Claude SEO: a practical guide to Claude for SEO

Claude is good at SEO work once it can see real data. On its own it writes, edits and reasons well, but it guesses search volumes and rankings from memory. Connect it to an SEO data source through MCP and it can look those numbers up, read your Search Console queries, run a site audit and tell you what to fix.

This guide covers the Claude side: which Claude app to use, how to connect data, and how to ask for work you can trust. For the bigger picture of agents doing SEO, read SEO agents, and for where AI helps and fails across SEO in general, AI for SEO.

What Claude does well for SEO without any tools

Plain Claude, with nothing connected, is already useful for:

• Writing and rewriting. Title tags, meta descriptions, intros, FAQ answers, product copy.
• Reviewing a page you paste in. Is the answer near the top? Does the heading structure make sense? What does a reader still need?
• Briefs and outlines. Give it a keyword and your audience, and it drafts a page plan you then edit.
• Explaining things. What a canonical tag does, why a page is not indexed, what a Search Console error means.

What it cannot do on its own is tell you how many people search a phrase, who ranks for it today or how your pages perform. Any number it gives you without a tool call is a guess.

Which Claude app to use

If you work on the site's code, Claude Code is the strongest choice, because it can research a fix and then make it. If you do not code, Claude Desktop is enough.

Connect Claude to SEO data

Claude reads outside data through MCP (Model Context Protocol) servers. An SEO MCP server gives it tools such as "get keyword metrics" or "list ranking keywords for a domain", and Claude calls them when your request needs them. Our comparison of SEO MCP servers covers the main options. If you already have Semrush, the Semrush MCP guide shows which plans let Claude use it.

With zaDojo, the setup is:

• Claude Code: two commands install the plugin, which adds the MCP server and twelve SEO skills. Steps are in the Claude Code plugin guide.
• Claude Desktop and Cowork on a paid plan: add the same plugin from Customize > Plugins. The plugin guide has the clicks.
• Claude Free or claude.ai: add https://app.zadojo.com/mcp as a custom connector under Customize > Connectors. See MCP setup.

Then check it works by asking:

Use zaDojo to check my connection and list my projects.

That call uses no credits.

SEO prompts you can copy

Claude does better work when the request names the site, the goal and the data to use. The prompts below are grouped by job. Replace the parts in square brackets. The ones marked "with data" need zaDojo (or another SEO data source) connected; the rest work in any Claude app.

Keyword research (with data)

Find 30 keywords about [topic] for [audience] in [country]. Check search volume, difficulty and intent, look at who ranks in the top 5 for the best ones, and group them into pages. Show the cost before you start.

Here is my product: [one-line description]. List the comparison, alternatives and "for [audience]" searches buyers would type, then check which of them have real search volume.

Search Console (with data)

Pull my Search Console queries for [domain] from the last 3 months. Find queries where I rank between 5 and 15 with at least 100 impressions, and suggest a better title for each page involved.

Which of my pages lost the most clicks in the last 28 days compared with the 28 days before? For each one, tell me whether it lost position, impressions or click-through rate.

Competitors (with data)

Compare [my domain] with [competitor domain]. Which keywords do they rank for that I do not, and which of those match what we sell? Ignore branded terms.

Site audit (with data)

Run a site audit on [domain] without Lighthouse. Ignore issues on pages with no traffic and tell me the three fixes worth doing first, with the URLs affected.

Writing and editing (no data needed)

Here is my page: [paste text or URL]. The target search is "[keyword]". Rewrite the first paragraph so it answers that search directly in two or three sentences. Do not invent facts about the product.

Write 5 title tags under 60 characters and 5 meta descriptions under 155 characters for this page: [paste]. Put the main keyword "[keyword]" near the start of each title.

Read this article: [paste]. List the questions a reader searching "[keyword]" would still have after reading it, and say which ones the article should answer.

AI visibility (with data)

Ask ChatGPT, Gemini and Perplexity "[buying question, e.g. best invoicing tool for freelancers]". Which brands do they name, which pages do they cite, and is [my brand] mentioned?

What to do with that answer is the subject of answer engine optimization (AEO).

Three habits help:

• Ask for the evidence. "Show the numbers behind each recommendation" makes it easy to spot a guess.
• Set a budget. Paid data costs money. Say "stay under €1" or "ask me before anything over €0.50".
• Save the context once. Tell Claude your goal, audience and competitors in a project once, so you do not repeat them every session. In zaDojo the SEO Project Setup skill does this.

Use skills for repeat jobs

A one-off prompt is fine for a quick question. For jobs you run often, such as an audit or keyword research, a skill gives Claude a written method to follow, so the result is the same shape every time. zaDojo ships twelve, from SEO Audit to AI Visibility Audit. The Claude SEO skills guide lists them and shows how to install them.

Where Claude still needs you

• Business judgment. Claude does not know which customers pay best or which pages matter to sales unless you tell it.
• Checking before publishing. Read what it writes. Claude can be confidently wrong about your product.
• Spending decisions. Agents connected to zaDojo are told to ask before any planned batch over €2, but you decide what the research is worth.

What it costs

Claude itself is billed by Anthropic on your Claude plan. The SEO data is separate. zaDojo is one plan at €10 a month with €10 of usage included, and new accounts get €0.10 of trial credits with no card. Search Console and Google Analytics reads, plain site audits, project context and saved reports use no credits. As a guide, one keyword research search costs about €0.07 and a domain or backlink overview about €0.10. More examples are on pricing.

Questions people ask

Can Claude do SEO? Yes, with data connected. Without tools it can write and review pages; with an SEO MCP server it can also research keywords, check rankings and audit sites.

Is Claude better than ChatGPT for SEO? Both can call the same MCP tools, so the data is identical. Claude Code has the edge when you want the agent to edit your site's files too. ChatGPT setup is in the ChatGPT guide, and ChatGPT for SEO covers the same work from the ChatGPT side.

Does Claude know my rankings? Not unless you connect a data source. Connect Search Console through zaDojo and it reads your real clicks, impressions and positions.