Pages: Blog

Guides blog page structure, SEO, and content marketing best practices.

When invoking: On first use, if helpful, open with 1-2 sentences on what this skill covers and why it matters, then provide the main output. On subsequent use or when the user asks to skip, go directly to the main output.

Initial Assessment

Check for project context first: If .claude/project-context.md or .cursor/project-context.md exists, read it for topics, audience, and keywords.

Identify:

1. Blog purpose: SEO traffic, thought leadership, product education
2. Content mix: Pillar pages, cluster content, news
3. Audience: Buyers, existing customers, developers

Best Practices

Blog Placement: Subdomain vs Subdirectory

| Option | Example | SEO / Use | |--------|---------|-----------| | Subdirectory | example.com/blog | SEO weight flows to main domain; recommended for product blogs | | Subdomain | blog.example.com | Treated as separate entity; consider for distinct brands or technical isolation |

Choose based on SEO weight distribution, brand consistency, and technical architecture. See Alignify subdomain vs subdirectory guide for details.

Blog Index Page Structure

| Section | Purpose | |---------|---------| | Featured/Recent | Highlight newest or most important posts | | Categories/Topics | Help users find by theme | | Editor's Picks | Curate best content | | Related posts | Per-article recommendations | | Search | Help users find specific topics |

Content Strategy

• Topical authority: Topic clusters -> pillar page per core topic + 6-12 cluster articles
• Intent mapping: Transactional, problem-aware, informational
• EEAT signals: Author bios, Organization schema, citations, changelog
• Refresh > new: For established sites, updating existing content often outperforms publishing new posts; avoid changing only the date without substantive edits
• Quality > quantity: Fewer high-quality posts beat many mediocre ones; consider deleting, merging, or refreshing underperformers
• Topic focus: Avoid blindly expanding topics; dilution can hurt authority on core topics
• Conversion as north star: SEO KPIs should tie to leads, signups, or sales -> not just traffic

SEO

• Title: 55 chars, power words, primary keyword
• Meta: Clear CTA in description
• Headers: H1-H3 hierarchy, table of contents
• Content depth: 2,500+ words for pillars; Grade 8 readability
• URL: Use url-slug-generator -> clean slugs, 3-5 words, under 60 chars
• Schema: Article, BlogPosting, FAQPage where relevant

Technical

• Core Web Vitals: LCP < 1.0s on mobile
• Images: WebP, compressed
• IndexNow: For fast indexing of new posts

Design

• Scannable: Preview copy, thumbnails, hero images
• Social sharing: Share buttons on article pages -> see social-share-generator
• Quick answers: Definition boxes, mini-FAQs for AEO
• TOC: Table of contents for Featured Snippets; jump links in long articles; see featured-snippet, toc-generator
• CTA placement: Sidebar CTA or in-paragraph CTA at key conversion points
• Related/Recent posts: Manual curation or plugin; same topic cluster

Output Format

• Structure for blog index and post template
• Content strategy (pillar + clusters)
• SEO metadata and schema
• Internal linking approach

Related Skills

• card: Article card structure for blog index; cover image, title, excerpt, date
• grid, list: Grid for visual; list for text-heavy blog index
• article-page-generator: Single article/post page structure, SEO, schema -> use for individual post templates
• featured-snippet: TOC, answer-first format for snippet opportunities
• url-slug-generator: URL slug for blog posts; 3-5 words, primary keyword
• content-strategy: Content clusters, editorial calendar
• keyword-research: Keywords for blog topics
• title-tag, meta-description, page-metadata, open-graph, twitter-cards: Blog metadata and social previews
• schema-markup: Article schema
• resources-page-generator: Blog may be part of resources hub