6 tools that turn Claude into an SEO auditor

An SEO audit is either an agency retainer or a tool subscription — and either way you get a report you still have to act on alone. These six open-source tools put the crawl, the Search Console data and the fix-writing inside Claude, free.

Five are MCP servers (plugins that give Claude new tools); the sixth is a set of Claude Skills. Every pick is open source, pushed a commit in the last 90 days (checked 2026-11-11), installs with one command from its own docs, and runs free; optional paid add-ons are flagged. They are ordered as an audit workflow: scan, data, speed, markup, keywords, playbook.

The 6 tools at a glance #

1. SEO Audit Console: the full-audit orchestrator #

SEO Audit Console is an MCP server that joins your Search Console history with a crawl of your site and runs 143 checks, ranked by the clicks each fix could recover. It writes the fix too: the 301 rule, the JSON-LD, the internal links.

What: A prioritized audit report plus a browser dashboard.

Why: A crawler only sees what your site says; this one also sees what Google did about it, so findings carry the traffic at stake.

Use when: You own the Search Console property and want one audit that ends in a to-do list instead of a pile of crawler warnings.

Install:

claude mcp add seo-audit-console --env GOOGLE_APPLICATION_CREDENTIALS=/path/to/service-account.json -- npx -y @houtini/seo-audit-console

Catch: Needs a Google service account whose email is added as a user on the property, the step everyone misses. DataForSEO and Majestic tiers are paid.

2. Search Console MCP: your ranking data on tap #

Search Console MCP gives Claude Google Search Console (GSC), Bing Webmaster Tools, GA4 and AdSense: analytics queries, URL inspection, sitemap submit and cannibalization checks.

Why: Answers "which pages lost clicks this month" without opening four consoles and doing VLOOKUPs by hand.

Use when: You want ongoing traffic questions between audits, not a one-off report.

Install:

npx search-console-mcp setup

Catch: Setup runs a browser sign-in per Google account. Sitemap submit stays locked until you re-authorize with write access.

3. Lighthouse MCP: page-speed scores in the chat #

Lighthouse MCP wraps Google's Lighthouse so the agent audits any URL: performance, accessibility and SEO categories, with mobile or desktop emulation and network throttling.

What: Real Lighthouse runs with the failing metrics called out.

Why: The score and your code sit in the same window, so the agent can attempt the LCP fix instead of describing it.

Use when: A Lighthouse score bothers you and you want the fix tried, not a PDF.

Install:

npx lighthouse-mcp

Catch: Runs a real Chrome on your machine — Lighthouse's requirement — one audit at a time, timing out after 120 seconds.

4. Web Validator: markup, schema, dead links #

Web Validator is an MCP server that checks HTML and CSS against the W3C validators, SEO metadata, JSON-LD (structured data) syntax and broken links, and takes responsive screenshots.

Why: Catches the boring failures that cost rankings: a typo'd JSON-LD block, internal links gone 404.

Use when: You just touched templates, moved pages, or edited schema and want the W3C-level receipt.

Install:

npx -y mcp-web-validator

Catch: The screenshot tool downloads a headless browser into Puppeteer's cache on first use, and the hosted variant takes no screenshots, reads no local files and audits at most eight sitemap pages per call.

5. free-seo-mcp: keyword research at $0 #

free-seo-mcp builds keyword research from free sources: autocomplete, Google Trends, Bing impressions, Reddit threads and competitor sitemaps. It then estimates monthly volume and tiers each keyword.

What: Keyword research with no Ahrefs, Semrush or DataForSEO subscription.

Why: Google only shows exact volume to advertisers; this one builds its own estimate instead of reselling one.

Use when: You want to turn audit findings into a content plan on a zero budget.

Install:

git clone https://github.com/JohnWayneeee/free-seo-mcp.git && cd free-seo-mcp && uv sync

Catch: Volumes are estimates, not Google's exact number: read the tiers, not the decimals. Needs Python 3.11+ and uv.

6. Claude SEO Skills: 61 agency playbooks #

Claude SEO Skills is the SEO agency StudioHawk's set of 61 Claude Skills (instruction files Claude loads on demand): technical audits, content briefs, AI-search visibility checks. No API keys or dependencies.

What: Agency SEO process as skills, MIT-licensed, no email gate.

Why: The data tools above hand you numbers; these write the audit, the brief and the client report the way an agency would.

Use when: You have the data and want the deliverable written.

Install:

git clone https://github.com/lhitches/claude-seo-skills.git && cd claude-seo-skills && for f in skills/*.md; do mkdir -p ~/.claude/skills/"$(basename "$f" .md)" && cp "$f" ~/.claude/skills/"$(basename "$f" .md)"/SKILL.md; done && cp -r skills/topical-authority-map skills/review-proof-sorter ~/.claude/skills/

Catch: Skills are process, not data — none of them crawl or call Search Console themselves, so you feed them exports or crawl data.

Which one to try first #

Own the Search Console property and want the whole audit in one go → #1. Just want to ask traffic questions between audits → #2. A slow page is bothering you → #3. Turning findings into a content plan → #5, then #6 to write the brief.