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Outsource SEO Services Smarter: Do The Groundwork In Your Agent OS First, Then Hand It To A Team

By Julian Goldie · 11 November 2026 · agentos.guide

Before you outsource SEO services, let your Agent OS do the groundwork: a baseline audit, a crawler check, a schema draft, a brief and a research list.

You then walk into every provider call with facts, and you can check their work against your own numbers.

When the groundwork is done and you want a team to take it further, book a free SEO strategy session.

Quick start: set the agent up safely

Do these four things before you paste a single prompt.

1. Create a folder called seo-groundwork in your Agent OS workspace; every output saves there.
2. Export your Search Console Performance report and Pages report as CSV files into that folder.
3. Give the agent read-only access: it reads your site and files, it never logs into your CMS or changes live pages.
4. Add one rule to its instructions: "Draft only. Never publish, email or submit anything."

Google's hiring page suggests read-only Search Console access for anyone auditing your site at first, and the same logic applies to your agent.

Prompt 1: the baseline audit

This gives you the "before" picture any provider will be measured against.

Read the CSV files in seo-groundwork/. Then crawl https://YOURSITE.com (max 500 URLs).
Build a table with: URL, status code, title, meta robots, canonical, word count,
clicks and impressions (from the CSV). Flag: 4xx/5xx, noindex on pages with clicks,
missing or duplicate titles, canonicals pointing elsewhere.
Save as seo-groundwork/baseline-YYYY-MM-DD.csv plus a 10-line summary.
Do not change anything on the site.

Run it again monthly so you can see exactly what changed after a provider starts.

Prompt 2: robots.txt check for AI crawlers

AI search tools use their own crawlers, and a single bad line can hide you from them.

Fetch https://YOURSITE.com/robots.txt.
For each user agent below, tell me whether it is allowed, disallowed or not mentioned:
Googlebot, Bingbot, OAI-SearchBot, GPTBot, ChatGPT-User, PerplexityBot,
Claude-SearchBot, ClaudeBot, Google-Extended.
Mark which are search crawlers and which are training crawlers, with the source doc for each.
Then check 5 key pages for meta robots or X-Robots-Tag values: noindex, nosnippet, max-snippet.
Report only. Do not edit robots.txt.

The facts to check the answer against:

• OpenAI's crawler overview says sites opted out of OAI-SearchBot won't appear in ChatGPT search answers, and that it works independently of GPTBot.
• Perplexity's crawler page describes PerplexityBot as the bot for search results.
• Anthropic's crawler article says blocking Claude-SearchBot may reduce your visibility in Claude's search.
• Google's crawler docs say Google-Extended doesn't affect inclusion or ranking in Google Search.
• Google's robots meta tag guide says nosnippet also keeps text out of AI Overviews and AI Mode as a direct input.

Prompt 3: an Organisation or LocalBusiness schema draft

A clean draft speeds up the provider and shows you what they should be checking.

From the About, Contact and footer of https://YOURSITE.com, draft JSON-LD.
Use LocalBusiness if we serve customers at a physical address, otherwise Organization.
Include only facts visible on the site: name, url, logo, address, telephone,
openingHours, sameAs (our official social profiles).
List any field you could not confirm instead of guessing.
Save as seo-groundwork/schema-draft.json. Do not add it to the site.

Compare it with Google's Organization markup guide and its LocalBusiness guide before anyone adds it.

Google's AI optimisation guide is clear that no special schema is needed for AI features, so treat this as good housekeeping rather than an AI shortcut.

🔥 Groundwork done and the gaps are bigger than expected?

Bring your baseline and crawler report to a call and my team will rank what to fix first. Book a free SEO strategy session.

→ Get your free strategy session

Prompt 4: the provider brief and vetting sheet

This turns your findings into the document you send to every provider.

Using baseline-*.csv and the robots report, write a one-page brief:
1. What we sell, to whom, where.
2. Our 5-10 money pages (highest clicks or conversions).
3. Top 3 problems found, in plain English.
4. What we will keep in-house (facts, approvals, account ownership).
5. Off-limits: no PBNs, paid placements only with rel="sponsored",
   no changes without a change-log entry.
Then add a vetting sheet with Google's hiring questions from
https://developers.google.com/search/docs/fundamentals/do-i-need-seo
plus: "Does your AEO/GEO advice match Google's guidance on generative AI features?"
Leave answer columns blank for each provider. Draft only.

Every provider then answers the same questions, which makes comparing proposals far easier.

Prompt 5: outreach list research, draft only

Link building is the part most owners outsource, but you can still see what a sensible list looks like.

Find 30 websites that publish about [OUR INDUSTRY] in [OUR COUNTRY]
and accept expert contributions or resource suggestions.
For each: URL, topic fit (1-5), whether they mark sponsored links,
contact page URL. Exclude link farms, directories and sites selling links in bulk.
Draft only. Do not send emails or fill in contact forms.

Google's link spam policy names buying links that pass ranking credit as spam, while paid placements marked rel="sponsored" are allowed.

That's why the list is research for a person to review, not a sending queue.

Reading the results before you hire

Each prompt produces a finding that changes what you ask a provider for.

Google's AI optimisation guide says that unique, non-commodity content is likely to matter more for AI search than anything else it suggests.

So if Prompt 1 shows thin pages, put content help near the top of the brief, and plan to supply the real-world detail yourself.

A weekly routine once a provider starts

Outsourcing doesn't mean switching the agent off.

Give it a short job every Monday:

1. Re-run Prompt 1 and compare titles, canonicals and meta robots with last week's file.
2. Re-run Prompt 2 and flag any robots.txt change, however small.
3. Read the provider's change log and list any edit that appears in the crawl but not in the log.
4. Summarise the week in five lines for the business owner.

That routine takes the agent minutes and keeps every conversation with the provider grounded in evidence.

It also helps on the last day of a contract, when you need to confirm nothing was left behind.

Keep ownership while you prepare to outsource

Your agent can also audit who has access to what.

• List every platform: Search Console, Analytics, Business Profile, Bing Webmaster Tools, CMS, hosting, domain registrar.
• Confirm your company is the owner on each one.
• When you hire, give the provider a named user, never your password, and a restricted Search Console user during any audit.
• On Business Profile, stay primary owner and add them as a manager.
• When the work ends, remove them everywhere on the same day.

Google's page puts the stakes simply: you're responsible for the actions of any company you hire.

When to hand it to a professional

Your Agent OS is brilliant at gathering facts, but it shouldn't run your SEO alone.

If you want to go further yourself first, the AI Profit Boardroom is where you learn AI SEO yourself with these exact workflows.

Hand over when:

• The baseline shows indexing or technical problems you can't diagnose.
• You need consistent content that draws on real expertise, every week.
• You want links earned through manual outreach, which takes editor relationships an agent doesn't have.
• You're planning a redesign, which Google calls a great time to bring in an SEO.

Goldie Agency is the team I'd point you to: SEO, GEO, AEO and link building, with links earned by manual outreach and no PBNs.

Julian has written two Amazon best-sellers, SEO Link Building Mastery and Agency Marketing Mastery, and his own published figures show 425K+ YouTube subscribers.

Nobody, including us, can promise you a #1 spot; Google says so directly.

If you're comparing agencies, our hire an SEO agency guide walks through the decision.

🧠 Want the Agent OS that runs these five prompts?

Inside the AI Profit Boardroom you get the installable Agent OS, step-by-step trainings and four coaching calls a week, so you can learn AI SEO yourself.

→ Join the AI Profit Boardroom

Small-business example: a garden centre in five steps

1. Run Prompt 1 and find twelve product pages set to noindex by an old plugin.
2. Run Prompt 2 and discover OAI-SearchBot is blocked by a default rule.
3. Run Prompt 3 and get a LocalBusiness draft with the opening hours still to confirm.
4. Send the Prompt 4 brief to two providers and compare their answers to the vetting sheet.
5. Book a strategy session, keep every account in the company's name, and hand over the fixes.

🔥 Ready to pass the groundwork to a team?

Book a free SEO strategy session and share your seo-groundwork folder on the call.

→ Book your strategy session

🎁 Free extras for your groundwork folder

Grab the 200+ AI SEO Prompts and the free link building book to extend Prompts 4 and 5.

→ Book a free SEO strategy session

FAQ

Can my Agent OS replace an SEO agency?

It can gather facts, draft schema and research outreach targets, but it shouldn't publish changes or run outreach on its own. Use it to prepare and to check a provider's work.

Which crawlers should I check in robots.txt?

At minimum Googlebot, Bingbot, OAI-SearchBot, PerplexityBot and Claude-SearchBot for search, plus GPTBot, ClaudeBot and Google-Extended, which are separate training or AI-use controls.

Why should the agent work in draft-only mode?

Drafts let a person check every change and every outreach target before anything goes live, which keeps you inside Google's spam policies.

Does schema help me appear in Google AI Overviews?

Google says no special schema is needed for AI features. It is still useful for rich results and for describing your business clearly.

Final word on Outsource SEO Services Smarter

Let the agent gather the facts, keep the accounts in your name, and book a call when you're ready to outsource SEO services.

Related guides on agentos.guide

→ White Label SEO Agency Prep: 5 Prompts For Your Agent OS

→ Hire SEO Agency Prep: Do The Groundwork In Your Agent OS

→ Link Building Agency Groundwork: 5 Prompts In Your Agent OS

→ SEO Agency for Startups: Do the Groundwork in Your Agent OS

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