Set up SEO foundations for a new product

The domain choice is permanent infrastructure. Short, brandable, .com if possible, no hyphens. Avoid descriptive-keyword domains: they're penalised softly by Google and they age badly. Avoid trendy TLDs (.io, .ai) for consumer products: they reduce trust signals; .com still beats them on conversion.

These are infra-level decisions that affect SEO: HTTPS is a ranking factor (must), TTFB / response time matter (CDN), and migrating later is a 6-month headache. Pick a CDN-fronted host on day one (Vercel, Netlify, Cloudflare Pages all work) so the production site is fast from request 1.

URL structure is permanent. Decide: /blog/post-slug or /posts/post-slug? Lowercase + hyphens, no trailing slashes (or always trailing — pick one). Decide on subdomains vs subdirectories: blog.foo.com vs foo.com/blog. Subdirectories pass authority to your root domain and almost always win for new products.

These are 30 minutes of work that decide whether Google can crawl your site. sitemap.xml lists every URL you want indexed; robots.txt tells crawlers what NOT to crawl. Get both right and submit the sitemap to Search Console. Wrong robots.txt blocks Google from your whole site, a common production-launch foot-gun.

Every page should target one primary keyword + 3-5 variant phrasings. The keyword map is the master plan: 30-50 keywords clustered into 10-15 topic clusters, each cluster targeting one pillar page + supporting cluster pages. Build this in Ahrefs / SEMrush from competitor research + autocomplete + Search Console once you have data.

Build the keyword map for our new product.

Inputs:
- Product Brief (Brief surface in this workspace)
- 5-10 competitor URLs from the user

For each competitor:
1. Identify their top 50 ranking keywords (via Ahrefs or SERP scraping)
2. Filter to: > 50 monthly searches, < 30 difficulty, intent matches our ICP

Cluster the surviving keywords:
1. Group by topic into 10-15 clusters
2. For each cluster, pick the primary keyword + 3-5 variants
3. Pick the intent: informational ('what is X'), commercial ('best X for Y'), comparison ('X vs Y'), or branded
4. Pick the target URL: a pillar page or a cluster page

Output to the Keyword map table:
- One row per keyword
- Columns: keyword, cluster, intent, monthly volume, difficulty, target URL, priority (high/med/low)

Recommend the 5 highest-leverage clusters to write first.

Every page on a SEO-foundations site follows the same template skeleton: title tag (50-60 chars), meta description (150-160 chars), H1 matching intent, structured H2/H3 hierarchy, schema markup (Article / HowTo / FAQPage / Product), and internal links to related pages. Build this template once; the agent fills it for every new page.

Draft the SEO meta for a new page.

Inputs from the Keyword map row:
- primary keyword
- cluster
- intent
- target URL
- 3-5 supporting variants

Inputs from the Brief:
- product positioning
- audience
- page-template spec

Output:
1. Title tag (50-60 chars): primary keyword first, brand last. e.g., "Cold email reply rate guide | Brandname"
2. Meta description (150-160 chars): primary keyword once + soft CTA. No exclamation marks.
3. H1 (matches title, slightly more natural-language): "Cold email reply rate: a 5-day playbook"
4. Intro paragraph (60-100 words): hook the reader on the user pain, set up what they'll learn
5. H2/H3 outline (8-12 headers): structure the body
6. JSON-LD schema (HowTo / Article / FAQPage based on intent): valid schema.org markup with @type, headline, datePublished, author, image
7. 5-10 internal links to related pages from the Keyword map

Output as a structured update with each component clearly labeled.

Search Console is the only ground-truth view of how Google sees your site: which pages are indexed, which are crawled, which queries drive traffic, which pages have problems. Set it up day one, verify ownership, and check it weekly. Bing's tools are similar; less traffic but lower competition.

Pillar pages are the long-form, comprehensive resources at the top of each topic cluster. 1500-3000 words, broken into deep H2/H3 sections, internal-linked to every supporting cluster page. The agent drafts; humans edit for voice + accuracy. Pillars take 1-2 days each.

Cluster pages are the long-tail captures: each targets a specific 'how to X' or 'X vs Y' or 'what is X' query. 600-1500 words each, focused, internal-linked back to the pillar + sibling pages. The agent can generate the first draft; human polishes. Aim for 25 cluster pages across the 5 pillars (5 each).

Draft a cluster page for a long-tail keyword.

Inputs from the Keyword map row:
- primary keyword
- cluster
- intent
- target URL

Inputs from the Brief:
- the corresponding pillar page URL + summary
- the page-template spec

Output:
1. Title tag (50-60 chars)
2. Meta description (150-160 chars)
3. H1 + 600-1500 word body in markdown with H2/H3 structure
4. JSON-LD schema appropriate to intent
5. 3-5 internal links: 1 to the pillar, 2-3 to sibling cluster pages, 1-2 to product pages

Constraints:
- Lead with the answer (no preamble). Reader scrolls if curious.
- Include 1-2 real examples, numbers, or screenshots
- Don't pad to hit word count. 800 substantive words beats 1500 fluffy.
- Don't repeat the pillar's content; the cluster page goes DEEPER on a narrower question

Output as a markdown draft.

Internal links pass authority and signal topic relevance. Every page should link to 3-7 related pages and be linked FROM 3-7 related pages. Build the link graph deliberately: pillar ↔ cluster, cluster ↔ sibling, deep pages → up to pillar. Use Screaming Frog to audit your live link graph.

Submitting a sitemap doesn't guarantee indexing. Some pages get indexed in 2 days; some take 60. Watch the Search Console Indexing report weekly. Common issues: 'Discovered, not indexed' (Google saw the URL but didn't index — usually thin content), 'Crawled, not indexed' (Google indexed and de-indexed — quality issue), 'Soft 404' (Google thinks the page is empty).

After 60 days you'll have early signal: which pages climb, which stagnate, which lose ranking. Refresh the top 5 losers monthly with new sections / new examples / better internal links. Double down on the winners by creating 2-3 supporting cluster pages around each climbing page. Don't quit clusters that are still in the sandbox; do quit clusters that aren't moving after 6 months.

Run the monthly SEO ranking audit.

Inputs:
- Search Console export (pages report) for the last 30 days
- The Keyword map (target keyword per page)
- The Indexing log (every page submitted)

Output to the Brief doc as a markdown section:

1. **Climbers**: top 5 pages with biggest average-position improvement. For each: current rank, target keyword, recommended next action (supporting cluster pages, more internal links).
2. **Losers**: top 5 pages with biggest average-position decline. For each: rank dropped from / to, suspected cause (algorithm update, competitor refresh, decay), recommended fix.
3. **Stuck**: top 5 pages with high impressions + low CTR. For each: current title + meta, recommended rewrite to lift CTR.
4. **Quick wins**: queries showing impressions but where our page ranks 11-20. Often a fresh refresh + 3 internal links pushes them to top 10.
5. **Three concrete recommendations** for next month.