Home › Chapter Guide
What’s in C-Level SEO
The key to each chapter is not granular detail. Our reader is busy, probably non-technical, and wants to get to the point. So every chapter starts with a synopsis, its goals and what you’ll learn, letting you skim or dig in.
What is C-Level SEO?
You’ve been asked to price, justify, negotiate or approve an SEO or AI search spend. It’s not your wheelhouse, and you don’t want to sound clueless. Start here.
Read the teaser →Chapter 2About the guide
Skip it if you like. But you should know who is telling you what to do, and why other experts trust them.
Read the teaser →Chapter 3Google 101
You don’t need to understand a combustion engine to drive from A to B. Here’s how search, and now AI answers, actually work, in words that need no technical skills.
Read the teaser →Chapter 4SEO ROI
Did I get out more than I put in? The simplest measure of success is often hidden behind tools and jargon. Here is the value equation, and what AI answers do to it.
Read the teaser →Chapter 5The 20-minute check
You don’t need to be THE SEO for your company. But in 20 minutes, with Google, a few free tools and your brain, you can know how good, bad or ugly things really are.
Read the teaser →Chapter 6Questions to ask
Leaders are assumed to have all the answers. More usefully, you’re the person with the difficult questions. Here are the right ones, with what a good answer sounds like.
Read the teaser →Chapter 7Links & authority
The tactics most often pitched to you can help, or hurt, your visibility. What works, what’s risky, and what is likely to earn you a penalty.
Read the teaser →Chapter 8Getting help
Not enough is getting checked off and everything takes too long. Freelancer for cost, agency for scale, or a hire for the long term? A decision tree to lead you down the right path.
Read the teaser →Chapter 9The cost of SEO
There’s no standard price list, no consistent pay scale and no official SEO degree. So how do you tell a fair proposal from being ripped off?
Read the teaser →Chapter 10Reporting
SEO practitioners push data at clients as a firehose rather than a utility. Here are the metrics that do matter, on one simple dashboard.
Read the teaser →Chapter 11AI in search New
AI is reshaping both the results your buyers see and the way SEO work gets done. What’s changed, what hasn’t, and where to put money. New chapter.
Read the teaser →Chapter 12Calling SEO bullshit
SEO has a bad reputation for overpromising and under-delivering. Listen for these cues and you’ll know when to push back. Now with the AI-era myths.
Read the teaser →Chapter 13The confident leader
SEO can be complex. The fundamental business and marketing concepts are not. Confidence, clarity and consistency, in one closing chapter.
Read the teaser →