| name | seo-article-writer |
| description | Write SEO-optimized long-form articles targeting specific keywords using the They Ask You Answer Big 5 framework (Marcus Sheridan). Articles are categorized by Big 5 type (Cost, Problems, Versus, Best/Reviews, How-To) and structured accordingly. The "answer first" rule applies to every article. Use when the user asks for an SEO article, blog post for ranking, "rank for keyword X", organic content, search-optimized post, pillar page, or content for organic traffic. Includes keyword targeting, search intent matching, internal linking suggestions, and meta tags. For improving an existing article, see copy-review. For deciding what to write about, see social-calendar pillars and icp-research. For repurposing it, see content-repurposer. |
| metadata | {"grounded_in":["They Ask You Answer - Sheridan"],"reads":["knowledge/brand/voice.md","knowledge/icp/personas.md","knowledge/services/","knowledge/markets/positioning.md","knowledge/content-library/"],"writes":["output/seo-article/"]} |
seo-article-writer
Writes long-form articles tuned for organic search. Built on They Ask You Answer: the companies that answer buyer questions honestly - especially the uncomfortable ones about price, problems, and competitors - win the most qualified organic traffic and trust.
Different from thought leadership: optimizes for search intent and keyword coverage, not contrarian POV.
When to use
- "Write an SEO article on "
- "Build a pillar page for "
- "Rank for "
- "Create content that ranks"
- "Write organic blog content on X"
Inputs needed
- Primary keyword (required): the head term to rank for
- Search intent: informational, commercial, transactional, navigational (default: ask the user, or infer)
- Target length: 1500, 2500, or 3500 words (default: 2500 for pillar, 1500 for supporting)
- Existing top 3 SERP results: paste URLs or have the skill use WebFetch
- Internal pages to link to: list URLs from the user's site
Framework: They Ask You Answer - Big 5 (Marcus Sheridan)
Buyers ask questions. Companies avoid answering the hard ones (price, problems, competitors) because they're afraid of the answer. The companies that answer honestly dominate organic search and build more trust than any competitor that hedges.
The Big 5 content types
| Type | Triggers | Why it works | Honesty requirement |
|---|
| 1. Cost and Price | "How much does X cost?" / "Price of Y" | Most searched, least answered. Companies hide it. Brave ones dominate. | Give real ranges. Explain what drives price up or down. Never say "contact us for pricing." |
| 2. Problems | "Problems with X" / "Downsides of Y" / "Is X worth it?" | Buyers research problems before buying. Honest companies build more trust than defensive ones. | Enumerate real limitations. Add context. Do not hide. |
| 3. Versus and Comparisons | "X vs Y" / "X or Y" / "Best X for [use case]" | High-intent search. Buyers are close to a decision. | Structured comparison table. Include competitors. Be fair. Recommend based on fit, not brand bias. |
| 4. Best and Reviews | "Best X for [situation]" / "Top Y tools" / "X alternatives" | Buyers want trusted recommendations. | Include options you don't sell. Readers trust it more. Excluding competitors signals bias. |
| 5. How-To | "How to do X" / "How to [achieve outcome]" / "Step-by-step guide" | Educational, early-funnel, authority-building. | Answer the question directly. Do not make them read 800 words to get to the answer. |
Every article must be categorized as one of the Big 5 before the outline is built.
Publishing priority when the user has no single keyword in mind
Sheridan's argument in They Ask You Answer is that the value of a topic tracks how much the
company would rather not write it. Use that as the ordering rule, worst-avoided first.
| Priority | Type | Why it goes first | The objection you will hear |
|---|
| 1 | Cost and Price | Highest search volume, lowest supply, and the question every buyer asks first | "We don't publish pricing" |
| 2 | Versus and Comparisons | Late-funnel, and someone else is already writing it about you | "We don't want to name competitors" |
| 3 | Problems | Builds more trust than any claim, and pre-qualifies bad fits out | "We don't want to highlight our weaknesses" |
| 4 | Best and Reviews | Wins the shortlist search, but needs editorial independence to be believed | "We can't recommend a competitor" |
| 5 | How-To | Safest and easiest, which is exactly why the SERP is already full of it | None, which is the tell |
Decision rule: if the user wants to start at 5, say so plainly. How-To is the type with the
most existing competition and the weakest purchase intent. Starting there feels productive and
usually moves nothing. Recommend the highest-priority type the user will actually approve, and
name the trade they are making.
Assignment selling, the reason the article has to be honest
Sheridan's second idea is that this content is not only for strangers arriving from search. Sales
sends these articles to live deals before the call, so the article has to survive being read by
someone who will then talk to a salesperson about it. That is the real quality bar here: would
your own sales team send this to a prospect, and would the call afterwards be easier or harder?
A hedged cost article makes that call harder, which is why "contact us for pricing" fails twice.
Process
-
Load context. Read knowledge/brand/voice.md, relevant knowledge/services/, and knowledge/content-library/ to find related pieces for internal linking.
-
Categorize the article. Identify which Big 5 type this article is:
Big 5 Categorization
Primary keyword: <keyword>
Big 5 type: <Cost | Problems | Versus | Best/Reviews | How-To>
Why this type: <one sentence>
Honesty check: <what is the uncomfortable truth this article must address?>
Answer-first target: <the direct answer to the headline question, in 2-3 sentences>
If the keyword doesn't map to a Big 5 type, note it and proceed with standard intent-matching, but flag: "This article is not a Big 5 topic. It will rank but may not drive high-intent traffic."
-
Analyze the SERP. If the user provided top 3 URLs, use WebFetch to read each. Identify:
- Average word count
- Common H2 headings (the questions search expects answered)
- Information gaps (what they all miss)
- Format type (listicle, guide, comparison, definition)
- Honesty gaps: are competitors hedging on price, problems, or comparisons?
If the user did not provide URLs, ask them to paste the top 3 they're competing against.
-
Match Big 5 type to structure. Use the type-specific structure below. Override only if the SERP analysis shows a different format dominates:
Cost and Price structure
H1: How Much Does [X] Cost? ([current year] Pricing Guide)
- Intro (answer first): give the range in the first paragraph. Do not hedge.
- H2: What is the typical price range?
- H2: What factors affect the price?
- H2: What is included (and what costs extra)?
- H2: How does [X] pricing compare to alternatives?
- H2: Is [X] worth the cost?
- H2: FAQ (pricing objections, contract terms, ROI)
- Conclusion + CTA
Honesty check: did you give a real number in the first 200 words, and did it come from
knowledge/services/ or from the user? If you do not have the number, STOP and ask:
"What is the actual price or range, and what moves it up or down?"
Never estimate a price, infer one from competitors, or write a plausible range. A
hallucinated price on a page built to rank is public, indexed, and gets quoted back to
your own sales team by prospects. Waiting a day for the real figure always beats it.
If the user genuinely cannot give a range, write [NEEDS INPUT: price range] and do not
publish the article.
Problems structure
H1: [X] Problems: What to Know Before You Buy
- Intro (answer first): acknowledge this exists. Name the top 3 problems upfront.
- H2: Problem 1 (specific, not vague)
- H2: Problem 2
- H2: Problem 3
- H2: Who [X] is NOT right for
- H2: How to decide if [X] is still the right choice for you
- H2: Alternatives if [X] isn't the fit
- Conclusion + fair recommendation
Rules
- Categorize every article as a Big 5 type before writing the outline. If you skip this, the structure will be generic and the ranking potential drops.
- Answer the headline question in the first 200 words. Every time. No exceptions.
- Never write SEO content without the top 3 SERP URLs. Without them, you are guessing what to beat.
- Never stuff keywords. Density above 2% is a red flag.
- For Cost articles: if the user says "we don't publish pricing", tell them: "Competitors or review sites will answer this question for you, and they'll frame it however they want. Answering it honestly gives you control of the narrative."
- For Problems articles: if the user says "we don't want to highlight our problems", tell them: "Buyers are already researching this. If you don't write it, a competitor or G2 review will. An honest article from you builds more trust than a defensive one."
- People-first content. If you would not want to read this as a human, do not publish it.
- Every H2 must answer a question someone actually searches. If you cannot turn an H2 into a "People also ask" question, rework it.
Quick Reference: Big 5 Framework
| Type | Headline pattern | Answer-first rule | Honesty requirement |
|---|
| Cost and Price | "How Much Does X Cost?" | Give range in paragraph 1 | Real numbers. No "contact us." |
| Problems | "X Problems: What to Know" | Name top 3 problems in intro | Real problems, not softened hedges |
| Versus | "X vs Y: Which Is Right for You?" | Give verdict in paragraph 1 | Acknowledge where the competitor wins |
| Best / Reviews | "Best X for [Situation]" | Name top pick in paragraph 1 | Include options you don't sell |
| How-To | "How to [Achieve Outcome]" | State core process in intro | Answer the question. Don't bury the steps. |
Never invent
- No price, competitor fact, statistic, or customer result may be written from inference.
Source it from
knowledge/, from the user, or from a page you actually fetched and dated.
- If a required number is missing,
[NEEDS INPUT: <what>] and stop. Do not publish around it.
- Do not hardcode a year. Ask for the current year or omit it.
- Competitor claims go stale. Date every fetched fact so a reader knows how old it is.
Stop conditions
Do not draft or do not publish, and say which condition fired.
- No top-3 SERP URLs. Ask for them. Without them you are guessing what the page has to beat,
and the outline will default to a generic guide.
- A Cost article with no confirmed price or range.
[NEEDS INPUT: price range and what moves it], and do not publish. An invented price gets indexed and quoted back by prospects.
- A Versus or Best article where the user will not allow any honest competitor advantage.
Say plainly that the article will read as advertising, will not earn the comparison query, and
should either change scope or not ship.
- A Problems article the user wants softened to the point of hedges. Hedged problems content
is worse than none, because it signals evasion on the exact page a skeptical buyer landed on.
- A claim about the user's own product that is not in
knowledge/services/. Ask. Product
claims written from inference are the ones support and sales inherit.
- Any regulated claim (medical, financial, legal, safety). Mark
[LEGAL REVIEW] and say the
page must not publish unreviewed.
Warning signs in your own draft
Ranked worst first. The first four block publication.
- A price, statistic or competitor fact with no source and no fetch date. Blocker.
- A customer name or result the user did not supply. Blocker.
- A hardcoded year that nobody confirmed. Blocker, it dates the page the moment it publishes.
- A regulated claim with no
[LEGAL REVIEW] marker. Blocker.
- The headline question is not answered until after word 200. Rewrite the intro before anything
else, this single defect undoes the whole Big 5 approach.
- A Problems article whose problems are all things the product happens to solve. Those are
features in costume, and a reader spots it immediately.
- Every H2 is a statement rather than a question a person would type or ask.
- Keyword density above 2%, or the exact keyword repeated in consecutive sentences.
- No table on a Versus or Best article.
Related skills
/copy-review to grade and tighten an article that already exists/competitor-analyst before a Versus or Best article, to establish what competitors actually do/page-cro when the article ranks but the conversion path off it does not work/content-repurposer to turn a published pillar into posts, emails and a newsletter issue/social-calendar to plan the cluster this article belongs to rather than writing one-offs/icp-research when it is not clear which buyer question is worth answering first/case-study-writer when the article needs a real documented result to be credible/linkedin-post for the distribution post once the article is live/kpi-review to check afterwards whether the cluster is producing qualified traffic/brand-context first, whenever knowledge/brand/voice.md does not exist yet
What this skill cannot know
These are real limitations of this skill. Ask the user, fetch the page, or emit
[NEEDS INPUT: <what>] rather than filling the gap from memory.
- Whether a competitor changed pricing, packaging or positioning since the page was fetched.
Every competitor fact in the draft carries a fetch date for exactly this reason.
- Whether the SERP has moved since the top-3 URLs were pulled. Results are personalised,
localised and reranked continuously, so the analysis is a snapshot, not a standing description.
- Whether a claim about your own product is still accurate. Roadmaps ship and features get
deprecated faster than
knowledge/services/ gets updated.
- Whether the current search guidance rewards this format. Ranking systems change without
announcement, and nothing in this file is a published rule from a search engine.
- Whether the page will be published with the schema, canonical and internal links intact.
Those are implementation decisions made after the copy is handed over.
Platform figures are not facts
Any cadence, character count, best-day, format spec or benchmark in this skill is a starting
default recorded at authoring time, not a published platform rule. Two obligations:
- Verify current specs in the platform itself before shipping anything that depends on them.
- This account's own historical data always wins. Where
knowledge/learnings.md or the
team's analytics contradict a default here, follow the data and say so in the output.
Never present a default from this file to a client as though the platform published it. That is
the claim their in-house specialist corrects in the meeting, and the correction discredits
everything else in the document.
