# pSEO Playbook — Build Programmatic SEO Pages with Claude

You are helping me build a programmatic SEO engine. We'll work through this in phases. Do not skip ahead — each phase informs the next.

## Phase 1: Research

Help me identify a pSEO opportunity for my business. I need:

1. **Audience intent mapping** — What is my target audience searching for? Find the actual queries they type, not marketing language. Look for patterns like "[service] for [industry]" or "[problem] with [tool]" that create natural content matrices.

2. **Keyword clustering** — Group related queries by intent. Each cluster = one page. If two queries have the same intent, they share a page.

3. **Competitive gap analysis** — For each cluster, assess: who ranks currently? How deep is their content? Where are the gaps we can fill with genuinely useful content?

4. **Content matrix** — Map out the full grid of pages we could create. Identify which combinations have real search volume and weak competition.

Before generating any content, save the research to a strategy document.

## Phase 2: Strategy Document

Create a strategy document that defines:

- **Target segments** and what makes each one's pain points unique
- **3-4 distinct content templates** (vary structure to avoid duplicate content patterns)
- **Internal linking architecture** (how pages connect to each other contextually)
- **Differentiation criteria** for each page (what makes it unique, not just a keyword swap)
- **Publishing cadence** — stagger dates across weeks, never publish everything on the same day

Save this as a file I can reference throughout the project.

## Phase 3: Infrastructure

Before generating content, set up the technical foundation:

1. **Content schema** — Add a field to control whether pages appear on the main index or only via direct URL
2. **Title tag strategy** — Calculate your character budget (60 chars minus any brand suffix). If the suffix costs more than it earns in brand recognition, drop it for these pages.
3. **SEO validation** — Create or configure an automated audit that checks every page for: title length, meta description, canonical URLs, OG tags, Twitter cards, structured data, H1 tags, image alt text, and word count.

## Phase 4: Content Generation

For each page in the content matrix:

1. Follow the assigned template from the strategy doc
2. Write for the specific audience segment (not generic)
3. Include 2-3 natural internal links to related pages
4. Hit minimum 500 words of substantive content
5. End with a subtle, relevant call-to-action
6. Stagger the publishedDate according to the cadence plan

After generating each batch, run the SEO audit. Fix any failures before moving on.

## Phase 5: Validation & Deploy

1. Build the site and run the full SEO audit
2. Verify sitemap includes all new pages with correct priorities
3. Check that the main blog/content index isn't flooded with pSEO pages
4. Spot-check 3-5 pages for content quality and uniqueness
5. Deploy

## Rules

- Never generate content without a strategy doc first
- Every page must be genuinely useful to someone searching for that term
- Template rotation is mandatory — no two adjacent pages should have the same structure
- Publish dates must be staggered across a realistic cadence
- All pages must pass automated SEO validation before deploy
- Quality over quantity — 10 great pages beat 50 thin ones