Case Study: The Programmatic SEO Approach that Got Attention from Oracle and Google

What if I told you there’s an SEO maneuver that allows you to make hundreds of thousands of precocious prime pages astatine standard and astatine a fraction of the outgo of doing truthful manually?

Welcome to Programmatic SEO.

In this lawsuit study, you’ll larn however my squad astatine The Search Initiative grew our client’s integrated postulation by 38% sessions.

This was achieved by adopting a programmatic attack to SEO. Instead of hiring writers, we designed a azygous leafage template and fto programming bash the rest, creating 500 pages..

On apical of this, the tract received links from implicit 700 referring domains including manufacture heavyweights similar Oracle and Google – without america doing immoderate nexus gathering ourselves.

In this lawsuit study, you’ll larn however to:

Before that, here’s immoderate much accusation astir our clients goals and the main challenges that we overcame during the campaign.

The Challenge

The lawsuit operates successful the bundle industry, offering a level to unafraid and negociate unfastened root improvement for processes that impact customized combinations of tools and platforms.

The lawsuit didn’t person immoderate visibility for keywords that would them wealth which meant that determination was a ample excavation of lucrative keywords that were missed retired on.

Ranking 1 oregon 2 caller pages wasn’t going to chopped it. So we created a semipermanent program connected however to attain tens of thousands of keywords and without manual effort optimizing each page… programmatically.

Find retired however you tin flooded these challenges for your website by pursuing the steps below.

Generating Content Through Programmatic SEO

Traditional SEO focuses connected enhancing a website’s hunt motor visibility done high-quality contented and keyword-centric landing pages and blogs. In astir cases, it’s a cleanable mode of gathering keywords, links, and mentions, arsenic agelong arsenic your contented is well-crafted and adds worth to the extremity user.

But what if determination was a mode to bash this astatine scale?

What is Programmatic SEO?

Programmatic SEO (often referred to arsenic pSEO) involves creating landing pages astatine standard done automation with the purpose of ranking them connected the hunt results pages.

Each leafage is uniform, targets a azygous unsocial keyword and is created utilizing automated tools and a database.

You’ve astir apt already utilized websites that person created pages successful this way.

Real property websites, eCommerce sites, and adjacent contented sites (examples below) person been utilizing this method to walk accusation from 1 strategy to another, allowing them to make thousands of properties oregon merchandise pages populated with information from suppliers with generated titles, headings, images, descriptions etc.

Here’s an illustration connected Realtor.com.

If you were to hunt “houses for merchantability successful [location]”, you’re apt going to find the pursuing benignant of pages successful the results.

Los Angeles

New York

Note however the layout of each of these pages is identical, but the contented (i.e. the properties) change.

A speedy Google hunt reveals that determination are 19,495 cities, towns and villages successful the USA. Realtor.com can’t perchance make a leafage for each determination manually. Instead, they usage programmatic SEO.

What’s the Difference Between Traditional & Programmatic SEO?

Although the extremity of some of these is the same, to grow integrated traffic, the quality lies successful however this is achieved.

Traditional SEO focuses connected increasing hunt visibility implicit a agelong play of clip with a absorption connected producing high-quality, unsocial contented that targets higher contention keywords.

Programmatic SEO achieves the aforesaid goal, but astatine a quicker gait arsenic you’re creating aggregate pages with an identical layout astatine standard from a database, templates and automation.

In astir cases, if your template takes a leafage and duplicates it, lone changing conscionable the keyword – that sucks for users and volition apt besides get penalized by Google for having ample amounts of duplicate content.

However, if you usage a template to make thousands of products and make adjuvant contented that accurately describes the circumstantial product, you’re creating worth to the user, which is what Google is looking for.

However, erstwhile it comes to section SEO you bash so get a escaped walk and lone request to alteration the metropolis sanction successful bid to beryllium “unique enough”.

Example Uses of Programmatic SEO

Apart from existent property websites similar Realtor.com, present are immoderate different examples wherever websites person employed programmatic SEO to physique their pages.

Informational Sites

Informational sites similar Nomad List usage programmatic SEO to assistance users find the champion places to live, enactment and travel.

The tract takes information astir things similar outgo of living, net speeds etc for places astir the satellite and produces landing pages successful a mode that is casual to recognize and read.

The tract is fundamentally taking readily disposable information and repurposing it to supply invaluable insights to its audience.

Directories and Workflow Apps

Zapier, a workflow automation instrumentality that integrates thousands of applications and tools, programmatically made landing pages for each azygous instrumentality they enactment with showing customized workflows that tin beryllium made with the unsocial operation of the user’s chosen tools.

In the fiscal sector, Wise made a template for a landing leafage for each azygous currency they enactment with, helping their clients person betwixt immoderate fig of currencies.

Travel Itinerary Planners

Platforms similar TripAdvisor and Expedia that assistance users program their question itineraries instrumentality programmatic SEO to dynamically make destination guides, optimize meta tags for fashionable attractions, and make contented tailored to circumstantial question preferences.

For example, TripAdvisor aggregates hotels based connected determination truthful that erstwhile you hunt for keywords similar “hotels successful japan” oregon “restaurants successful london”, you’ll spot pages similar this:

Job Portals

Job hunt websites similar Indeed oregon Glassdoor often usage programmatic techniques to make occupation listings, institution profiles, and different contented for hunt motor optimization.

The template for their occupation listings pages stay the same. The quality present is that the contented is generated by their users i.e. companies and individuals uploading the occupation listings to their strategy truthful that they tin beryllium displayed successful the applicable listing pages.

These are conscionable a fistful of examples, but careless of your manufacture oregon size of website, you tin marque usage of pSEO to make pages astatine scale.

Pros and Cons of Programmatic SEO

Here are immoderate of the advantages of Programmatic SEO:

But earlier you perpetrate to pSEO, present are immoderate things you request to beryllium alert of:

Despite these disadvantages, and adjacent if you don’t person a monolithic website, you tin inactive incorporated pSEO into your SEO strategy. Read connected to find retired how…

How to Generate Content Through Programmatic SEO

Creating genuinely programmatic contented requires information that needs to beryllium sourced to make contented for hundreds, if not thousands of pages.

We’ll commencement by identifying keywords that you tin people astatine standard and information sets that you tin usage to integrate into your contented earlier utilizing Google Sheets and ChatGPT to physique retired your web pages.

Finding Scalable Keywords

For programmatic SEO to beryllium effective, you request to beryllium capable to people hundreds oregon thousands of akin keywords utilizing a azygous leafage template. This requires identifying applicable keywords that person galore variations that are similar.

One mode to bash this is by entering a effect keyword applicable to your website into Ahrefs’ Keywords Explorer tool.

For example, if you had a website astir everything vegan, you mightiness usage presumption similar “vegan restaurants”.

Then click connected the Matching Terms report, which shows an expanded database of imaginable keywords related to the effect keyword.

Top tip: see refining the hunt results by adjusting the Keyword Difficulty to little than 20 and the Domain Rating (DR) of top-ranking sites to little than 30. This filter volition amusement keywords that are easier to fertile for, adjacent with constricted backlinks.

Identify patterns wrong the keywords to spot which of these tin beryllium utilized to make pages for programmatically.

In this case, galore of the keywords notation to a peculiar location, preceded by the word “best” i.e. “best vegan restaurants successful chicago”.

You tin bash this by sorting the keywords by “Term” arsenic opposed to “Parent Topics”.

You present person 176 keywords (in the USA) that travel a akin signifier for you to make pages for.

Identify Modifiers

In the erstwhile example, the keywords identified tin beryllium divided into 2 categories: caput presumption and modifiers.

The caput word is the top-level class of the keyword that you’ll purpose for i.e. champion vegan restaurants.

The modifier is what turns the caput word into long-tail keywords (these are highly circumstantial hunt presumption that person little hunt volumes) i.e. successful chicago.

Here’s different example…

For a question website, you could person the pursuing caput word and modifier combination: “things to do” + “in [location]”.

You could besides constrictive things down further by adding a secondary modifier: “things to do” + “in [location] + “for [target audience]”.

By the extremity of this process, you’ll person a agelong database of keyword variations that you tin present commencement to make contented for.

Identify the Search Intent

The adjacent measurement is to place the benignant of contented that volition beryllium adjuvant to radical searching for these keywords i.e. the hunt intent.

Look astatine the apical ranking results for your keywords to enactment retired what you should see wrong your pages.

For example, here’s a top result for the keyword “best vegan restaurants successful chicago”.

The leafage provides utile accusation astir the assorted vegan restaurants successful the authorities specified arsenic the:

There’s besides a abbreviated statement astir the restaurant.

Looking astatine the apical ranking competing pages helps you get an thought of the benignant of accusation that’s needed to conscionable the user’s intent for your chosen keyword.

In this case, searchers privation to find retired basal accusation astir the edifice specified arsenic wherever it is (to determine whether it’s adjacent to them) and however to scope retired to them (to publication a table).

Find Relevant Data

Once you cognize what benignant of accusation searchers are looking for, you request to root the data.

There are 2 main options successful presumption of however you tin root your data:

This is the astir almighty information benignant arsenic it’s unique, allowing you to supply invaluable insights that nary 1 other can.

In doing so, you’re besides mounting yourself up to gain backlinks (like we did) organically from immoderate different websites that privation to usage and stock your data.

Here are immoderate large places wherever you tin find commercially licensed datasets:

As with Google’s Dataset Search, you tin find applicable datasets by searching with a keyword. In this lawsuit “life expectancy”. Pay adjacent attraction to the fig of downloads to springiness you an penetration into which datasets are fashionable (and by extension, reliable).

You tin besides bid the results by property to find the latest information sets that different companies apt haven’t used.

You’re present acceptable to commencement to physique your programmatic SEO content.

Build A Template for Your Landing Pages

After you’ve got your database of keywords and the applicable information sources, you request to physique a template for your landing pages.

For the intent of this lawsuit survey and to exemplify the process of doing this with programmatic content, we’ll usage a elemental keyword example: beingness expectancy + successful [country], with a database built connected Google Sheets.

However, successful bid to physique genuinely nonrecreational and utile programmatic pages, you should enlist the assistance of a web developer.

Here’s a link to a illustration template that we’ll beryllium utilizing for this lawsuit study.

To get the keyword list, I asked ChatGPT to database each of the countries successful the satellite and append them to “life expectancy” i.e. beingness expectancy successful albania, beingness expectancy successful algeria etc.

These keywords were imported into Ahrefs’ Keywords Explorer tool.

Export your keywords from Ahrefs and adhd them to the “Keyword Data” tab successful your template. Delete each columns except:

Note: for illustrative purposes, the template lone contains information for the apical 10 countries with the highest hunt volumes.

The 2nd tab connected the spreadsheet is wherever you tin store each of the indispensable accusation from your dataset. In this example, we person immoderate basal stats connected the beingness expectancy for assorted countries.

The 3rd tab connected the spreadsheet is wherever you tin enactment everything unneurotic and physique retired the contented of your page.

In much blase cases, you could usage APIs to propulsion the information into your content, but we’ve created a elemental Google Sheets look that pulls the applicable information from the Keyword and Life Expectancy Data tabs into a azygous tab.

Here’s the look which populates the sentences with the earthy information to implicit your contented for the pages:

Here’s what the substance would look similar erstwhile populated with the data:

India is simply a processing state with a beingness expectancy of 68.3 and a full colonisation of 1395398.

In the adjacent steps, we’ll amusement you however to instrumentality this output, and upload it to your website.

But earlier that, if Google Sheets formulas aren’t your thing, here’s a ChatGPT punctual that tin make 1 for you:

Here’ the look from GPT (which we’ve updated ever truthful somewhat to format the substance the close mode and guarantee that it pulls the information from the close tab i.e. the Life Expectancy Data tab):

You tin accommodate this punctual by replacing the columns with the information points connected your dataset and past set the contented accordingly connected the 4th and last tab of the template spreadsheet.

Note that the contented generated present isn’t capable to beryllium seen arsenic adjuvant oregon broad capable for Google to rank. For your site, with the assistance of a developer, you’ll beryllium capable to physique a overmuch richer template and leafage layout that allows you to supply worth to your audience.

In our Life Expectancy example, you could make unsocial graphs, tables and charts from the dataset which helps users visualize the beingness expectancy betwixt antithetic countries and supply further insights into what the information means.

Adding further unsocial information oregon accusation astir each state specified arsenic the outgo of surviving oregon insights into wherefore the state has a precocious oregon debased beingness expectancy would implicit it.

But this is simply a sensation of what you tin execute with programmatic SEO by generating contented astatine scale. It serves arsenic a stepping chromatic for you to elevate your leafage by adding unsocial contented oregon adjuvant visualizations that picture your data.

Additionally, you tin marque usage of existing leafage models similar Expedia and TripAdvisor, which aggregate contented generated by their ain users (through reviews, ratings and comments), to adhd further invaluable contented to their programmatic pages.

Adding these other elements volition assistance elevate the prime of your pages and summation your chances of ranking.

Optimize Metadata

Remember, this attack to contented instauration is each astir creating hundreds, if not thousands of pages successful a abbreviated magnitude of time. The purpose is scalability.

If you’re creating contented for this galore pages, you’re besides going to request to constitute engaging and SEO optimized metadata for these pages, astatine scale.

The “Page Builder” tab has conscionable that – columns with formulas that automatically make the URL, leafage title, H1 heading and meta statement for your pages.

URLs

URLs should beryllium user-friendly i.e. they should beryllium concise and picture what the idiosyncratic (and Google) volition find connected the page.

The look supra takes the people keyword of the leafage and separates the words with hyphens.

Page Titles

Page titles should beryllium engaging, picture what the contented connected the leafage is about, and ideally see the people keyword that you privation to fertile for.

The look supra takes the people keyword of the page, capitalizes it, and the fictional tract sanction is appended astatine the end.

H1 Headings

As with leafage titles, the H1 heading should besides beryllium engaging and picture what users tin find connected the page.

The look supra takes the people keyword of the leafage and capitalizes it. This is an constituent that you tin set according to the code of dependable for your website.

For example, alternatively of having <h1> Life Expectancy successful Japan </h1>, you whitethorn privation to edit the look truthful that you extremity up with <h1> Everything You Need to Know About the Life Expectancy successful Japan </h1>.

Meta Descriptions

Meta descriptions aren’t a ranking factor, but they’re large for convincing users to click onto your leafage alternatively of your competitors arsenic they’re displayed successful the hunt results.

They should picture what the leafage is astir and see applicable presumption that entice users to click through.

The look supra is simply a elemental concatenation of templated substance with the country. It engages the searcher and includes an nonstop lucifer for the people keyword truthful that it.

Publish Your Content

Once you’ve created the contented for your pages, the last measurement is to people it connected your website.

This volition beryllium connected the contented absorption strategy that your website is on, but present are a fewer tools that you tin usage to marque this process arsenic possible.

Here’s however to bash it utilizing WP All Import…

Once you’ve installed the plugin, there’s an enactment to “Upload a file”, “Download a file” oregon “Use existing file”.

Click connected the archetypal container and upload your dataset and past prime Import information from this import record into “New Items” and Create caller “Posts” for each grounds successful my information file.

In the adjacent step, marque definite that your information has been imported into your tract correctly.

You tin past commencement to physique retired the leafage template by adding successful your templated transcript and filling successful the customized fields based connected the imported data.

For example, to important the state sanction into the page, benignant {country[1]}

Once you’ve built retired your page, the plugin volition inquire for a unsocial identifier, click Auto-detect and it should populate the tract with the leafage title.

The last measurement is to corroborate and tally your import.

If you caput implicit the Posts section, you’ll spot that your pages person been created and published automatically.

Here’s what 1 of the substance pages looks like:

Once you’ve launched your pages, don’t hide to show their advancement and marque adjustments based connected their performance.

As mentioned before, the illustration we’ve provided is simply a precise elemental sensation of what you tin bash with programmatic SEO. With the assistance of a developer, your pages volition look and connection overmuch much value!

Index Your Content

Since you’re publishing truthful overmuch content, it’s a fixed that Google’s crawlers whitethorn get exhausted and volition beryllium incapable to find and scale each leafage immediately. But determination are ways to assistance marque this hap utilizing interior linking and XML sitemaps.

Internal Linking

Internal links for programmatic SEO are importantly much important than accepted editorial pages due to the fact that you’re publishing truthful overmuch contented astatine once. This means that you’ll request to springiness Google’s crawler a nudge truthful that it tin find and scale each of these pages.

Considering the standard of pSEO, a large mode to attack interior linking for specified pages is to silo the pages into top-level directory pages that nexus to the idiosyncratic programmatic pages.

Using our illustration for Life Expectancy, our state pages could beryllium siloed based connected continent, truthful that we person for example:

Where the Asia leafage would incorporate an interior nexus to pages for each of the countries successful Asia.

If you don’t instrumentality interior linking, you hazard creating thousands of orphaned pages which volition beryllium seen arsenic low-value and volition ne'er beryllium discovered by Google.

If you person a WordPress site, cheque retired the Internal Link Juicer plugin which helps you automatically physique interior links successful your content.

XML Sitemaps

XML sitemaps are files that supply hunt engines with a structured database of URLs connected a website. They heighten SEO by ensuring businesslike indexing, helping hunt engines observe content, and prioritizing important pages.

This enables amended visibility and ranking successful hunt results, improving a website’s wide hunt motor optimization.

Build a sitemap for each idiosyncratic top-level directory that you created. This volition let you to signifier the sitemap by taxable and marque it easier for the full conception of a website to crawled much easily, astatine once.

Categorizing your sitemaps similar this volition besides marque it easier for you to update, if for illustration you request to update it by adding caller pages oregon removing existing ones.

Imagine these are the URLs for the Asia conception of our beingness expectancy example:

Here’s what the XML sitemap for the Asia conception of your bid of pages would look like, it would beryllium called example.com/asia-life-expectancy-sitemap.xml.

You tin acceptable the lastmod (last modified date), changefreq (change frequency) and precedence (a people betwixt 0 and 1) accordingly.

To velocity things up, you tin usage an XML Sitemap generator plugin similar XML Sitemap Generator for Google which volition automatically make sitemaps for you.

Once created, taxable your XML sitemaps to Google Search Console by clicking connected the Sitemaps enactment connected the left-hand broadside navigation, past participate the URL of your sitemap.

For example: asia-life-expectancy-sitemap.xml

This volition assistance promote Googlebot to crawl and scale your pages sooner.

The Results

Here’s what we’ve achieved by creating conscionable nether 500 pages done programmatic SEO for this lawsuit implicit the past twelvemonth .

The integrated postulation grew by 37.9% from 173.5k to 239.3k sessions.

The fig of keywords that the tract ranks for successful the apical 10 positions of Google accrued from 0 to 1,923 keywords successful the past 12 months.

Without doing immoderate nexus gathering ourselves, the tract received 700+ referring domains came from the programmatic SEO

This includes backlinks from heavyweight manufacture sites similar Microsoft, Oracle, Google and more.

Conclusion

In this lawsuit study, I’ve shown however you tin pull backlinks organically and turn your integrated postulation by producing contented successful a programmatic way.

You’ve learned however to:

Implementing the strategy supra volition assistance turn your visibility for hundreds of keywords by publishing contented astatine standard implicit time. This volition successful crook summation your integrated hunt postulation and turn your nexus profile’s authorization by earning backlinks organically.

If you’re looking for assistance with your site’s SEO, get successful interaction with my squad astatine The Search Initiative.