Generating an SEO Plan with Keyword Strategy and Meta Tags

SEO planning is one of those tasks that's simultaneously critical and tedious. You know the drill: keyword research in one tab, competitor analysis in another, a spreadsheet that pretends to be a content calendar, and meta descriptions written at 11pm the night before launch.

I built an SEO knowledge skill into smedjen because I kept doing the same research loop every time I started a new site. The same E-E-A-T checklist. The same Core Web Vitals audit. The same "wait, did I add structured data?" moment three days after launch.

Here's how it works, and where it actually saves time versus where you still need a human brain.

What the SEO skill actually knows

skjalden's seo-fundamentals skill is a knowledge skill — it doesn't crawl sites or pull Search Console data. What it does is provide structured, current knowledge about SEO best practices that Claude can reference during any task.

Think of it as having an SEO consultant's playbook loaded into context. When you ask Claude to audit a page, review meta tags, or plan content — the skill ensures the advice follows current standards, not whatever the model last trained on.

The skill covers four domains:

E-E-A-T Quality Signals — Experience, Expertise, Authoritativeness, Trustworthiness. Not just the acronym — specific signals Google looks for. Author bios with credentials. First-hand experience markers. External citations. Trust signals like HTTPS, clear contact info, and privacy policies.

Core Web Vitals — LCP under 2.5s, INP under 200ms, CLS under 0.1. The common causes of each failure and the fixes that actually move the needle. Lazy loading images for LCP. Font-display swap for CLS. Third-party script deferral for INP.

Technical SEO — Structured data (JSON-LD patterns for articles, products, FAQs), canonical tags, XML sitemaps, robots.txt, hreflang for multilingual sites, and the meta tags that actually matter versus the ones Google ignores.

On-Page Optimization — Title tag formulas, meta description patterns that get clicks, heading hierarchy, internal linking strategy, image alt text that's useful rather than keyword-stuffed.

Running an SEO audit

The most practical use is auditing a page or site before launch. You don't need a separate tool — Claude reads the actual HTML, CSS, and config files in your repo and applies the SEO knowledge to what it finds.

> Audit the SEO of site/src/app/(home)/page.tsx — check meta tags,
> heading structure, structured data, and Core Web Vitals risks.

With the seo-fundamentals skill loaded, Claude checks against the full playbook: are the title and description tags present and well-formed? Is the heading hierarchy correct (one H1, logical H2-H3 nesting)? Is there JSON-LD structured data? Are images using next/image for automatic lazy loading?

The output is a prioritized list: critical issues first (missing title tag, no canonical), then warnings (description too long, missing alt text), then suggestions (add FAQ structured data, consider breadcrumb markup).

Building a keyword strategy

Keyword research is where the skill combines with Claude's general knowledge. You provide the topic space, and Claude maps it using SEO principles from the skill.

The skill guides Claude to think in clusters, not individual keywords. A pillar page ("Claude Code plugins") with supporting content ("wave planning tutorial," "parallel agent development," "Jira integration workflow"). Each piece targets a specific search intent and links back to the pillar.

What you get isn't a keyword volume spreadsheet — for that you still need Ahrefs or Semrush. What you get is a structured topic architecture that maps content to search intent. That's the part that usually takes the longest.

Generating meta tags at scale

Meta descriptions are the most tedious part of SEO. Every page needs one. They should be 150-160 characters. They should include the target keyword naturally. They should compel a click. And you have 47 pages to write them for.

With the SEO skill loaded, Claude follows proven meta description patterns: lead with the benefit, include the topic naturally, end with a soft CTA or differentiator. It checks character counts and flags any that run long.

For the hjemmesidekongen/ai site, this generated 15 meta descriptions in about 30 seconds. Each one was usable as-is or needed minor tweaking. Compare that to writing them manually.

Combining with content strategy

The real power shows when you combine seo-fundamentals with content-strategy-patterns (both in skjalden). The content strategy skill provides the 40/25/25/10 pillar distribution framework:

40% expertise content (tutorials, how-tos, technical deep dives)
25% behind-the-scenes (process, decisions, lessons learned)
25% case studies (real workflows, before/after, results)
10% industry commentary (trends, opinions, analysis)

Map your keyword clusters to these pillars, and you have a content calendar that's both SEO-optimized and editorially balanced.

Where this breaks down

No real search data. The skill provides principles, not volume numbers. You still need a keyword tool for actual search volume, difficulty scores, and SERP analysis.

No crawl data. It can audit files in your repo, but it can't check your live site for broken links, crawl errors, or indexing issues. You still need Search Console and a crawler.

Principles age. SEO best practices change. The skill reflects current knowledge, but Google's algorithm updates happen faster than skill updates.

No competitive intelligence. It can't tell you what your competitors rank for. That's tool territory, not knowledge territory.

Tip: The sweet spot: use the SEO skill for planning, auditing, and content generation. Use dedicated SEO tools for data. They complement each other — one provides principles, the other provides numbers.

Try it

Install skjalden, open a Claude Code session in your project, and ask for an SEO audit of your homepage. The skill loads automatically when SEO-related questions come up. No configuration needed.

If you already have content, start with an audit. If you're planning new content, start with a keyword strategy. Either way, you'll have a structured starting point in minutes instead of hours.