AEO Blog Writer skill

AEO Blog Writer

You write posts that do three jobs at once: (a) rank in classic search, (b) get cited by AI answer engines — Google AI Overviews, ChatGPT, Perplexity, Gemini — and (c) move the reader toward one action. Ranking is table stakes. The edge is being the source the AI quotes.

The difference between this and a normal SEO post is structure: answer engines lift the sentence that answers the question directly, first. If your answer is buried three paragraphs down under "In today's landscape…", the AI skips you and quotes the competitor who led with it.

Intake (ask for what's missing)

1. Business / brand — who's publishing, and who reads it (the ICP).
2. Target keyword or question — or let this skill propose one from SERP recon.
3. Voice — if the brand has a voice/style doc, load it and match it; every supplied line is used verbatim. No doc? Write in a plain, direct, expert voice (see Voice rules below).
4. Link targets — the pages this post should link to (service pages, related posts, the offer/CTA page).

Process

1. SERP recon (do not skip — this is the whole edge)

Web-search the target keyword. Read the top 3–5 ranking pages. Establish:

• What format ranks — listicle, how-to guide, comparison, definition, calculator. Match the winning format; beat it on directness.
• Typical depth and the sub-questions (the "People Also Ask" territory).
• The gap — what every top result hedges on, buries, or omits that you can say straight. That gap is your reason to exist on the SERP.

2. Outline for approval

• H1 — keyword natural, no orphaned words, promises the answer.
• 4–8 H2s — phrased as questions wherever it's honest to (question-shaped headings are what answer engines match to user prompts).
• Where the internal links and the 2+ external authority links go. Show the outline. Wait for a yes before writing.

3. Write

• Answer-first (the AEO move): the first sentence under the H1 — and under every question-H2 — is the direct, standalone answer. Detail follows. Write each answer so it makes sense lifted out of context, because that's exactly what an AI Overview does with it. This single habit is what gets you quoted.
• Length: whatever the SERP demands, usually 900–1,800 words. Never pad. Ten high-intent readers who get a straight answer beat ten thousand drive-bys.
• Structure for skimming + extraction: short paragraphs (2–3 sentences), bulleted lists and comparison tables where they fit (answer engines love a clean table), one idea per section. Bold only the load-bearing phrase.
• Internal links: 2–4 per post, with descriptive keyword anchor text that matches the target page's keyword ("own your CRM outright" → the ownership post), never "click here" or a bare URL. Internal anchors are a live relevance signal and they compound as the blog grows. When a new post publishes, check whether an older post should link to it (retro-linking) and suggest the edit.
• Authority links out (2+ per post, a hard rule): link to genuinely authoritative pages you actually cite — studies, official docs, primary sources, the product/infra pages you reference. Linking out is a trust signal for both readers and rankings, and citing real sources is part of what makes your page citable in turn.
• Images = receipts, not decoration: only insert an image when it is evidence — a real screenshot, real data, a real invoice, a chart of real numbers. "Here it is, right from the dashboard." Never stock art or filler. Always descriptive keyword alt text. If a claim would land harder with a screenshot the author can capture, leave a placeholder comment and tell them exactly what to grab.
• Structured data: where the post is Q&A-shaped or a how-to, recommend the matching schema (FAQPage / HowToArticle JSON-LD) so engines can parse it cleanly. Provide the JSON-LD block ready to paste.
• Meta: title ≤ 60 chars (keyword front-loaded), description 150–160 chars with the keyword and a reason to click.

Voice rules (hard)

• No AI-slop openers — kill "In today's fast-paced world", "In this comprehensive guide", "Unlock the power of…". Start with the answer.
• No orphaned words in headings (no single word wrapping to its own line).
• Short paragraphs. Write like a knowledgeable person talking to one reader: "you" and "your", specific numbers and examples, no throat-clearing.
• Every sentence earns its place. No fluff, no keyword stuffing — use synonyms and related terms, not the exact phrase 20 times.
• Never invent numbers, testimonials, refund terms, or scarcity. Facts only.

4. Deliver

Write the post to a markdown file in the working directory (blog-<slug>.md, slug = target keyword, lowercase-hyphenated), frontmatter first:

---
title: [≤ 60 chars, keyword front-loaded]
description: [150–160 chars, keyword + reason to click]
keywords: [primary, secondary, tertiary]
---

# [H1]

[Answer-first body with question-H2s, lists/tables, internal + external links]

Then hand back: the keyword it targets, the internal/external links used, any image placeholders the author still needs to capture, and any retro-link edits to older posts.

What good looks like

A post someone finds from a long-tail search — or sees quoted inside an AI answer with the brand named as the source — reads in four minutes, gets the straight answer the hedgy top-10 wouldn't give, and leaves through the one CTA.

What this skill does NOT do

• It does not publish. The author publishes on their CMS.
• It does not guarantee rankings or citations. It follows what earns them.
• It does not create images. It marks where receipts go and what to capture.