32-seo-growth-global

# SEO Growth (Global)

This skill covers 6 practical SEO layers: foundation audit, local SEO, search-intent content, AI search visibility, schema/machine-readable files, and backlink/distribution. The goal is qualified demand, not publishing volume.

## Information gathering

Read `.agents/product-marketing-context-global.md` if available. Ask up to 4 questions: website URL, target market, main product/service, and 90-day SEO goal. Use Search Console, GA4, Ahrefs, Semrush or similar exports when available.

Two companion references:
- `references/seo-growth-playbook.md` — 90-day roadmap, pSEO, comparison and alternative pages, site architecture.
- `references/schema-json-ld.md` — 12 copy-paste JSON-LD blocks with current rich-result status.

## Pick the mode

| User says | Mode |
|-----------|------|
| "Traffic dropped", "site is not ranking" | SEO audit |
| "We don't show up on Maps / in the local pack" | Local SEO |
| "Get cited by ChatGPT/Perplexity" | AI SEO / GEO |
| "Add schema", "rich results" | Schema |
| "Create many SEO pages" | Programmatic SEO |
| "Build alternative / vs pages" | Comparison pages |
| "Submit to Product Hunt/G2/directories" | Directory + backlink |

## Workflow

### 1. Audit the foundation

Run in order — a failure at a lower layer nullifies everything above it.

#### 1.1 Crawl and index

| Check | Passing threshold | Tool |
|-------|------------------|------|
| robots.txt does not block money pages | 0 revenue pages disallowed | Search Console > robots.txt report |
| XML sitemap exists, declared in robots.txt | Present, auto-updating | Search Console > Sitemaps |
| Indexed pages / pages you want indexed | >90% | Search Console > Pages |
| Redirect chains | 1 hop max, no loops | Screaming Frog, Ahrefs Site Audit |
| Soft 404s | 0 | Search Console > Pages > "Soft 404" |
| Canonicals point at the right page | 100% self-canonical or pointing at the true original | Any crawler |
| Leftover `noindex` from staging | 0 pages | Grep `noindex` site-wide |

Two issues account for most "the site just won't rank" cases: **site-wide canonicals pointing at the homepage** (misconfigured theme or plugin) and **a `noindex` left over from staging** after go-live.

#### 1.2 On-page

| Element | Threshold | Note |
|---------|-----------|------|
| Title | 50-60 characters | Longer gets truncated; primary term near the front |
| Meta description | 150-160 characters | Not a ranking factor, but drives CTR |
| H1 | Exactly one per page | Same topic as the title, not a copy of it |
| H2/H3 | Phrased the way people type queries | This is the scaffolding AI engines extract passages from |
| Images | Descriptive `alt`, meaningful filenames | WebP; no 4MB originals |
| Internal links | Every page has at least one inbound link | See site architecture in the playbook |

#### 1.3 Core Web Vitals

| Metric | Good | Needs improvement | Poor |
|--------|------|-------------------|------|
| LCP (Largest Contentful Paint) | < 2.5s | 2.5-4.0s | > 4.0s |
| INP (Interaction to Next Paint) | < 200ms | 200-500ms | > 500ms |
| CLS (Cumulative Layout Shift) | < 0.1 | 0.1-0.25 | > 0.25 |

Read field data first (Search Console > Core Web Vitals, CrUX), lab data second (PageSpeed Insights). A 100 desktop score with a 5s mobile field LCP is common — mobile is what matters.

Usual LCP offenders: uncompressed hero images, auto-playing sliders above the fold, fonts loaded from multiple origins, and synchronous chat or popup scripts.

#### 1.4 Cannibalization

When two of your own pages compete for the same query, both underperform. How to detect it:

1. Search Console > Performance > filter by query > check the Pages column. If one query rotates between 2+ pages, that is cannibalization.
2. Run `site:domain.com [keyword]` — several near-identical pages means consolidate.

Fix in this order: merge into the strongest page and 301 the rest → or split the search intent cleanly across pages → canonical only as a last resort.

#### 1.5 Authority and conversion

- Authority: backlinks, brand mentions, real reviews, author pages with verifiable credentials.
- Conversion: every page has a clear CTA and a contact path that matches the market.

### 2. Local SEO

Applies to any business with a physical location or a defined service area: clinics, restaurants, gyms, studios, home services, multi-location retail.

> First-time Google Business Profile setup: see `11-channel-setup-global`. This section covers **optimization** once the profile exists.

#### 2.1 NAP consistency

NAP = Name, Address, Phone. These must be **byte-identical** everywhere:

| Where it appears | Check |
|------------------|-------|
| Google Business Profile | The source of truth — everything else copies from here |
| Website footer | Character for character |
| Contact / location pages | Character for character |
| `LocalBusiness` schema | Character for character |
| Social profiles | Character for character |
| Citations and directories (Apple Business Connect, Bing Places, Yelp, industry directories) | Character for character |

"Suite 200" vs "Ste. 200" vs "#200" counts as three different addresses to an aggregator. Pick one string and enforce it.

#### 2.2 Google Business Profile optimization

| Item | Target | Cadence |
|------|--------|---------|
| Primary category | The most specific accurate category, never a generic one | Review quarterly |
| Secondary categories | 2-5 genuinely relevant | Quarterly |
| Photos | Exterior, interior, team, product | 3-5 per month |
| Posts | Offers, events, updates | 2-4 per month |
| Q&A | Seed and answer the questions customers actually ask | Monthly review |
| Hours | Update holiday hours **two weeks ahead** | Per holiday calendar |
| Services / menu | Complete, with prices | Quarterly |

#### 2.3 Reviews

- Aim for a steady monthly flow, not bursts. Twenty reviews in one day is an anomaly signal.
- Ask at the moment of satisfaction, right after the service is delivered, with a short direct link.
- Respond