Keyword Cluster

/digital-marketing-pro:keyword-cluster

Script location. If your host does not set ${CLAUDE_PLUGIN_ROOT}, the scripts are in this plugin's scripts/ folder, next to skills/.

Purpose

Take a set of seed keywords and produce a publication-ready cluster plan: pillar pages with their spokes, intent-grouped, prioritised by an opinionated scoring formula, with an internal-link map and a four-gate quality scorecard. Output is structured for direct hand-off to /digital-marketing-pro:content-brief or /digital-marketing-pro:content-engine.

Context efficiency

Heavy skill. Grep before Read any referenced file, then Read only matched ranges with offset + limit. List ${CLAUDE_PLUGIN_DATA}/<brand>/ before opening files. On re-invocation mid-session, skip files already in context.

When to Use

• Onboarding a new content programme — turn a 20-keyword brief into a structured topical hub
• Auditing an existing content library for cannibalisation (two pages competing for the same intent)
• Designing a pillar+spokes architecture before any writing begins
• Staging programmatic SEO across hundreds of variants (use this once per topic family)
• Reorganising an existing site's internal-link graph

Don't use when you just need keyword expansion (use /digital-marketing-pro:keyword-research) or when you need ranking / SERP-feature analysis (use /digital-marketing-pro:rank-monitor, with --features for SERP features).

Brand context (auto-applied)

1. Read ~/.claude-marketing/brands/_active-brand.json for the active slug, then load ~/.claude-marketing/brands/{slug}/profile.json
2. If no brand exists: ask "Set up a brand first (/digital-marketing-pro:brand-setup)?" — or proceed with defaults
3. Apply industry-specific guidance from skills/context-engine/industry-profiles.md
4. Apply skills/context-engine/compliance-rules.md to filter out banned terminology before clustering

Inputs

If SERPs JSON is unavailable, you can build one quickly by running the brand's connected rank-tracker MCP (Ahrefs / SE Ranking / Semrush) for each seed and saving the top 10 URLs. Skip this step only if the seeds are too numerous to justify the API spend — but flag the lower-confidence mode in the final deliverable.

Process (10 steps, numbered-file output)

All outputs go to ${CLAUDE_PLUGIN_DATA}/{brand}/seo/keyword-cluster/{YYYY-MM-DD}/.

1. 00-input.md — capture seeds, source, filters, brand context, run timestamp
2. 01-seed-expansion.md — if seeds < 20, expand via brand's keyword-research MCP (Ahrefs getRelatedKeywords, etc.) to ~50–200; otherwise skip. Document expansion source.
3. 02-filtered.csv — apply min-volume / max-KD / banned-word filters. Save the filtered set as CSV (this is what the script consumes).
4. 03-serps.json — fetch top-10 SERP URLs per keyword via the connected rank-tracker (skip if SERPs already provided). Budget guard: if estimated cost > 500 credits, surface the cost and ask "Continue? (y/N — default N)" before fetching.
5. 04-cluster-run.json — run the script:

   python "${CLAUDE_PLUGIN_ROOT}/scripts/keyword_cluster.py" \
       --keywords "${CLAUDE_PLUGIN_DATA}/{brand}/seo/keyword-cluster/{date}/02-filtered.csv" \
       --serps "${CLAUDE_PLUGIN_DATA}/{brand}/seo/keyword-cluster/{date}/03-serps.json" \
       --overlap 0.4 \
       --min-volume {profile.min_volume or 0} \
       --max-kd {profile.max_kd or 100} \
       --out "${CLAUDE_PLUGIN_DATA}/{brand}/seo/keyword-cluster/{date}/04-cluster-run.json"

6. 05-quality-scorecard.md — read the quality_scorecard block from 04-cluster-run.json. If status: needs_review, diagnose:
   • cannibalisation: fail → two clusters share pillar+intent. Merge them or reassign the lower-priority cluster's pillar.
   • orphan: fail → a multi-keyword cluster has 0 spokes. Re-tokenise its members or lower --overlap.
   • coverage: fail → < 80% of seeds clustered. Lower --overlap to 0.3 or expand seeds.
   • anchor_diversity: fail → pillar names too similar. Rewrite cluster names with synonym variation.
   • fragmentation_warning: true (pillar-only > 50%) → overlap threshold too strict. Try --overlap 0.3 first.
7. 06-pillar-pages.md — for each cluster with priority_score >= 0.5, draft a one-paragraph pillar page brief (intent, audience, length target, key questions to answer). These feed /digital-marketing-pro:content-brief.
8. 07-internal-link-map.md — table view of internal_link_targets from the script output. Per cluster: which other clusters to link out to + suggested anchor text. This is the file your dev team or CMS template should consume.
9. 08-build-order.md — sorted by priority_score descending. Recommended build cadence: top 10% in Q1, next 30% in Q2, remainder backlog.
10. PLAN.md — single-page summary: stats + scorecard + top 5 priority clusters + handoff to next skill in chain.

Output format

${CLAUDE_PLUGIN_DATA}/{brand}/seo/keyword-cluster/2026-06-04/
├── 00-input.md
├── 01-seed-expansion.md      (only if seeds expanded)
├── 02-filtered.csv
├── 03-serps.json             (if SERP mode)
├── 04-cluster-run.json       (raw script output)
├── 05-quality-scorecard.md
├── 06-pillar-pages.md
├── 07-internal-link-map.md
├── 08-build-order.md
└── PLAN.md                   (the deliverable)

PLAN.md is what you hand to the brand / client / next skill. Everything else is auditable intermediate state.