Programmatic SEO: Grow Your Traffic Without Expanding Your Team or Budget

‍Programmatic SEO is a way to create thousands and thousands of optimized pages — all at once. Yes, you read that right. You get to hit your target keywords and scale up without too much stress.

‍Who wouldn’t want that? That’s the sort of thing marketers and SEO specialists dream about.

‍Pull this off, and it’ll be a game-changer for both your brand visibility and conversion goals. But make no mistake, it is going to come with some effort.

‍Plus, there’s a lot of noise when it comes to any aspect of SEO, let alone one that involves this level of automation. So, it gets confusing to know where to even begin.

‍That’s why, in this guide, we’re going to give you a handy explanation and our most trusted tips for using this strategy.

‍Programmatic SEO is a way companies use to generate tons of (thousands) new web pages that target carefully selected keywords. The best part? None of this is done manually. That’s right — no need to write, design, or publish any of those pages one by one.

‍Instead, the company simply creates a system and template. One that has the needed information like prices, locations, reviews, etc.

‍Imagine you run a big e-commerce site like Amazon (Hi, Jeff!), and you have to manually add new products to the site inventory. Talk about stress.

‍It makes more sense to have a system that simply pulls the relevant information from a database. This would include price, images, location, description, etc., and just like that, a new page gets generated instantly.

‍That’s exactly what big sites like Yelp, Zapier, and Zillow do. Rather than list every property manually, they just feed a few details into their already saved templates, and boom! A new property is listed.

‍Source: Realtor.com

‍Think about it. Not only do sites like Yelp have millions of pages, new pages are being created every day. Many of them are for different restaurants scattered across different cities.

‍Source: Yelp

‍They would need hundreds of writers, developers, designers, and so on to pull this off manually. That’s why using programmatic SEO gets the job done much faster and saves costs on top of it.

‍So, basically, most websites with millions of pages that display structured information use this method. That includes weather forecast pages, most e-commerce sites, property listing websites, etc.

‍Source: The Weather Channel

Should You Use It?

‍Looking at these programmatic SEO examples might lead you to wonder if it’s just big multinational companies that do this. Not really. In fact, it doesn’t come down to the size of your company or site — at least not just this.

‍It depends on whether you need thousands of pages targeting the same keywords and sharing the same core information. Let’s break it down further. Using this tactic is a good idea for you if:

• You need to create tons of product pages for all kinds and variations of products or services. This is what some online stores might need.
• Most of your content is location-based, with each one having specific locally relevant details. So think directories, job boards, business listings, that sort of thing.
• You’re mostly publishing seasonal or time-sensitive content that can change quickly. Maybe a travel blog creating carefully curated listicle-based content for every city. Think of the Nomads site.

‍Source: Nomads.com

‍Other than the above conditions, you could very easily fall into the trap of duplicate content and spamming. At best, you end up with fluffy content that doesn’t have any depth and barely any value for the readers.

‍At any rate, both violate Google’s policies and can get your site blacklisted.

‍Imagine trying to use a template with the same structure for every unique landing page. Your content starts to look and sound the same. That’s a great way to make your website visitors feel that you’re simply running a script that pulls content from ChatGPT.

‍Once your readers feel like you have stopped trying, they won’t stick around. Especially not when your competitors are serving up high-quality content consistently.

‍There’s a reason why programmatic SEO is popular. When used well, the perks are off the charts. But sometimes, it can also come with a side of risks. This brings us to the pros and cons list.

🌟 Benefits

‍The positive side includes the fact that you can:

• Save time building as many web pages as you want and scale that up easily.
• Help your site “shine” in search results, pulling insane traffic.
• Make it easier to beat your competitors since you might be creating hundreds or thousands more pages than them.
• Improve your keyword coverage with so many different specific keywords.
• Make your site appealing to other webmasters who might end up sending you quality backlinks.
• Use specific keywords that help you attract more customers ready to buy what you’re offering.

‍Note: All of the above can only work when your content is high-quality and provides real value. Plus, it must be combined with other strategies (e.g., link building, content marketing, etc.).

🤦‍♀️ Challenges

‍On the flip side of the coin, you may struggle with:

• Duplicate or spammy content (yes, we can’t stress this enough). It’s really hard to make automated pages as detailed and engaging as you would with manually created content.
• Indexing issues, as getting all those thousands and thousands of pages indexed can turn into a real hassle.
• Initial costs, as you’re going to need to invest in some programmatic SEO tools, and some of this can be quite pricey. Plus, the development process at the start might also be expensive.
• High initial time investment, as you need to do a lot of research to create the perfect template. Besides, you will need to maintain it down the line.
• Technical details, as even with tools, you will need some coding, databases, and other relevant knowledge. This technical aspect of it can put some people off.

‍You can succeed at any SEO process when you have the right knowledge and skills. So, here are our top tips to help you hit the ground right away:

Step 1: Get the Basics Right Before Anything Else

‍You can’t just grow your traffic with programmatic SEO by targeting every single keyword in existence. You need a strategy — one that’s data-driven.

‍So, it’s best to start with low-difficulty and low-competition keywords. These are the types to help you rank quickly. You’ll need to gather many of them that are relevant to your site.

‍Then go for those in the “golden” zone. You know, low enough that it’s easy to rank for. But it also has enough search volume to guarantee consistent traffic.

‍Next, you can group the keywords by volume, difficulty level, search intent, and so on. You can use this handy keyword research checklist for this step.

‍When you look more closely at your keywords, you’ll see they’re from people trying to fill all kinds of needs.

‍Some are looking to learn about particular products or find a specific place. Others want to compare some products with other similar ones out there. Then there are those who are trying to buy something. Most of your traffic will likely come from this last group.

‍Your job is to understand what each group needs, what they expect, and how to provide the help they require. That’s what search intent is all about.

‍Don’t forget your head terms. These are the main character category keywords because they get a lot of monthly search volume compared to the rest. Examples of these include phrases like “best travel destinations,” “cheapest hotels,” etc. for a travel blog.

‍These main keywords are probably highly competitive, so be sure to match them with modifiers. Modifiers are basically phrases that turn head terms into long-tail keywords.

‍Take, for instance, the phrase “cheapest hotels in [insert city].” The last two words are modifiers and can turn a highly broad keyword into a locally relevant one.

‍Modifiers can also be different, so experiment and see what works better.

‍Source: Ahrefs

‍You can even find modifiers by checking the main keyword in an SEO tool. This will bring up many potential ideas along with important metrics like search volume, keyword difficulty, etc.

‍Source: Semrush

‍Now, want to see programmatic SEO in action? Let’s google “cheapest hotels in Chicago.” Do you know what the results are? Basically, every page you see after Sponsored results and Google Maps listings are automatically created pages.

‍Source: Google

‍Yes, this is the true magic of programmatic optimization.

Step 2: Learn as Much as You Can From Your Competitors

‍How do you know which of the many keywords will work or even what kind of content to create with them? This is why we highly recommend doing some competitor analysis. Most times, your competitors have already done the research.

‍So, by looking at the structure of their pages, you will have a solid idea of what will interest your target audience. Not sure how to do this? You’ve got several SEO tools that can make this possible, including Ahrefs, Semrush, etc.

‍You can go ahead to create your own content using a similar format. Want to make the content creation process easy as well? There are many SEO writing tools that can help you with that.

Step 3: Don’t Rush the Landing Page Templates

‍It’s true you need to build your templates after gathering all your data, but there’s no need to rush this. Keep in mind that any template you design will be used to create all pages. It will affect the layout of your site and where/how every piece of data will appear.

‍So, take your sweet time to nail down the perfect template. Decide how you want your content to look. Even though the information on each page is going to be different, the layout will have the same format and structure. Your keywords can be very helpful for this process.

‍Ask yourself — what do you want people to see first when they land on your pages? Product images, a map, reviews, descriptions with certain keywords highlighted?

‍You can also have a mixture of these and more. But, the priority you assign to each will determine where you place them on your page:

• So, for a marketplace site or an e-commerce site, you would generally have images, listings, descriptions, and so on.
• On the other hand, an online forum would have either a Q&A format like Quora or some other topic pages — each with its own unique content. Even then, the pages usually have textboxes where users can share their thoughts or ask questions.

‍Let’s compare some examples of different programmatic SEO sites in action.

Kayak

‍For example, when you visit the Kayak website, you can spot the page template right away. You have your header, graphics, search box, and a section that highlights the latest deals.

‍Source: Kayak

‍This is designed to help people find the information they need as quickly as possible. And every page you navigate to will be another template:

‍Source: Kayak

‍All these solutions make perfect sense for a travel search site.

Medium

‍Another example is Medium, which is basically a more polished online blogging community. It’s a platform that was created for user-generated content. So, their layout is perfectly logical.

‍Source: Medium

‍The landing page template is a series of blog posts. Each one has an author icon and name, bold headers, images, snippets of the post, etc.

‍Besides, it has a button that says “Write” and additional sections like “Staff Picks” and “Recommended topics.” As you can see, this template is designed to encourage people to create and engage with the works of others.

Notion

‍Another example is Notion. It has a totally different layout.

‍If you take a close look at their website, you’ll see that they have identical page designs for every category of their templates.

‍Source: Notion

‍The same goes for the layout of every template page. You’ll always see “About this template,” “Categories,” “View template,” “Get template,” etc.

‍Source: Notion

‍These examples clearly show that every site chooses a layout that corresponds to what their audience needs. You should do the same. In your own case, you are free to decide what works best for you and tweak your template to match that.

Step 4: Build Your Pages

‍This step involves building a system that maps every data source to the right part of the page. If you’re using WordPress or another popular CMS system, great news — this probably won’t be too complicated!

‍First of all, you can check for supported plugins (if applicable). Secondly, most of these CMS can generate URLs and meta tags dynamically. This means that each time you add new data to your data source, it gets updated instantly. So, what option do you pick?

‍For WordPress and WooCommerce, one of the options is the WP All Imports, which lets you design templates. You can import data from spreadsheets and use the API to map data to sections of the page.

‍Source: WP All Import

‍If you are using this tool, you will first need to install and prepare your data in a structured form. The best way is to use a spreadsheet.

‍This will include information like prices, locations, and other relevant details (depending on your niche and site). Make sure you don’t miss any important elements you want to include on your page.

‍Next, use the drag-and-drop feature to design your page template (add sections for images, categories, etc.) Customize and configure everything to your preferences, and when you like it, run the imports.

‍The truth is that the best thing you can do is check what options you have for your particular CMS and then read reviews and watch tutorials for each. This way, you can find the best fit right from the start. Just opt for something that has extensive functionality but is also intuitive.

‍Now that you know how programmatic SEO works, it’s time to learn about the many tools you can use to make your workflow easier. We already mentioned one of them, but, of course, that’s not all there is.

‍In fact, a simple Google search will return over 6 million hits in 0.36 seconds. Of course, not all of the results are software, but the point remains — you have your options.

‍Source: Google

‍Still, chances are you don’t have time to read through all the pages, shortlist your favorites, and test out each tool individually. So, to help you narrow down your search and find the best solutions, we’ve selected our top choices below.

#1 Semrush (for Keyword Research)

‍Source: Semrush

‍Semrush is one of the perfect tools for digging up relevant main keywords (aka head terms) and modifiers that fit the criteria.

‍You need software like this to see all the relevant data for each keyword. This includes details like the monthly search volume, difficulty, intent, cost, and other SERP information.

‍This means that you can instantly identify the keywords that match your needs at any time. No guessing or random choices.

‍Keywords are crucial because they can affect the value of your content and its relevance. So, the more accurate data you have on each keyword, the better your odds of outranking your competitors.

‍🤔 Who can benefit from it?

‍Anyone who wants to create content that aligns with their audience interests and wants to rank in SERPs.

‍Another honorary mention is Ahref. It can also do all the above, so it’s up to you which tool you prefer.

#2 Airtable (for Building Your Database)

‍Source: Airtable

‍If your regular spreadsheet was an athlete, this tool would be the Olympian version of it. It’s got everything you would need in a spreadsheet and more. As a result, you can add and organize your data seamlessly.

‍Also, it’s easy to link the tables together and automate with other tools without needing to be a coding expert. And if you have a team working on the same project, it’s super easy to keep everyone on the same page.

‍🤔 Who can benefit from it?

‍Pretty much all SEO experts and marketers. You know, those who need an efficient way to organize their data so it’s easy to automate their content creation process.

‍Prefer a free tool that can work with almost every platform? Then try Google Sheets. You can structure all your data there as well. Yes, it’s basic, but it does its job.

#3 WebFlow (for Page Building)

‍Source: Webflow

‍We have already discussed one CMS, but having more than one option can’t hurt. Even if you have WordPress sites, you can still use Webflow for your programmatic SEO. You can take advantage of its templates to design your own pages.

‍You can easily integrate your own database source, whether it is Google Sheets or Airtable.

‍Don’t forget that you can always make SEO-friendly changes to your site since this CMS lets you edit your code. But only do this if you know what you are doing. Otherwise, get a web developer to check and make sure your site is running as it should.

‍There are also many tweaks you can do without coding. So, it’s no wonder that many rate Webflow as one of the most user-friendly website builders.

‍🤔 Who can benefit from it?

‍Anyone who wants to design and develop web pages easily. Plus, it’s perfect for those who need an easy-to-work-with CMS.

‍Still, note that while it’s much more flexible than many other alternatives (like Wix), Webflow has limited database functionality. So, if you’re going heavy on your programmatic search engine optimization, it might not be the best solution for you.

#4 Whalesync (for Importing Data)

‍Source: Whalesync

‍Want to import data between your CMS and Notion or Airtable? That’s where Whalesync comes in. It helps push your data to the CMS, and when any changes are made, the new information gets updated as well.

‍We’ve already mentioned both Airtable and Webflow. Yet, now, if you want to create a whole ecosystem, this programmatic SEO tool might be exactly what you need.

‍The best part is that you don’t need to know any codes to run this software. It takes a few clicks to connect your apps, map the data, turn on the sync, and set it running. Besides, it works well for both small business owners and multistore companies, so scalability is not an issue.

‍🤔 Who can benefit from it?

‍Those SEO specialists who want a streamlined connection between Webflow and Airtable or Notion. Essentially, it’s just a great way to save time.

#5 Google Search Console (Monitoring Your Pages’ Online Performance)

‍Source: Google Search Console

‍Launching a thousand pages within a short time means you need as many eyes on your web performance. It’s so easy for pages to fall through the cracks, and you might not even know when a page is having issues on time.

‍With an analytics or monitoring tool, you simply minimize this risk. You can use Google Search Console to keep tabs on your website performance. It’s the most popular free option out there. Besides, it’s Google native, so you can rely on its data.

‍It allows you to quickly spot which pages are not indexed and why. After all, it’s a huge deal when you’re working with thousands or millions of pages at the same time.

‍Wondering how your site did in ranking for your latest target keywords? No worries — you can check this here as well.

‍🤔 Who can benefit from it?

‍Even if you aren’t interested in programmatic search engine optimization, GSC is a really good tool for anyone who does any type of SEO. It’s literally the easiest way to know how your site is doing.

‍As you see, programmatic SEO isn’t that complicated. Yet, it is definitely not for everyone. If, after reading this, you know that it’s your perfect solution, you now know how it works and the best way to adopt it.

‍ABut like they say, whatever is worth doing is worth doing well. So, use the tips shared here to help you do it well. This is the key that will help your site grow traffic quickly and without any major issues.