macmenes Vantage — Content Engine (your content plan)
Turns competitive content gaps + your positioning into a buildable content engine: a
pillar/cluster map, a prioritized topic backlog, full content briefs, and
an editorial calendar. Web-informed but strategy-first; it coordinates with the
seo-* skills for keyword/volume data rather than duplicating them.
Deliverable: CONTENT-PLAN.html (shared design system —
../vantage/references/html-report.md).
Intake (one question at a time — see console rules in ../vantage/SKILL.md)
- "What's your brand or website, and who's the audience?"
- "What's the content goal?" (organic traffic · leads/demand · authority/POV · product education · all)
- "Which themes do you want to own?" (or "find them for me")
- "Want me to scan competitor content gaps first?" → run
vantage-content; else work from the user's themes. - "Publishing capacity?" (posts/month, formats you can produce) — sets the calendar.
Method
1. Pillar / cluster architecture
- Pillars = the 3–5 themes you can credibly own (tie to positioning + white space).
- Clusters = supporting topics that link up to each pillar.
- Map intent across the funnel: TOFU (educate) → MOFU (evaluate) → BOFU (decide). Every cluster topic should ladder to a pillar and a business outcome.
2. Topic backlog (prioritized, web-only signals)
Build a backlog scored qualitatively (quantify later via seo-dataforseo):
| Field | How to judge web-only |
|---|---|
| Search intent | Inspect the SERP for the query — informational/commercial/transactional |
| Competition | Who ranks; can you do better/different? (from vantage-content) |
| Business value | How close to the buying decision / your offer |
| Effort | Format + depth required |
| Gap type | Uncontested · under-served · saturated (from the content teardown) |
| Priority = business value × gap opportunity ÷ effort. Surface the top 10–15. |
3. Content briefs (the buildable unit)
Full brief per priority topic:
- Working title + target query + search intent
- Angle / POV (how yours differs — anti-generic)
- Audience + funnel stage + the CTA/offer it ladders to
- Outline (H2/H3s), key points to cover, questions to answer
- Original element (data, example, template, tool) that earns links/citations
- Internal links (to pillar + related clusters), suggested format & length
- Hand-off: "quantify keywords/difficulty with
seo-dataforseo"
4. Editorial calendar
Sequence the backlog against capacity: what to publish in what order, cadence, and a mix of pillar vs cluster vs distribution-friendly pieces. 8–12 weeks mapped.
Output — CONTENT-PLAN.html
Clone the design system. Sections:
- Strategy snapshot — audience, goal, pillars, the bet (which gaps you're taking)
- Pillar/cluster map — visual hub-and-spoke per pillar
- Prioritized backlog — table (topic · intent · funnel · gap · value · effort · priority)
- Content briefs — 3–5 full briefs as cards (clone the rest to the same template)
- Editorial calendar — 8–12 week schedule
- Hand-offs —
seo-dataforseo(volume/difficulty),seo(on-page),seo-geo(AI citation)
Then open it. Offer: "Want me to draft the first brief into a full article
(seo-content-writer / copywriting)?"
Principles
- Strategy before keywords — own themes, not scattered posts.
- Every piece has a distinct POV and an original element; generic SEO filler loses.
- Each topic ladders to a pillar and a business outcome — no orphan traffic.
- Hand keyword/difficulty/backlink quantification to the
seo-*skills.