the fixed ~30-query GEO citation spot-check set, grouped by cluster.
• references/content-brief-template.md - the content brief hand-off template.