Programmatic SEO

Programmatic SEO is a strategy that uses technology and automation to create search engine optimized Web pages on a large scale. This process focuses on generating landing pages that answer specific user search queries, using patterns and data to automatically customize and publish content.

The goal is to increase visibility in search engines for a wide range of searches. So rather than focusing on a few search terms, go wide with search terms with less competition and less volume (in total, often a lot of volume). In this article, I tell you more about it.

The importance of programmatic SEO in today’s SEO landscape

In today’s SEO landscape, where competition and search volume continue to grow, Programmatic SEO offers an efficient way to get noticed. By producing widely relevant and optimized pages, companies can expand their reach into new market segments and search queries for which they were not previously visible.

This contributes to an improved online presence and can provide significant benefits in terms of organic traffic and user engagement.

Ralf van Veen

SEO Specialist

With 11 years of experience, I improve the organic findability of businesses.

The basics of programmatic SEO

The core of programmatic SEO lies in using data and automation to streamline SEO tasks. This includes:

  • Data analysis: Identifying keywords and searches on a large scale to discover opportunities for new pages.
  • Automation: The use of scripts or platforms to automatically generate content, metatags, and URL structures based on identified opportunities.
  • Optimized for conversion: The pages being created should be of high quality while being optimized for both SEO and conversion.

How programmatic SEO differs from traditional SEO

Unlike traditional SEO, which is often manual and focused on individual pages, Programmatic SEO leverages automation to create many pages at once. This approach makes it possible to quickly and effectively publish a large number of optimized pages tailored to specific search intentions.

The role of data and automation

Data and automation are crucial to the success of Programmatic SEO. Data analysis helps identify keywords and trends that form the basis for new content. Automation tools then enable companies to turn this data into optimized Web pages, making the process of SEO at scale much more efficient.

Ralf van Veen

SEO Specialist

With 11 years of experience, I improve the organic findability of businesses.

My guide to implementing programmatic SEO

With programmatic SEO, it is important that you take a step-by-step approach. See my roadmap on this.

Step 1: Large-scale keyword research

Start by identifying keywords that are relevant to your niche or industry. Use SEO tools to collect data on search volumes, competition, and related searches. This helps discover opportunities and form a content strategy.

Step 2: Competitive analysis and market understanding

Analyze competitors that perform well in your target segments. Understand what topics they cover and what their content structure looks like. This provides insight into market trends and helps fine-tune your SEO strategy.

Step 3: Generating landing pages

Use the data collected to generate widely optimized landing pages. Make sure each page contains unique and relevant content that matches the search intent behind the chosen keywords.

Step 4: Optimization and quality control

After the pages are generated, it is crucial to go through them for quality control. Check for things like duplicate content, correct use of keywords, and overall user experience.

Step 5: Focus on the most important

An optional step 5 is to put an additional focus on key landing pages. By this I mean: provide unique content for these best-performing pages or, for example, use an extra bit of link building for these pages.

Please note the following

With programmatic SEO, I proceed/attend to the following as follows.

  1. Initially, I don’t think it’s a problem to use duplicate content. I cast my net out over a wide area and analyze the data to see what sticks (what works and what doesn’t).
  2. Then I start optimizing for the most important pages (think for example the top-10 cities of the Netherlands when I initially started for the top-50 cities).
  3. Note that Google will find out about this trick relatively quickly and penalize it. I am using the result of a friend’s project below (sorry Marijn).

To make sure you avoid this, go for quality and not quantity, but pages like this are always written for SEO anyway, so it doesn’t necessarily add value to your website as a whole. This is where you have to make your own consideration.

Best practices and my steps for programmatic SEO

  • Creating valuable and unique content: Make sure each page generated provides valuable information specific to the search query.
  • Using structured data for better indexing: Implement structured data to help search engines better understand and index your content.
  • Ongoing monitoring and optimization: Monitor the performance of your pages and optimize them regularly based on performance data and SEO trends.

Challenges and considerations in Programmatic SEO

Successfully implementing Programmatic SEO requires a strategic approach to overcome challenges such as duplicate content and keyword cannibalization. Thorough planning and continuous optimization are essential.

Preventing duplicate content and keyword cannibalization

It is crucial to carefully plan and structure content to prevent similar pages from competing for the same keywords. This requires a smart content strategy and unique content for each page (provided you have the capacity for this). This applies to both textual content and images used on the landing page.

The importance of technical SEO for scalable projects

Technical SEO forms the basis for successful scalable projects, prioritizing site architecture, loading speed, and mobile usability to provide the best user experience.

The impact of AI and machine learning

AI simultaneously provides the greatest opportunity and threat in this story. On the one hand, AI ensures that Google is getting smarter by the day and will penalize programmatic SEO faster. In addition, AI ensures that the work processes behind this to optimize this also accelerate.

Conclusion

Programmatic SEO represents an advanced, scalable approach to search engine optimization, essential to today’s competitive digital landscape. Overcoming challenges such as duplicate content and using technical SEO effectively are crucial to success. Future developments, powered by AI and machine learning, promise further evolution and efficiency in SEO strategies. It remains important to closely monitor and integrate these trends for continued success in the dynamic world of search engine optimization.

Ralf van Veen

SEO Specialist

With 11 years of experience, I improve the organic findability of businesses.

Senior SEO-specialist

Ralf van Veen

Senior SEO-specialist
Five stars
My clients give me a 5.0 on Google out of 78 reviews

I have been working for 12 years as an independent SEO specialist for companies (in the Netherlands and abroad) that want to rank higher in Google in a sustainable manner. During this period I have consulted A-brands, set up large-scale international SEO campaigns and coached global development teams in the field of search engine optimization.

With this broad experience within SEO, I have developed the SEO course and helped hundreds of companies with improved findability in Google in a sustainable and transparent way. For this you can consult my portfolio, references and collaborations.

This article was originally published on 8 April 2024. The last update of this article was on 26 September 2024. The content of this page was written and approved by Ralf van Veen. Learn more about the creation of my articles in my editorial guidelines.