SKILL.md
seo-strategy
Decide where a site should compete next. Form a defensible thesis, select one primary and one secondary strategic bet, and document a six-month direction with a 90-day initiative roadmap. Do not implement the roadmap.
The skill may read an existing SEO.md or seo-reports/, but an audit is optional: never invoke /seo or duplicate its rubric automatically. Apart from the artifacts below, remain read-only.
Select the branch
- Capture — record an idea without research, then stop.
- Validate — challenge a supplied keyword, topic, or activity against adjacent alternatives and obvious prerequisites.
- Discover — survey the SEO/GEO opportunity landscape before choosing a direction.
- Compare — test named alternatives and add one evidence-backed challenger when appropriate.
- Refresh — test the active thesis against results, changed conditions, and eligible proposals.
On a bare invocation, use Refresh when SEO-STRATEGY.md has an active strategy; otherwise use Discover. Infer context before asking; accept unknown and disclose a safe assumption when the user cannot supply a fact.
For Capture, write a Captured proposal using [references/templates.md](references/templates.md). Do not perform live research, form a thesis, or alter the active strategy.
1. Frame the decision
Read the current strategy artifacts, relevant repository files, and live site when known. Establish the branch, business outcome, valuable conversion, audience, primary market, language, and decision being made. Treat user-supplied capacity as optional.
The outcome, conversion, and audience are the user's facts, not the agent's. Present the inferred frame — what was found, what was assumed, what stayed unknown — and have the user confirm or correct it before research is spent on it. When the user is unavailable, proceed on the disclosed frame and keep the eventual thesis Proposed.
Complete when: the user has confirmed or corrected the frame, or an unattended run has disclosed every assumption in it.
2. Build the evidence base
Follow [references/research-method.md](references/research-method.md) for the selected branch. Write a dated research snapshot from [references/templates.md](references/templates.md). Live external research is required unless the user explicitly asks for a preliminary offline pass.
Complete when: material claims are sourced and dated, unavailable metrics remain unknown, and the branch's research frontier is covered.
3. Form the opportunity portfolio
Apply [references/opportunity-framework.md](references/opportunity-framework.md). Evaluate every credible option or record why it was screened out. Use qualitative judgments, not an aggregate numeric score.
Complete when: the portfolio exposes the meaningful trade-offs and no plausible direction has disappeared without a reason.
4. Choose the bets with the user
Present the portfolio's leading options and the trade-offs between them, name a recommended primary and secondary bet, and get the user's steer before writing the thesis: appetite, capacity, and plans are their call, and the evidence cannot see them. When the user is unavailable, record the recommendation as the steer and keep the thesis Proposed.
Then state why the chosen bets beat the alternatives, with separate SEO and GEO rationales, risks, dependencies, and a lightweight measurement contract for each.
Complete when: the user has steered the choice (or an unattended run recorded the default), and the recommendation connects the business outcome to the evidence, bets, and continue/adjust/stop rules.
5. Get the decision
Present the thesis and ask the user to approve or revise it. Never silently replace an active strategy. If approval is unavailable, preserve the proposal according to [references/opportunity-framework.md](references/opportunity-framework.md).
Complete when: the thesis is approved, revised, rejected, deferred, or explicitly left proposed.
6. Record the strategy
Use [references/templates.md](references/templates.md) to write the current strategy, proposal state, and any required history snapshot. The roadmap contains initiatives, not tickets: each initiative names its outcome, scope, deliverables, dependencies, completion evidence, measurement link, capabilities, phase, and review point.
Complete when: the artifacts link to one another, the current lifecycle state is unambiguous, the 90-day roadmap is execution-ready, manually maintained notes are preserved verbatim, and no implementation work was performed.