Sequel
SEO

Find striking-distance keywords

Find the keywords the site almost ranks on page one for: queries sitting at positions 8 to 20 with real impressions, where a small push produces the biggest traffic gain for the least work.

Install into your agent
  • Which keywords are we close to page one for?
  • What are we ranking on page 2 for with real volume?
  • Find quick wins to push onto page one

The playbook

"Striking distance" keywords already rank, already get impressions, and sit just below the click cliff. Moving one from position 12 to position 6 typically multiplies its clicks several times over, far cheaper than ranking something new.

Steps

  1. Pull query-level performance. Call google_search_console.query with dimensions: ["query", "page"], a 28-day window ending 3 days ago, rowLimit: 1000.

  2. Filter to the striking-distance band. Keep rows where average position is between 8 and 20 AND impressions are meaningful (a sensible floor is 100 impressions over 28 days; state the threshold you used). Rank the survivors by impressions descending. Low-impression rows in this band aren't opportunities, they're noise.

  3. Flag low CTR for the position. Within the band, a query whose CTR is well below its peers at a similar position usually has a title/meta problem rather than a ranking problem. Note these separately. They're the fastest wins because they need a copy edit, not a content project.

  4. Add difficulty (if Ahrefs is connected). Pass the shortlisted terms to ahrefs.keywords_overview in batches to get keyword difficulty, volume, and CPC. Drop anything with difficulty far above what the site already ranks for. High CPC is a useful proxy for commercial intent.

  5. Report. A table sorted by opportunity: keyword, current position, impressions, clicks, CTR, the page currently ranking, difficulty, and CPC. Group into "fix the snippet" (low CTR for position) and "strengthen the page" (position 11–20). Say what to do for the top 5, not all of them.

Gotchas

  • One page per keyword. If two URLs both rank for a term, that's cannibalization, not opportunity. Flag it and hand it to keyword-cannibalization-check rather than recommending more content.
  • Position 11 vs 8 matters enormously. Position 11 is top-of-page-two and gets almost nothing; position 8 is already on page one. Don't treat the band as uniform.
  • Search Console averages positions across devices and countries. If the site is international, add dimensions: ["query", "page", "country"] and check whether one market is dragging the average.
  • Branded queries pollute the list. Strip queries containing the brand name before ranking. They already convert and can't be improved much.

Install

Install Sequel skills into your agent

Pick your app and Sequel installs itself: a one-click link where the client supports it, that client’s own few steps where it doesn’t. The playbooks come with the server: your agent sees that this playbook exists and reads it when a question matches.

Claude, ChatGPT, Cursor, VS Code, Claude Code, Codex, Grok, Muse, dots and any other MCP app

Already have an MCP client?

https://api.sequel.sh/mcp

Add it as a remote (streamable HTTP) server and sign in when prompted. Skills come with it; nothing else to install. Manual setup per client

Choose your app

  • Claude

    One click, opens in the app

  • Cursor

    One click, opens in the app

  • VS Code

    One click, opens in the app

  • ChatGPT

    Turn on developer mode, then add Sequel. About two minutes.

  • Claude Code

    Run one command, then sign in with /mcp.

  • Codex

    Run one command, then sign in.

  • Gemini CLI

    Run one command, then sign in with /mcp auth.

  • Grok

    Add Sequel as a connector and sign in.

  • Grok Bot

    Paste this to the bot. It registers Sequel and asks you to sign in.

  • Muse

    Muse writes its own connector. One message is the whole setup.

  • dots

    Add Sequel in ChatGPT; your dot picks it up with no extra step.

  • OpenCode

    Add Sequel as a remote server from the OpenCode CLI.

  • Other MCP app

    Any client that speaks remote MCP can connect with this URL.

More like this

Other SEO skills

Analyze high-ranking landing pages

See which pages perform best in organic search: the landing pages that earn the most clicks and impressions, the queries behind each one, and how they compare with competitor estimates from Ahrefs.

Audit internal links to important pages

Audit the site's own internal linking: crawl navigation and body links between the site's pages to find valuable pages with too few inbound internal links, orphan pages, and the handful of cross-links that would lift striking-distance rankings.

Audit or draft an llms.txt

Check whether the site has an llms.txt, whether it follows the spec and points at the pages that matter, and if it is missing draft one from the pages Search Console shows people actually find, so AI assistants get a curated map of the site instead of guessing.

Audit redirect chains and loops

Follow every redirect on the URLs Search Console still sends traffic to, on the sitemap, and on backlinked pages, to find chains, loops, redirects to the homepage, and temporary redirects that should be permanent, so link equity and crawl budget stop leaking.

Audit referring domain quality

Grade the domains linking to a site by authority, traffic and link count, spot concentration risk and link-farm patterns, and separate the referring domains that carry weight from the ones that are noise.

Audit titles and meta descriptions

Compare the title and meta description of each top page against the queries it actually ranks for in Search Console, and find missing, duplicate, truncated or misaligned metadata on the pages where a rewrite would earn the most clicks.

FAQ

Frequently asked questions

What are striking-distance keywords?
Queries where your pages rank between position 4 and 15 in Google. They already earn impressions, which means Google considers your content relevant. A focused update — tightening the title, adding the missing subtopic, improving internal links — can move them to page one without building new content.
How do I find striking-distance keywords in Search Console?
Pull the query report with average position as a dimension, filter to positions 4 through 15, and sort by impressions. Those are the queries with both volume and proximity to page one. Cross-reference with the specific pages ranking for each query to know where to make changes.
How many striking-distance keywords should I target at once?
Work top ten by impressions, at most twenty at a time. Each one requires a page-level check and a specific change. Spreading effort across fifty queries at once usually means doing nothing meaningful for any of them.
Why filter by impressions instead of clicks?
Clicks correlate with position, so low-ranking queries have low clicks even with high search volume. Impressions are the raw demand signal: high impressions at position 8 means the query has real traffic and the page is close to capturing it.
Can an AI agent find and prioritize these keywords for me?
Yes. With Search Console connected, the agent pulls query-level data, filters by position band, scores by impressions and estimated click uplift, and returns a ranked list with the specific page and recommended change. Sequel provides the Search Console connection over MCP.

Put this playbook to work

Connect a source, ask the question, and the agent follows these steps. Free to start.

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