How to Install and Use the Claude SEO Skill (2026 Tutorial)

If you read our [Claude SEO review](/blog/claude-seo-skill-review-worth-installing-2026) and decided to install it, this walkthrough takes you from zero to a working SEO research workflow in about 20 minutes. The tutorial assumes you have Claude Code installed and a basic terminal comfort level. Nothing more.

There are two real ways to install the [Claude SEO skill](/skills/claude-seo), and they have different tradeoffs. Method 1 is the plugin marketplace; Method 2 is direct from GitHub. Pick based on whether you want updates handled for you or you want to read every line before it runs.

Before you start

You need:

• Claude Code installed (Pro plan at $20/mo or higher)
• A terminal you are comfortable in
• A site you actually want to do SEO work on. Otherwise you are just running demos.
• 20 minutes uninterrupted

Optional but useful: Google Search Console access for the site you will be auditing. The skill does not strictly require it, but the page audit mode is sharper when GSC data is available.

Method 1: Install via Claude Code plugin marketplace

This is the recommended path. Updates land automatically, and the marketplace version has gone through a basic review.

Inside a Claude Code session, run:

`` /plugin marketplace add anthropics/skills /plugin install claude-seo@anthropics/skills `

Wait for the confirmation. You will see the skill listed when you run /plugin list. Restart Claude Code if it does not show up immediately.

That is the install. The skill is now loaded and will activate when your prompts touch SEO topics.

Method 2: Install directly from GitHub

If you want to read the skill's source before running it (which is the right call for any community skill), clone the repo and place it manually.

`bash mkdir -p ~/.claude/skills/ cd ~/.claude/skills/ git clone https://github.com/anthropics/skills.git anthropic-skills ln -s anthropic-skills/claude-seo claude-seo `

Now ~/.claude/skills/claude-seo/SKILL.md is the file Claude reads when the skill activates. Open it, read it top to bottom, confirm nothing is doing what you did not expect.

Restart Claude Code. Run /plugin list to confirm the skill is loaded.

Verifying the install

In a fresh Claude Code session, prompt:

` What modes does the Claude SEO skill support? `

You should see a response describing the 5 modes:

• Mode A — Keyword Research
• Mode B — Content Brief / New Article
• Mode C — Single-Page Audit
• Mode D — Meta Tags + Schema
• Mode E — Site-Wide Audit

If Claude responds with generic SEO advice instead of describing these specific modes, the skill did not load. Check /plugin list and try restarting Claude Code.

First real run: Mode A (Keyword Research)

The keyword research mode is the lowest-risk way to test the skill. It does not write anywhere. Just produces a research output.

In Claude Code, give it a seed:

` Use the SEO skill to do keyword research for a SaaS landing page that helps freelance designers send invoices. English-speaking market, target audience is freelance designers in the US and UK. Give me a prioritized cluster list. `

What you should get back: a structured output with 3-5 keyword clusters, each cluster containing 5-7 related terms, classified by intent (informational, commercial, transactional), with an opportunity score. Total length should be 60-80 lines.

If the response is shorter than that or feels generic, prompt with: "Run the full Mode A workflow from the SEO skill. Generate the keyword list, classify by intent, cluster, score opportunity."

The skill works better with explicit mode invocation in the first session. After 3-4 runs Claude tends to pick up the right mode automatically.

Second run: Mode B (Content Brief)

Once you have a target keyword from Mode A, use Mode B to generate a brief for an article.

` Use the SEO skill Mode B to generate a content brief for the keyword "ai invoicing for freelance designers." My site is at example.com, audience is freelance designers, brand voice is practical and anti-buzzword. `

Expected output:

• SERP analysis (top 5 ranking pages, what angle they cover, what gap exists)
• E-E-A-T checklist for the article
• H1 + H2/H3 outline
• Target word count
• Internal link recommendations
• Schema type recommendation (probably Article + FAQPage)

This is the brief you hand to a writer (or fill in yourself). For a 1500-word post, the brief itself runs about 800 words.

Third run: Mode C (Single-Page Audit)

This is where the skill earns its slot for working SEOs. Mode C audits an existing URL on 7 dimensions and produces a scorecard with specific fixes.

` Use the SEO skill Mode C to audit https://example.com/blog/some-article. Score on all 7 dimensions and give me the top 5 fixes ranked by impact. `

The skill uses WebFetch under the hood to pull the page content, then scores against the rubric in references/page-audit-rubric.md. You will get a 40-60 line output.

For Mode C to work, the URL has to be publicly accessible. Staging URLs behind auth will not work. Copy the rendered HTML and paste it instead.

Workflow tips after the first week

A few things that came up after using the skill for a month on bestaifor.me:

Site profiles matter more than you think. The skill loads sites/{site}.md to understand your topic clusters, brand voice, and existing pages. Without a profile, every run starts from scratch and the output is generic. Build a profile for any site you will work on more than once. Copy the template at ~/.claude/skills/seo/sites/_template.md.

Chain it with anti-ai-slop. For any output that will become public-facing text, run it through the [anti-ai-slop skill](/skills/anti-ai-slop) before publishing. The SEO skill writes solid briefs but the draft language often needs a slop scrub.

Mode D for meta tags is underused. After publishing an article, run Mode D against the URL to get optimized title, meta description, OG tags, and JSON-LD schema. Takes 30 seconds and the difference in CTR is measurable within a month.

Do not run Mode E on your whole site weekly. Site-wide audits are heavy. They crawl, score every page, aggregate, and the output runs 150 lines. Save it for quarterly reviews.

Common install errors

Skill does not show up in /plugin list. Restart Claude Code completely (close terminal, reopen). If still missing, check that ~/.claude/skills/claude-seo/SKILL.md exists and is not empty.

Skill activates but produces generic output. This usually means the SKILL.md description does not match your prompt strongly enough. Explicitly invoke the skill: "Use the SEO skill to..."

Mode C times out on large pages. WebFetch has a content limit. For very long pages, paste the visible content directly into the prompt instead of providing a URL.

Permission prompts for WebFetch. Default Claude Code permissions sometimes prompt before each WebFetch call. Allow it once, or configure settings.json to whitelist the domains you are auditing.

Security audit notes

Before this skill went onto our production workflow, I read the full SKILL.md and the reference files. Findings:

• No remote scripts execute. The skill is pure prompt instructions.
• WebFetch usage is scoped to URLs the user provides; no autonomous browsing
• File operations are confined to writing site profiles and reading existing articles
• No credentials handling; no API keys stored

This matches the security review pattern we apply to every skill. If you want to verify yourself, the file is at ~/.claude/skills/claude-seo/SKILL.md` after install. Short enough to read in 10 minutes.

When to use a different SEO skill

The Claude SEO skill covers research + brief + audit. For other angles:

• [agentic-seo-skill](/skills/agentic-seo-skill) — adds automated reporting and scheduled runs. Heavier weight, better for agency setups.
• [seomachine](/skills/seomachine) — focuses on bulk content generation. Useful if you are producing 50+ articles a month and need a pipeline.
• [deep-research](/skills/deep-research) — not SEO-specific, but pairs well for the customer-interview-to-content-idea step that sits upstream of keyword research.

If you are running a single site and writing about 10 articles a month, Claude SEO is the right baseline. Add the others when the volume justifies them.

FAQ

Does this skill work with Claude Sonnet or only Opus?

It works with both. The reasoning is heavier than a typical prompt so Opus produces sharper output, but Sonnet handles the workflow fine and costs less per run.

Can I use this skill without Claude Code, through the API?

The skill is Claude Code-specific. The underlying methodology — keyword research, content briefs, page audits — can be replicated by feeding the SKILL.md as a system prompt to the Claude API, but you would be building the orchestration layer yourself.

Will the skill update my site automatically?

No. The skill produces recommendations as text output. You apply them manually (or hand them to a developer). This is on purpose. Automated SEO changes go wrong fast and recovery is expensive.

Does the skill work for non-English sites?

Yes, with a caveat. The methodology is language-agnostic, but the SERP analysis is sharper for English because the underlying tools and Claude's training data are deepest there. For Indonesian, Spanish, French sites the skill works but the SERP gap analysis is less reliable.

How does this compare to using a paid SEO tool like Ahrefs?

Ahrefs gives you backlink data, exact search volumes, and competitor tracking that the skill cannot see. The Claude SEO skill gives you the reasoning and content layer instead. Working SEOs run both side by side.

Is there a way to schedule the audit to run weekly?

Combine with the schedule skill or set up a scheduled task in Claude Code that runs Mode E on your top URLs once a week. The output drops to a markdown file you review on a cadence.

What if I find a bug in the skill?

The GitHub repo is the right place to file it. Issue or PR. The skill is open and the maintainers respond.