SEO + AEO Standards

This is the single source of truth for what “compliant” means on growthmaxinc.com. Every published page must pass scripts/seo_aeo_audit.py (CI enforces this on every push to main).

If you’re a contributor, a subagent, or future-me — read this before editing or generating any page.

What “AEO” means here

Answer Engine Optimization is what makes a page citable by ChatGPT, Perplexity, Google AI Overviews, and Featured Snippets. The mechanism is simple: those engines preferentially quote short, declarative chunks that directly answer a search-shaped question. If your chunk is too long, you either get truncated mid-sentence or get skipped in favor of a competitor’s tighter answer.

The whole AEO discipline reduces to one rule: every question H2 must be followed by a 40–60 word direct answer.

Hard rules (CI fails the build if any of these are violated)

1. AEO answer length

Every H2 phrased as a question (ends with ?) must be immediately followed by a paragraph of 40–60 words. The first sentence resolves the question; the remaining 1–2 sentences add color or specificity. Any further elaboration goes in the second paragraph of that section.

This applies to:

• Markdown posts: the first paragraph after ## Question? (excluding markdown formatting)
• Pillar/HTML pages: the first <p> element after <h2>Question?</h2>

CTA-style H2s (“Ready to…?”) are exempt.

2. H2 hygiene

H2 headings never end with a period. Question H2s end with ?; topical H2s end with no terminal punctuation. Sentence-style H2s (“The path forward.”) are not allowed.

3. Meta description length

Front-matter description: field must be ≤ 160 characters. Google truncates SERP descriptions around 155–160 chars; longer descriptions render with … mid-word.

4. TLDR length

Front-matter tldr: field must be ≤ 220 characters. The TLDR renders in a callout box at the top of every post; longer TLDRs visually overwhelm the hero.

5. Posts: required front-matter fields

Every file in _posts/ must have these fields:

• title, subtitle, description, category, read_time, tags, keywords
• slug, image, image_alt
• tldr, faq (FAQPage schema renders from this)
• pillar, pillar_page, primary_keyword (the keyword program uses these for sibling discovery)

6. Pillar/HTML pages: required front-matter fields

Every Jekyll-processed HTML page must have:

• layout (usually default) OR an inline `<nav class="fixed top-0 w-full bg-cyan-100/80 backdrop-blur-md border-b border-cyan-200 z-50">
  GrowthMax

  Home About Process

  Resources

  AI Agents Guide AI Adoption Playbook Partnership Model FAQ Blog

  Solutions

  AI Agent Development AI Engineer Bootcamp AI Foundations Bootcamp

  Team Contact
  Home About Process

  Resources

  AI Agents Guide AI Adoption Playbook Partnership Model FAQ Blog

  Solutions

  AI Agent Development AI Engineer Bootcamp AI Foundations Bootcamp

  Team Contact

</nav> `

• title, description, permalink

7. No <h1> in post bodies

The post layout (_layouts/post.html) emits <h1>SEO + AEO Standards</h1>. A second H1 in the markdown body creates a duplicate-H1 SEO problem. Use ## and below in post markdown.

8. Internal link integrity

Every internal link of the form /blog/<slug>/, /resources/<page>/, /solutions/<page>/, /partnership/, or /ai-agents-for-business/ must resolve to a real file in the repo. Broken internal links waste crawl budget and frustrate users.

9. FAQPage JSON-LD validity

Any <script type="application/ld+json"> containing "@type": "FAQPage" must parse as valid JSON.

Soft rules (warnings, not failures)

• Title length: aim for ≤ 60 chars (Google truncates titles around 60). Not enforced because brand titles often run a bit longer.
• Question H2 count per post: the keyword program recommends ≥ 3 question-format H2s per spoke post. Enforced by the audit as a warning.
• Sibling link count: the program recommends 2–3 inline links to sibling spokes. Audit reports the count but doesn’t fail.

Workflow

When you (or a subagent) write or edit a page

1. Before starting, read this doc.
2. While writing, count words on each question-H2 paragraph as you go. Aim for 50 words (middle of the 40–60 range = safety margin).
3. Before declaring done, run:

   python scripts/seo_aeo_audit.py
   

4. If the script reports any errors, fix them. Do not ship until it’s clean.

When the auto-generation pipeline runs

scripts/generate-post.py runs the same audit logic on its own output before saving. If the generated post fails AEO validation, the script regenerates (up to 3 attempts) with feedback like “previous attempt had paragraph X at 87 words; tighten to 40–60.” If 3 attempts all fail, the script exits non-zero, the GitHub Action fails, and the Calendar row stays Not started — the bad post never gets committed.

When CI runs on a PR or push to main

The .github/workflows/seo-audit.yml workflow runs python scripts/seo_aeo_audit.py and fails the check if exit code is non-zero. Required-status-check on main blocks merges that introduce regressions.

Anti-patterns (don’t do these)

• Don’t compress prose with regex. This was tried in May 2026, dropped junk filler text into 11 files, and broke things worse than the original problem. Prose rewriting requires the Edit tool, one paragraph at a time.
• Don’t trust subagent self-reports without verification. Always run the audit yourself after a subagent declares done.
• Don’t add filler to hit word counts. If a paragraph is short, add a concrete example, a specific number, or one more dimension of the answer. Don’t pad with synonyms or repeat the same idea.
• Don’t bury AEO answers under throat-clearing preamble. “There are several reasons why AI implementations may not deliver expected outcomes…” wastes the chunk. The first sentence under a question H2 should resolve the question.
• Don’t put H1s in post markdown. The layout adds them.

Why this exists

In May 2026 we shipped 20 blog posts with question-format H2s but 92% of the answer paragraphs were too long (~100 words instead of 40–60). The mistake wasn’t bad writing — it was the absence of a binding test. Every check in this doc has a corresponding line in scripts/seo_aeo_audit.py. If a check isn’t enforced by the script, it isn’t really a standard.