SEO & Visibility Expert

DECISION POINTS

Traffic Diagnostic Tree

Traffic stalled/low? → Check in this order:
├── 1. Technical health
│   ├── Core Web Vitals score <90? → Fix performance first
│   ├── robots.txt blocking? → Check user-agents
│   └── Schema markup missing? → Add JSON-LD
├── 2. Content discoverability
│   ├── No llms.txt? → AI can't reference your content
│   ├── Missing Open Graph? → Poor social shares
│   └── No sitemap? → Crawlers missing pages
└── 3. Distribution channels
    ├── New project? → Need social launch strategy
    ├── Existing project? → Expand content marketing
    └── B2B tool? → Focus on community presence

Launch Timing Decision Matrix

Ready to launch?
├── Product Hunt
│   ├── Tuesday-Thursday? → Proceed
│   ├── Holiday week? → Wait
│   └── Major tech news? → Reschedule
├── Hacker News
│   ├── 6-8am PST, Tue-Thu? → Post
│   ├── Weekend? → Wait for weekday
│   └── Technical audience? → Use "Show HN"
└── Reddit
    ├── Participated 90% vs promoted 10%? → Safe to promote
    ├── New account? → Build karma first
    └── Wrong subreddit rules? → Find better fit

AI Crawler Strategy

Want AI to find your content?
├── Training data inclusion
│   ├── Want citations? → Allow GPTBot, Claude-Web
│   └── Privacy concerns? → Block Google-Extended only
├── Content optimization
│   ├── Technical docs? → Detailed llms.txt with examples
│   ├── Marketing site? → Brief llms.txt with features
│   └── Blog? → Post summaries in llms.txt

FAILURE MODES

1. "Invisible Launch" Anti-Pattern

Detection: Product posted, gets <50 total votes/comments across all platforms Symptoms: No pre-launch network, posted at wrong times, generic messaging Fix: Build relationships 4 weeks before launch, time posts strategically, craft platform-specific messaging

2. "AI Blind Spot" Anti-Pattern

Detection: Zero mentions when searching your product in ChatGPT/Claude/Perplexity Symptoms: Missing llms.txt, AI crawlers blocked in robots.txt, no structured data Fix: Create llms.txt immediately, allow AI user-agents, add schema markup

3. "Performance Death Spiral" Anti-Pattern

Detection: Core Web Vitals score <50, bounce rate >70% Symptoms: Slow loading, layout shifts, heavy JavaScript Fix: Optimize images first (biggest impact), minimize JS bundles, set explicit image dimensions

4. "Social Media Ghost Town" Anti-Pattern

Detection: Shared links show default browser title, no image preview Symptoms: Missing Open Graph tags, no og:image, generic descriptions Fix: Add complete Open Graph meta tags, create 1200×630 og:image, test with social debuggers

5. "Keyword Stuffing Penalty" Anti-Pattern

Detection: Rankings dropped after content update, unnatural reading flow Symptoms: Same keyword repeated 10+ times unnaturally, robotic prose Fix: Rewrite for humans first, use synonyms and related terms, maintain 1-2% keyword density max

WORKED EXAMPLES

Example 1: SaaS Tool Launch Recovery

Situation: DevSync (code collaboration tool) launched 3 months ago, getting only 50 visitors/day

Diagnostic Process:

1. Technical check: Core Web Vitals at 45 - LCP over 4 seconds
2. AI visibility: No llms.txt, GPTBot blocked in robots.txt
3. Social presence: No Product Hunt launch, minimal community engagement

Actions Taken:

1. Performance first: Optimized hero images, reduced from 2MB to 200KB → LCP down to 2.1s
2. AI optimization: Added llms.txt with technical specs and use cases, allowed AI crawlers
3. Strategic launch: Built relationships on Indie Hackers for 3 weeks, launched on Product Hunt Tuesday at 12:01 AM PST

Expert vs Novice:

• Novice would: Try to fix everything at once, launch immediately without network
• Expert caught: Performance blocks everything else - fix technical issues before promotion

Results: 2,500 visitors on launch day, #3 Product of the Day, 450% increase in trial signups

Example 2: Technical Documentation SEO

Situation: Open source library docs getting 90% traffic to homepage, other pages invisible

Diagnostic Process:

1. Content audit: Individual doc pages missing schema markup
2. Structure analysis: No clear information hierarchy for crawlers
3. AI discoverability: llms.txt too generic, no specific examples

Actions Taken:

1. Schema implementation: Added TechArticle schema to each doc page with code examples
2. llms.txt enhancement: Included specific API endpoints, common use cases, code snippets
3. Internal linking: Created clear hierarchy: Overview → Getting Started → Advanced Features

Results: Individual doc pages now rank for long-tail queries, 300% increase in organic traffic to deep pages

QUALITY GATES

SEO audit is complete when ALL of these are true:

• Core Web Vitals score >90 on PageSpeed Insights (mobile and desktop)
• llms.txt exists at site root with project overview and key features
• robots.txt allows GPTBot, Claude-Web, and major search engines
• Every page has unique title (<60 chars), description (<160 chars), and canonical URL
• Primary content types have appropriate JSON-LD schema markup
• Open Graph tags present with og:image (1200×630px) for social sharing
• XML sitemap exists and submitted to Google Search Console
• Internal linking structure allows crawling to all important pages
• Mobile-responsive design confirmed on multiple devices
• Site loads in <3 seconds on 3G connection

NOT-FOR BOUNDARIES

Do NOT use this skill for:

• Paid advertising campaigns → Use paid-marketing-specialist instead
• Social media content creation → Use content-creator instead
• Email marketing campaigns → Use email-marketing-expert instead
• Conversion rate optimization → Use conversion-optimization instead
• Brand strategy and messaging → Use brand-strategist instead

Delegate when:

• Client wants Google Ads setup → Hand off to paid marketing
• Need social media post templates → Hand off to content creation
• Require A/B testing landing pages → Hand off to conversion optimization
• Want comprehensive brand guidelines → Hand off to brand strategy

Gray areas requiring judgment:

• Landing page copy that mentions SEO benefits → Collaborate with copywriter
• Technical blog posts for SEO → Collaborate with technical writer
• Product positioning for search → Collaborate with brand strategist