Seo Ladders

Full SEO content automation via MCP. Audit websites, check Google rankings, discover site structure, auto-select keywords matched to your DR, research and sw...

Security Scan

The skill's declared purpose (SEO automation) matches the runtime instructions and required secret: it only asks for an SEO_LADDERS_API_KEY and to connect to seoladders.com via MCP, with no installers or unrelated permissions requested.

Purpose & Capability

Name/description (site audits, keyword research, article generation, publishing) align with the SKILL.md content and the single required env var (SEO_LADDERS_API_KEY) used in the MCP Authorization header. There are no unrelated credentials, binaries, or install steps that would be out of scope for an SEO automation service.

Instruction Scope

SKILL.md limits runtime actions to calling the MCP endpoint at https://www.seoladders.com/api/mcp and describes expected tool calls (site-audit, generate-article, publish-to-cms, save locally). It does ask the agent to save content locally and to publish to WordPress or arbitrary webhooks — behavior that is consistent with the stated purpose but means the agent will transmit generated content and potentially site URLs to the external service or to user-specified webhooks/CMS endpoints. The instructions do not request reading unrelated local files or additional environment variables.

Install Mechanism

No install spec or code files are present (instruction-only skill). This is the lowest-risk install profile — nothing is downloaded or written by an installer step.

Credentials

Only one environment variable is required (SEO_LADDERS_API_KEY), which is appropriate for an external SaaS/MCP integration. However that single key likely grants broad capabilities (site crawling, article generation, publishing) on the vendor side, so treat it as a sensitive secret. The example token prefix ("sk_live_...") in SKILL.md is only illustrative but suggests a long-lived API secret; there is no separate WordPress/CMS credential requirement in the skill itself — publishing relies on webhooks or user-supplied CMS credentials at publish time.

Persistence & Privilege

always is false and the skill does not request any system or cross-skill configuration changes. disable-model-invocation is the default (false) which is normal for MCP skills. The skill does not request persistent local config or system-wide privileges in the provided instructions.

Assessment

This skill appears coherent with its SEO automation purpose, but you should treat the SEO_LADDERS_API_KEY as a sensitive secret because it likely allows the vendor to crawl sites, generate content, and publish on your behalf. Before installing: verify the vendor (https://seoladders.com), read their privacy/security policy, and prefer creating a scoped/staging API key if available. When using publish-to-cms, use webhooks or credentials that are limited to a staging site rather than your production site. Monitor API key usage and rotate/revoke the key if you stop using the skill. If you need higher assurance, ask the vendor for documentation of what the API key permits and whether actions (publishes, audits) are logged and attributable.

SEO Ladders is a full SEO content automation platform accessible via MCP. It runs the same pipeline an SEO team would — audit your site's technical health, check what keywords you rank for on Google, discover your site structure, then auto-select keywords you can realistically win based on your domain rating and competitor gaps. From there, generate full SEO articles (3,000+ words with citations, images, FAQ, and JSON-LD schemas), publish directly to WordPress or any CMS via webhook, or save locally as Markdown + HTML. Track your keyword rankings and monitor competitors over time — all from your terminal or IDE.

Setup

1. Sign up at https://seoladders.com
2. Go to Dashboard > MCP Server and create an API key
3. Connect the MCP server in your client:

Claude Code

Add to .mcp.json:

{
  "mcpServers": {
    "seo-ladders": {
      "type": "http",
      "url": "https://www.seoladders.com/api/mcp",
      "headers": {
        "Authorization": "Bearer sk_live_..."
      }
    }
  }
}

Cursor

Go to Settings > MCP Servers > Add Server:

{
  "mcpServers": {
    "seo-ladders": {
      "url": "https://www.seoladders.com/api/mcp",
      "headers": {
        "Authorization": "Bearer sk_live_..."
      }
    }
  }
}

Windsurf

Add to your MCP config:

{
  "mcpServers": {
    "seo-ladders": {
      "serverUrl": "https://www.seoladders.com/api/mcp",
      "headers": {
        "Authorization": "Bearer sk_live_..."
      }
    }
  }
}

Codex / Any MCP Client

Connect to the HTTP MCP endpoint at https://www.seoladders.com/api/mcp with a Bearer token in the Authorization header.

How to Use

All tools are self-documented. Any MCP-compatible agent discovers and uses them automatically. Just ask naturally:

• "Audit my website" — technical SEO audit with health score, broken links, Core Web Vitals
• "Show me keywords I rank for" — check your current Google rankings
• "Map out example.com" — discover site structure, pages, sitemaps
• "Find keywords I can win" — DR-matched keyword research with difficulty recommendations
• "Run my monthly keyword selection" — auto-select targets based on competitor analysis
• "Replace the March 15 keyword with something better" — swap calendar entries
• "Generate an article about X" — full 13-step AI article pipeline
• "Publish my latest article" — push to WordPress or any webhook CMS
• "Save the article locally" — get Markdown + HTML + metadata on disk
• "Show my content calendar" — view all scheduled keywords
• "What content needs refreshing?" — find articles with ranking drops

Available Tools

Tool	What It Does
site-audit	Full technical SEO audit — health score, broken links, meta tags, duplicates, Core Web Vitals via Lighthouse
check-rankings	Check what keywords any domain ranks for on Google
discover-site	Map a website's structure via robots.txt, sitemaps, and page classification
manual-keyword-search	Research keywords with volume, KD, intent, and DR-based recommendations
select-monthly-keywords	Select keywords your domain can rank for based on your DR
replace-calendar-keyword	Swap a scheduled keyword for a better alternative
generate-article	13-step AI pipeline — outline, sections, media, FAQ, citations, JSON-LD, internal links
publish-to-cms	Publish to WordPress or any webhook-based CMS (Webflow, Ghost, Strapi, etc.)
manage-calendar	View, add, update, or delete content calendar entries
detect-refresh-candidates	Find published articles with ranking drops that need updating
get-job-status	Poll progress of long-running jobs (article generation, keyword selection, site audit)

Article Generation Output

Generated articles include:

• markdownContent — full article as Markdown (ready to save or paste)
• htmlContent — complete HTML document with meta tags, Open Graph, Twitter cards, canonical URL, JSON-LD schemas, table of contents, and styled layout
• article — structured data (sections, FAQ, media plan, schemas) for programmatic use
• blogPostId — use with publish-to-cms to push live
• viewUrl — link to view the article on the SEO Ladders dashboard

Site Audit Output

Audit reports include:

• Overall health score (0-100) with label (Excellent/Good/Fair/Needs Work/Critical)
• SSL, sitemap, robots.txt checks
• Broken links, non-indexable pages, duplicate titles/descriptions
• Missing H1 tags, missing alt text
• Core Web Vitals (LCP, CLS, TBT) via Lighthouse
• Actionable recommendations per issue with severity and affected pages

Async Tools

Three tools run asynchronously (generate-article, select-monthly-keywords, site-audit):

1. Call the tool — returns a jobId immediately
2. Poll get-job-status with the jobId every 15 seconds
3. When status is completed, the output contains the full result
4. When status is failed, the output contains the error

Learn More

https://seoladders.com/features/mcp