The SEO Playbook
How search engines rank pages, and what to do about it. Rebuilt for a results page that now includes an AI answer.
17 chapters · 20 pages · ~15 minutes to read
What SEO is
How Google decides who gets the click
Experience, expertise, authority, trust
Keywords are not topics
Keyword research: finding the words
Keyword research: choosing and mapping
On-page: the anatomy of a page
On-page: titles, descriptions, headings
On-page: links, media, structured data
The technical floor
Pruning and de-optimisation
Backlinks
Measuring what matters
What changed: the AI answer
Results: what this looks like in practice
Quick wins for the next 30 days
Worksheet: keyword mapping sheet
Written for teams that own SEO.
Founders and owners who are accountable for the website
Marketing leads briefing an agency or an in-house SEO
Anyone whose rankings are holding but whose traffic is falling
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