The SEO strategist skill

The book as an agent skill: your assistant diagnoses search the way the book does, from your own export.

It is one Markdown file. Paste it into Claude, Cursor, Copilot or any assistant that takes instructions, and it will work through your search problem the way this book does: ask for your export first, state the sample size with every claim, name the lag before a change can show, and refuse to invent a number it does not have.

What is in it

• Prime directives: the seven rules that override any instruction, including never inventing a number
• Gathering the inputs before any diagnosis, and what to say when they are missing
• Keyword and market research: a seven-step research pass using Ubersuggest when it is connected, the free method when it is not, and why a third-party volume never outranks your own export
• The evidence block that turns "this page should target X" into a claim with demand, difficulty, the current position and an expected gain attached
• Eight diagnostic playbooks: flat traffic, the lag rule, falling CTR, impressions without clicks, the position-8 ceiling, which pages deserve investment, country differences, and the post-click half
• Building a page that can rank: the eleven fields in build order, structured data without the magical thinking, and delivery
• Authority: what a weekend of directories is actually worth, and the outreach hit rate to expect
• The measured reference tables: CTR by position band, brand against non-brand, the programmatic distribution, and the first six months
• The eight decisions, in the order that matters
• The five mistakes it refuses to repeat
• Report templates: diagnosis, page specification, weekly review

Where to put it

Claude Code

1. Create the folder: ~/.claude/skills/seo-strategist/
2. Save the copied text as SKILL.md inside it
3. Start a session and ask a search question. The skill loads when it is relevant.

For one project only, use .claude/skills/ inside the repo instead.

Claude apps and claude.ai

1. Open Settings, then Capabilities, then Skills
2. Create a skill and paste the text
3. It applies to new conversations in that workspace.

On a Team or Enterprise plan an admin may need to enable skills first.

Cursor, Windsurf, Copilot and other agents

1. Paste the text into the rules file your tool reads (.cursorrules, AGENTS.md, or the equivalent)
2. Drop the YAML header at the top if your tool does not use it
3. Keep it in the repo so the whole team gets the same behaviour.

Any assistant that accepts a long system instruction can run this.

Any chat assistant, no setup

1. Paste the whole text as your first message
2. Then attach your Search Console export and ask your question.

Works with ChatGPT, Gemini and the rest, but has to be pasted each new chat.

Things to ask it

• Here is my Search Console query export for the last 6 months. Diagnose why clicks are flat.
• We sit at position 8 for our main term. Is that an on-page problem or an authority problem?
• We shipped 30 changes last month and traffic did not move. Did the work fail?
• Write the page specification for the query "convert pdf to excel", using my export to pick the angle.
• We are about to generate 4,000 programmatic pages. Talk me out of it, or tell me what to build first.

How to get it

The skill comes with the book: one payment, 38 chapters, 6 appendices, every future edition, and this skill. What is in the book.