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The MAPS Method in C-Level SEO
The MAPS Method is a marketing framework created by Grant Simmons for diagnosing and improving how a brand is understood, trusted, found and used by people, markets and machines. Its four conditions are Meaning, Authority, Presence and Signals.
Why it’s in a book about SEO
C-Level SEO teaches a leader to manage search. MAPS widens the question from “how do we rank?” to “is our brand clear to the three readers that matter: people, markets and machines?” Most teams address only the machines and call it AI visibility. That is how budgets get spent on a tool, a few unnecessary blog posts and not much else.
Where a chapter touches one of the four conditions, you’ll find a short “MAPS lens” note. This page is the map of those notes.
| Condition | Makes you | What it covers | Workstream | In the book |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Meaning | Understood | Who the brand serves, what need it meets and what it should be known for, so buyers and machines identify it the same way. | Define | Ch. 1, 3 |
| Authority | Trusted | Proof that makes claims credible, and experiences that lead customers to recommend the brand. | Prove | Ch. 7 |
| Presence | Found | The brand and its proof placed where the audience looks, including where machines look on their behalf. | Distribute | Ch. 4, 10, 11 |
| Signals | Usable | Facts, offers and assets that are consistent, structured and ready for people and machines on any surface. | Enable | Ch. 5, 11 |