SEO Article Planner

Ranking is a byproduct of being the best answer, and the best answer is planned before it is written. This skill produces the plan: a brief that starts from what the searcher is actually trying to do, maps their sub-questions to headings, specifies the direct answer up front, and hands a writer everything needed to execute without guessing — format, titles, links, exhibits, and the evidence bar.

When to use this skill

A target query or topic needs turning into an article brief a writer can execute cold
Existing content underperforms and needs a structural re-plan against search intent
A content calendar needs briefs so writers stop reinventing structure every time
Title and meta description options are needed for a drafted piece
Someone proposes an article and you need to test whether it deserves to exist at all

Workflow

Classify the query's intent before anything else: informational (explain it), comparative (help me choose), transactional (help me do or buy), or navigational (take me somewhere). Intent dictates format, and format mismatches lose to worse-written pages with the right shape.
List the sub-questions a searcher must have answered to feel finished, in the order they will ask them. Each becomes a candidate H2, phrased in the searcher's own words, not internal jargon.
Choose the format the intent demands — step-by-step how-to, comparison with a table, definition-first explainer, checklist, decision guide — and say why in the brief.
Specify the direct-answer block: a 40-70 word plain answer to the head query, positioned in the first screenful, before any preamble. The reader who leaves after that block should still leave answered.
Outline H2s in priority order with a one-line content note each; add H3s only where an H2 genuinely splits. For each section, name the exhibit that proves or shows the point — a table, a worked example, a screenshot placeholder, a calculation.
Draft three title options of 60 characters or fewer, each promising the payoff without bait, plus one meta description of 155 characters or fewer in active voice.
Plan internal links: three to five existing pages that should link here and be linked from here, each with natural anchor text.
Set the evidence bar: which claims in the outline need a source and where sources will come from. A brief that permits unsourced statistics is a correction waiting to be published.

Output format

Query: <head query> — Intent: <type> — Format: <how-to | comparison | explainer | ...>
Reader: <who is searching, and what they are trying to get done>
Direct answer (40-70 words): <the plain answer, drafted now, not deferred>
Titles: 1) ...  2) ...  3) ...      Meta (155 max): ...

Outline:
H2 <searcher's question> — <content note> — Exhibit: <table | example | none>
H2 <...>
   H3 <only where the H2 genuinely splits>

Internal links: <from page> -> <anchor text> -> <to page>
Evidence bar: <claim> -> <likely source type>

Guardrails

Written for the reader: the query appears where a human would put it and nowhere else. No stuffing, no awkward exact-match repetition, no synonym carpet-bombing.
If the honest answer is short, plan a short page. Padding a 200-word answer into 2,000 words is how a site teaches readers and search engines the same lesson: skip it.
Never plan content the site cannot credibly claim expertise in; say so and propose the nearest angle it can honestly own.
If a calculator, template, or tool would serve the query better than prose, the brief says that too — sometimes the right plan is not an article.