What are Claude SEO Skills? The Complete Guide to Installable AI SEO Skills

Quick definition

A Claude SEO skill is a pre-built system prompt, packaged as an .md file, that turns Claude into a specialist for one specific SEO task.

Install the .md file in your Claude skills folder, restart Claude Desktop, and the next time you ask Claude to (for example) audit a local service business, Claude follows the skill's instructions step by step. It uses the framework from that skill, asks for the right inputs, applies the right scoring, and returns the right output format.

You stop writing the same prompt from scratch every time. You build it once, refine it, and call it whenever you need it. That's the whole pitch.

Anatomy of a Claude SEO skill

Every Claude SEO skill is a single Markdown file with two parts.

YAML frontmatter at the top. Two fields:

• name. The skill's identifier. Always lowercase with hyphens (for example local-seo-audit).
• description. A short paragraph telling Claude when this skill is the right one to use. This is the trigger. Claude reads it to decide which skill to apply.

The body below. The actual system prompt. Sections like:

• What this skill does and who it is for
• The workflow Claude should follow, step by step
• The exact output format (so every result looks the same)
• Rules and edge cases (what to do when the user pastes a screenshot instead of text, when there is no URL, when the input is in another language)
• Voice (how Claude should talk to the user)

That is it. No code, no API key, no external dependency. The whole skill is text in a file.

How to install one

Two options. Both take less than 60 seconds.

Option A: Drop the file in. Download the .md from any Hawk Academy skill page. Move it to your Claude skills folder:

• Mac: ~/.claude/skills/
• Windows: %USERPROFILE%\.claude\skills\

If the skills folder does not exist yet, create it. Restart Claude Desktop. The skill is now active.

Option B: Terminal install. Every Hawk Academy skill page has a curl one-liner that downloads the file straight into the right folder. Example:

curl -fsSL https://hawkacademy.co/claude-seo-skills/downloads/local-seo-audit.md \
  -o ~/.claude/skills/local-seo-audit.md

Paste, run, restart Claude. Done.

Why SEOs use them

Three reasons, in order of how often we hear them from clients.

1. The prompt is the work. A good SEO audit prompt is not 50 words. It is 1,500 to 3,000 words of framework, instructions, output format, and edge cases. Writing that from scratch every time you want a new audit is the part of the job that does not scale. A skill is the prompt, frozen at "the best version we have ever shipped". You install it once and call it a thousand times.

2. Output consistency. When the same skill runs every audit, every output looks the same. Same sections, same scoring, same action plan format. Team members can read each other's outputs without translation. Clients see the same shape of report every time. The skill is the style guide.

3. Refinement compounds. When you find a flaw in the audit (Claude missed a scoring edge case, the output skipped a section), you edit the .md once. Every future run inherits the fix. There is no "remember to add X to the prompt next time". The skill is the memory.

For agencies, those three things together are the leverage. You stop training every junior on prompt-craft. You give them the skill library, point at the audit they need to run, and review the output.

Claude skills vs ChatGPT GPTs vs Gemini Gems

Same idea, three implementations. Each platform lets you pre-package a system prompt and give it a name. The differences matter.

The portability point is the big one for SEOs. Because a Claude skill is text in a file, it is not platform-locked. Same skill, paste it into Claude, ChatGPT, Gemini, or any other LLM, and it runs. You pick the LLM that suits the task (Claude for depth, Gemini for live web reads, ChatGPT for speed) without rebuilding the skill three times.

For more on how LLM search visibility actually works across the three, see Optimising for ChatGPT, Perplexity and LLM-powered search.

The 22 Claude SEO skills Hawk Academy publishes

Every skill in the library is free. They cover the SEO work we do across StudioHawk's 500+ client campaigns, packaged so anyone can run them.

Browse the full library at Claude SEO Skills. Each page has the skill, the curl install command, the full prompt to paste into any LLM, and a worked example.

Combining skills in one workflow

Skills are deliberately single-purpose. You get more out of them when you chain them.

Example: full audit and content plan for a local plumber.

1. Run Local SEO Audit on the homepage. Get the on-page priority list.
2. Run Google Trust Check on the About page. Get the trust-signal score and the 3 things to add.
3. Run Competitor Gap Check against the top two competitors in the suburb. Get the keyword and content gaps.
4. For each gap, run Content Brief and Draft. Get briefs and drafts.
5. For each new page, run Title Tag Optimizer. Get the optimised title.
6. Once the pages are live, run Striking Distance Finder monthly against fresh GSC data. Find the keywords ranking 4 to 15 and the per-page tweak that lifts each one.
7. Run Information Gain Finder against any content that ranks but does not convert. Score Unique, Specific, Authentic. Add the click-me angle.

The pattern: audit, plan, write, measure. Skills cover each step. None of them try to do everything. That is on purpose.

When NOT to use a Claude SEO skill

Three situations where the skill is the wrong tool.

1. The task is one-off and weird. If you need a one-time analysis of a specific historical event for a specific brand, a skill is overkill. Just write the prompt directly into the chat. The skill is for things you do repeatedly.

2. The work needs live web access and Claude cannot reach it. Most audit skills assume you can paste content or that the model can fetch a URL. If the URL is behind authentication, Cloudflare protection, or in a regional block, the skill cannot help. Either paste the content directly, or use Gemini (live web reads) for the fetch step.

3. The decision is strategic, not tactical. Claude is good at audits, briefs, scoring, output formatting. Claude is weaker at "what should our brand stand for over the next 24 months". For strategy decisions, use the skill output as input to a human conversation. Do not let a skill close that loop alone. (Strategy is also why we run the 2-day SEO + AI workshop: skills give you leverage on execution, the workshop gives you the strategic frame.)

What to do next

If you have not used a Claude skill before, pick the audit skill that matches your business. Install it. Run it on your own homepage. Read the output. That is the fastest way to understand what these things actually do.

If you are already in Claude SEO skills and want to go deeper:

• Read E-E-A-T Explained for the trust framework that the Google Trust Check and Local SEO Audit skills both apply.
• Read Optimising for ChatGPT, Perplexity and LLM-powered search for the AI search frame that the AI Visibility Check and AI Citation Monitor skills measure.
• Browse the full Claude SEO Skills library. Pick the next skill that matches the work in front of you.