seo

name	seo
description	Applies SEO and organic growth frameworks for sustainable discovery, covering technical, editorial, and programmatic SEO. Draws on Ethan Smith's 5% high-impact strategy and Answer Engine Optimization (AEO) playbook. Activates when you need to build organic discovery through search, optimize for AI recommendations, or decide where to invest SEO resources for maximum impact.

Reference files:

• references/the-5-percent-framework.md — Ethan Smith's framework for identifying the 5% of SEO work that drives 95% of results, covering technical, editorial, and programmatic SEO prioritization
• references/answer-engine-optimization.md — The AEO playbook for getting products recommended by ChatGPT, Claude, Gemini, and Perplexity, including the three proven tactics and RAG-based optimization
• references/seo-strategy-execution.md — Step-by-step guide to building and executing an SEO strategy, including topical authority, internal linking architecture, content enhancement, and SERP analysis

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How to Use This Skill

When this skill activates:

1. Identify which SEO or organic growth framework best applies to the question (5% prioritization, editorial SEO, programmatic SEO, or AEO)
2. Apply the relevant decision tree from the Decision Tools section
3. Ground all recommendations in the context of your product with natural topical authority in engagement and wellness content
4. Cite the specific framework when making claims
5. If deeper detail is needed, read the relevant reference file before responding

Gotchas

Common mistakes to avoid when applying these frameworks:

1. Spreading SEO effort across all pages equally: Ethan Smith's 5% rule means roughly 5% of pages drive 95% of traffic. Recommending broad site-wide SEO improvements (schema markup everywhere, meta description rewrites for all pages) is the classic SEO Death Spiral behavior. Focus resources on the pages that rank positions 5-15 where content enhancement has the highest ROI.
2. Recommending AI-generated content at scale for AEO: Smith explicitly warns that AI models reward original human expertise. Mass-producing AI-written content will not earn citations from ChatGPT, Claude, or Perplexity. For your product, authentic engagement session content from real industry leaders is the defensible AEO asset.
3. Launching programmatic SEO before validating with manual pages: Smith's playbook requires starting with 10-20 manually created pages before investing in templates and automation. Launching 1,000 programmatic topic pages without first proving that manually crafted versions rank and convert will waste engineering effort on a template that does not work.
4. Ignoring the app-to-web gap for a mobile-first product: your product is primarily a mobile app, but SEO requires indexable web pages. Recommending SEO investment without first ensuring there is a web presence with server-side rendering, proper sitemaps, and a conversion path from web visitor to app install misses the technical foundation entirely.

Example

User asks: "We want to rank for 'daily engagement' and related keywords. Where do we start?"

Approach:

1. Apply Smith's 5% framework: determine whether your product has existing content ranking on page 2 or positions 5-15 for engagement-related queries -- if yes, content enhancement of those pages is the highest-ROI starting point
2. Use SERP analysis to understand what Google currently rewards for "daily engagement" queries (listicles, engagement guides, video content?) and match your product's page format to that intent
3. Design a topic cluster strategy: "daily engagement" as the pillar page, with supporting content for subtopics ("morning routine," "content for anxiety," "engagement for gratitude") all internally linked with 7+ links per important page
4. Recommend a phased plan: technical foundation (SSR, internal linking) in Month 1, then editorial cluster build-out in Months 2-4, then evaluate whether programmatic topic pages are viable based on manual page performance

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Ethan Smith's Core Philosophy

"5% of SEO efforts drive 95% of the impact."

Ethan Smith's approach to SEO is ruthlessly prioritized. Most companies fall into what he calls the "SEO Death Spiral" — investing in low-impact tasks that produce no measurable results, which erodes stakeholder trust, which reduces investment, which produces even fewer results. The spiral continues until the company abandons SEO entirely, leaving significant organic growth on the table.

The antidote is focusing exclusively on the highest-impact initiatives across three SEO categories (technical, editorial, and programmatic) while ignoring the vast majority of SEO advice that sounds important but produces negligible results.

Smith also pioneers the evolution from traditional SEO to Answer Engine Optimization (AEO) — getting products recommended by AI systems like ChatGPT, Claude, Gemini, and Perplexity. His key finding: ChatGPT traffic converts 6x better than Google search traffic.

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Module 1: The SEO Landscape — Three Buckets

All SEO work falls into three categories: Technical (infrastructure for crawling/indexing), Editorial (human-written content for topical authority), and Programmatic (template-based pages at scale from structured data). Smith argues editorial SEO is generally the highest-leverage for most companies. The "SEO Death Spiral" occurs when teams invest in low-impact activities, see no results, lose stakeholder trust, and eventually abandon SEO entirely.

For your product, editorial SEO is the highest-leverage bucket given natural topical authority in engagement, engagement sessions, and wellness. Programmatic SEO suits specific engagement pages. Technical SEO should be addressed but not over-invested.

→ Full detail: references/the-5-percent-framework.md

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Module 2: The 5% — High-Impact SEO Initiatives

Smith's highest-impact technical recommendation is internal linking architecture (every important page needs 7+ internal links). Also critical: server-side rendering for SEO pages, and crawl efficiency. Most standard audit items (page speed tweaks, schema markup, meta descriptions) have negligible impact.

For editorial SEO, Smith advocates topics over keywords: build comprehensive topic clusters with pillar pages + supporting content, all internally linked. Content enhancement (improving pages ranking positions 5-15) is often the highest-ROI activity. For programmatic SEO, start with 10-20 manually-created pages before investing in automation. Always do SERP analysis to match page format to user intent.

your product 5% priorities: Internal linking architecture, topical authority clusters (daily engagement, deep-dive session, specific engagements), content enhancement for page-2 content, and manual-then-scale programmatic topic pages.

→ Full detail: references/the-5-percent-framework.md and references/seo-strategy-execution.md

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Module 3: Answer Engine Optimization (AEO)

AI answer engines (ChatGPT, Claude, Gemini, Perplexity) use RAG + LLM: they retrieve relevant web content, then synthesize answers with citations. ChatGPT traffic converts 6x better than Google search. Early movers have a significant advantage since the playing field is more level than traditional SEO.

Three proven AEO tactics: (1) Dedicated landing pages answering specific questions users ask AI models, (2) YouTube videos with titles/descriptions matching target queries, (3) Authentic Reddit participation in relevant subreddits. AI-generated content at scale does NOT work — models reward original human expertise.

Owned AEO (content on your domain that gets cited) + Earned AEO (brand mentions across third-party platforms) are both necessary. Help center content is an underrated AEO asset.

your product AEO priorities: Question-based content ("how to start a daily engagement practice"), YouTube content, authentic Reddit engagement in the product subreddits, and transforming FAQ/support content into AEO assets.

→ Full detail: references/answer-engine-optimization.md

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Module 4: Building and Scaling an SEO Strategy

Prerequisites: product-market fit, sustainable unit economics, and a search-compatible business model. The strategy canvas follows five steps: assess position, identify authority domains, map opportunity, prioritize with the 5% framework, and build the team. Frame SEO investments in revenue terms for executive buy-in (organic traffic x conversion rate x revenue per conversion).

your product three-layer strategy:

• Layer 1 (Month 1-2): Technical foundation — SSR, internal linking, XML sitemaps
• Layer 2 (Month 2-6): Editorial topical authority — 5-7 topic clusters, content enhancement, pillar pages, 4-6 articles/month
• Layer 3 (Month 4-12): Programmatic + AEO — 1,000+ topic pages, question-based content, YouTube content, Reddit community participation

→ Full detail: references/seo-strategy-execution.md

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Module 5: Measuring SEO Success

Measure across four categories: traffic metrics (organic sessions, CTR, impressions, indexation), business metrics (organic conversions, revenue, CPA vs. paid), content metrics (rankings, engagement, internal link clicks, freshness), and AEO metrics (AI referral traffic, brand mentions in AI answers, question coverage). Report weekly (rank tracking), monthly (full traffic/conversion report), and quarterly (strategy review, ROI).

→ Full detail: references/seo-strategy-execution.md

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Decision Tools

Decision 1: Where to Invest SEO Resources

Do you have a web presence with indexable content?
├── No → Build one. Start with 10-20 high-value pages on your authority topics.
└── Yes → Is your content being crawled and indexed properly?
    ├── No → Fix technical foundations first (rendering, sitemaps, crawl efficiency)
    └── Yes → Do you have content ranking on page 2 or positions 5-15?
        ├── Yes → Content enhancement is your highest-ROI activity. Enhance existing pages first.
        └── No → Is there search volume for your authority topics?
            ├── Yes → Build editorial content clusters around your authority topics
            └── No → SEO may not be the right channel. Consider other growth loops.

Decision 2: Programmatic vs. Editorial SEO

Do you have unique structured data that competitors cannot easily replicate?
├── Yes → Programmatic SEO is viable.
│   ├── Is the data high-quality and comprehensive? → Build templates and scale
│   └── Is the data sparse or low-quality? → Enhance data first, then scale
└── No → Focus on editorial SEO.
    ├── Do you have topical authority in a specific domain? → Build content clusters
    └── Do you lack clear authority? → Start with content that leverages your unique expertise or data

Decision 3: Traditional SEO vs. AEO Priority

What is your current organic traffic situation?
├── Strong organic traffic (>10K monthly organic sessions)
│   └── Invest 70% in traditional SEO optimization, 30% in AEO
├── Moderate organic traffic (1K-10K monthly)
│   └── Invest 50% in traditional SEO, 50% in AEO (you can win at AEO faster)
└── Minimal organic traffic (<1K monthly)
    └── Is your brand new or early-stage?
        ├── Yes → Invest 60% in AEO (faster results), 40% in editorial SEO (long-term foundation)
        └── No → Diagnose why organic is low. Fix foundations before scaling.

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Key Vocabulary

Term	Definition
SEO Death Spiral	Cycle where low-impact SEO work produces no results, eroding stakeholder trust, reducing investment, and eventually abandoning SEO
The 5% Principle	Ethan Smith's framework: 5% of SEO efforts drive 95% of impact; focus exclusively on high-impact initiatives
Technical SEO	Site infrastructure enabling search engines to discover, crawl, render, and index content
Editorial SEO	Human-written content designed to rank for specific topics and establish topical authority
Programmatic SEO	Template-based pages generated at scale from structured data
Topical Authority	Search engine trust in a domain's expertise on a specific topic, built through comprehensive content coverage
Internal Linking Architecture	The system of hyperlinks connecting pages within a website, critical for search engine discovery and authority distribution
Content Enhancement	Improving existing content to rank for additional queries, often the highest-ROI SEO activity
SERP Analysis	Analyzing search results to understand what page format and content depth matches user intent
Answer Engine Optimization (AEO)	Optimizing content to appear in AI model answers (ChatGPT, Claude, Gemini, Perplexity)
RAG (Retrieval-Augmented Generation)	The two-step process AI answer engines use: retrieving relevant sources, then generating answers from them
Owned AEO	Content on your domain that gets cited by AI models in their answers
Earned AEO	Brand mentions across third-party platforms that cause AI models to recommend your product
Topic Cluster	A group of related content pieces organized around a pillar page, building comprehensive topical authority
Content Freshness	How recently content was updated; affects both search rankings and AI model citation likelihood

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Reference Files

• references/the-5-percent-framework.md — Ethan Smith's framework for identifying the 5% of SEO work that drives 95% of results, covering technical, editorial, and programmatic SEO prioritization
• references/answer-engine-optimization.md — The AEO playbook for getting products recommended by ChatGPT, Claude, Gemini, and Perplexity, including the three proven tactics and RAG-based optimization
• references/seo-strategy-execution.md — Step-by-step guide to building and executing an SEO strategy, including topical authority, internal linking architecture, content enhancement, and SERP analysis