A comprehensive SEO audit typically costs $5,000-$10,000 from an agency. Claude SEO does it in 30 seconds from your terminal - for free. According to a 2025 BrightEdge study, 68% of online experiences begin with a search engine, making SEO audits essential for every website owner. Here is how to run one yourself without spending a cent.
What is Claude SEO and why should you use it?
Claude SEO is a free, MIT-licensed command-line tool that runs inside Claude Code to perform comprehensive SEO audits. With over 3,000 GitHub stars and 31,000+ YouTube demo views, it has quickly become a go-to alternative to paid platforms like Ahrefs ($99/month), Semrush ($117/month), and SE Ranking ($52/month).
Unlike browser-based SEO tools, Claude SEO runs locally in your terminal. It analyzes your website across 14 specialized categories using 9 parallel AI agents, producing a weighted 0-100 health score with a prioritized action plan. The tool auto-detects your industry type (SaaS, e-commerce, local service, publisher, or agency) and tailors its recommendations accordingly.
Step 1: Install Claude SEO (30 seconds)
Before you begin, make sure you have two prerequisites installed:
- Python 3.10+ - check with
python3 --version - Claude Code CLI - Anthropic's terminal-based AI assistant
Once those are ready, run the installer for your operating system.
macOS or Linux
git clone --depth 1 https://github.com/AgriciDaniel/claude-seo.git bash claude-seo/install.sh
Windows
git clone https://github.com/AgriciDaniel/claude-seo.git powershell -ExecutionPolicy Bypass -File claude-seo\install.ps1
The installer clones the repository and registers the skill with Claude Code. You should see a confirmation message when it completes.
Step 2: Run your first full audit
The most powerful command is the full site audit. It dispatches 9 parallel AI agents to analyze every aspect of your SEO simultaneously.
/seo audit https://yoursite.com
This single command evaluates your site across all 14 categories and returns a weighted health score.
| Category | Weight | What it checks |
|---|---|---|
| Content Quality | 23% | E-E-A-T signals, depth, readability, originality |
| Technical SEO | 22% | Crawlability, indexability, security headers, JS rendering |
| On-Page SEO | 20% | Title tags, meta descriptions, heading hierarchy, keyword placement |
| Schema/Structured Data | 10% | JSON-LD detection, validation against Google requirements |
| Core Web Vitals | 10% | LCP, CLS, INP (replaced FID in 2024) |
| AI Search Readiness | 10% | GEO score, AI crawler access, passage-level citability |
| Image Optimization | 5% | Alt text, file sizes, lazy loading, responsive images |
The audit typically completes in 30-60 seconds depending on site size.
Step 3: Understand your health score
Claude SEO assigns every finding a priority level so you know what to fix first.
Each finding comes with a specific recommendation. For example, a site scoring 64/100 might show: "Multiple H1 tags detected on homepage (Critical), thin content on /about page (High), missing security headers (Medium), truncated title tags on 3 pages (Medium)."
Step 4: Run targeted deep dives
After the full audit, drill into specific areas that scored low. Claude SEO offers 16 commands for targeted analysis.
Technical SEO deep dive
/seo technical https://yoursite.com
This checks 9 sub-categories: crawlability, indexability, security, URL structure, mobile optimization, Core Web Vitals (including INP), structured data, JavaScript rendering, and IndexNow protocol support.
Content quality assessment
/seo content https://yoursite.com
Evaluates your content against the September 2025 Quality Rater Guidelines for E-E-A-T (Experience, Expertise, Authoritativeness, Trustworthiness). It checks author attribution, source citations, content depth, and whether your content demonstrates first-hand experience.
Schema markup validation
/seo schema https://yoursite.com
Detects existing Schema.org markup, validates it against Google's requirements, and generates corrected JSON-LD if issues are found. This is particularly valuable because schema errors are invisible to visitors but can prevent rich results in search.
AI search readiness (GEO)
/seo geo https://yoursite.com
This is where Claude SEO stands apart from traditional tools. It checks whether your content is optimized for AI-powered search engines like Google AI Overviews, ChatGPT web search, Perplexity, and Bing Copilot. The audit verifies AI crawler access (GPTBot, ClaudeBot, PerplexityBot), llms.txt compliance, passage-level citability, and brand mention signals.