Hermes SEO skills are saved abilities stored as plain markdown — and the agent writes them itself when it works something out. Here are the SEO skills worth building first, how to write one, and why skills alone aren’t the system.
Short answer
- A skill is a markdown file the agent reads before working — and Hermes writes them itself.
- Start with keyword research against your own Search Console data.
- Skills plus memory plus cron jobs is the difference between an ability and a system.
- Run the always-on SEO work on Hermes where it’s free; keep the hardest writing on a frontier model.
Hermes SEO skills: What a skill is in Hermes
A skill is a saved ability your agent keeps. Not a prompt you retype — a markdown file it reads before it works.
The important part is where they come from. When Hermes works out how to do something hard, it writes that solution down as a skill file in plain markdown, so next time it already knows. And you can teach it deliberately: give it something to learn from and it works through the source and creates a skill locally from what it read.
I’ve run this — handed it a guide, watched it search, read and come back with “the skill has been successfully learned”. That’s the loop that makes SEO skills worth building: you solve a problem once and the agent keeps it.
Plain markdown matters more than it sounds. You can open the file and read exactly what it learned, correct it by editing text rather than arguing in chat, and it isn’t locked inside one tool.
The SEO skills worth building first
Keyword research from your own data
The highest-value SEO skill isn’t “find keywords” — it’s find the keywords you’re already close on. Connect to Search Console, pull the terms you already show up for, find the ones sitting on page two or the bottom of page one, and draft against those.
That’s not guessing. It’s reading your own data for the places you’re nearly there and getting no clicks.
Competitor and trend monitoring
A skill that runs on a schedule, scans what’s moving in your niche, and hands back a short list with the angle already written. Mine runs every morning, so I know what changed overnight without opening social media.
Pair it with a cron job and it’s doing this whether you’re at your desk or not.
Content winner analysis
Read your own channels, rank what’s actually performing and how fast each piece is climbing, find the pattern in the winners, then generate new ideas that ride those exact patterns.
Most people guess what to make next. This reads what your audience already proved they want.
Writing in your voice
This is the one that fixes “AI content sounds generic”. The skill isn’t a style instruction — it’s a rule that says read the memory vault first, then write. An agent reading a vault full of your real words writes like you.
Covered properly in the memory guide.
Publishing and indexing
The steps after writing are the ones that decide rankings and the ones that quietly don’t get done — internal links, schema, uploading, submitting URLs. A skill that carries through to published and indexed is worth more than a better writing prompt.
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Skills alone aren’t the system
A skill is one ability. What makes it useful is what sits around it.
| Layer | What it adds |
|---|---|
| Skills | The ability itself, saved as markdown the agent reads before working |
| Memory | Your business context, so the output sounds like you rather than like anyone |
| Cron jobs | The schedule, so it runs whether you’re there or not |
| Profiles / bots | A named agent per job, each with its own memory and model |
| The dashboard | One screen instead of hopping between terminals |
That’s the difference between having an SEO skill and having an SEO system. My own setup runs named agents for exactly this — one watching competitors, one pulling keyword and content ideas from live search data, one handling voice capture — each with its own skills and its own memory, now sitting side by side since Bot Mode shipped.
How to build one
- Write down what you already do by hand for one SEO task. All of it, including the boring steps.
- Turn each step into an explicit rule. Be specific — “four to six FAQs” beats “add some FAQs”.
- Add a hard stop. Mine refuses to write without a real source. Yours should refuse whatever produces your worst output.
- Include the anti-rules. Telling it what never to do is as valuable as telling it what to do.
- Run it, read the output honestly, and write the correction back into the skill rather than just fixing that one article.
You don’t need to code. A skill is a document — if you can brief a freelancer clearly, you can write one.
And check what it has actually learned. Hermes can show you a timeline of every skill and memory it’s built up, and you can edit or delete anything wrong. Worth doing weekly, because a skill that learned something wrong will keep being confidently wrong until you look.
Hermes skills vs Claude skills for SEO
Both work, and they’re good at different things.
| Hermes skills | Claude skills | |
|---|---|---|
| Cost | Free, open source | Your Claude subscription |
| Models | Any — frontier, free or local | Claude |
| Scheduling | Built-in cron jobs | You arrange it |
| Memory | Persistent, per profile | Via a vault you wire up |
| Best for | Always-on monitoring and volume | The hardest writing and reasoning |
The honest split is the same as everywhere else: run the always-on, repetitive SEO work on Hermes where it costs nothing, and keep the heavy thinking on a frontier model. I’ve written up the Claude side in my Claude AI SEO skill and the automation loop in the agentic SEO skill.
Want the skills already written? The Agent OS in the AI Profit Boardroom ships with the SEO agents wired in — competitor monitoring, keyword ideas from live search data, content analysis and the memory system behind them — so you edit the keyword lists rather than building from scratch. Plus a 30-day roadmap, daily tutorials and four coaching calls a week. Start free with the free AI course and community or grab 200+ AI SEO prompts.
Hermes SEO skills FAQ
What are Hermes SEO skills?
Saved abilities stored as plain markdown files that Hermes reads before working — things like keyword research from your own Search Console data, competitor monitoring, or writing in your voice.
How does Hermes learn a new skill?
Two ways. It writes down solutions it works out on its own, and you can hand it a source to learn from, which it works through and turns into a skill locally.
Where are skills stored?
As markdown files on your machine, inside the profile they belong to. You can open them, read what was learned, and correct them by editing text.
Which SEO skill should I build first?
Keyword research against your own Search Console data — finding the terms you already rank near the top of page two for is the fastest win available.
Do skills run on a schedule?
Yes, via Hermes cron jobs. That’s what turns a skill into something that works whether you’re at your desk or not.
Do I need to code to write one?
No. A skill is a written document. If you can brief a freelancer clearly, you can write a skill.
Hermes skills or Claude skills for SEO?
Both. Run always-on, repetitive SEO work on Hermes where it costs nothing, and keep the hardest writing and reasoning on a frontier model.
How do I check what my agent has learned?
Hermes can show a timeline of every skill and memory it has built up, which you can scrub through and edit. Check it weekly — a wrongly learned skill stays wrong until you look.
The bottom line on Hermes SEO skills
Hermes SEO skills are just your own process written down as markdown and handed to an agent that keeps it. Start with keyword research against your own data, add memory so it writes in your voice, put it on a cron job so it runs without you, and correct it by editing the file rather than re-prompting. That’s how a skill turns into a system.
About Julian Goldie
I run Goldie Agency, a 7-figure SEO agency, and teach this daily on a 400K+ subscriber YouTube channel. 240+ client projects on Upwork at a 100% job-success score, 10+ years through every major Google update. My systems are in the AI Profit Boardroom; my link building book is free here.
Related reading
Last updated August 2026. This is the living guide to Hermes SEO skills — it gets updated as the tools change.
