3 Scalable Programmatic SEO Examples and How to Apply Them
Programmatic SEO has risen to prominence in recent years, offering an efficient SEO strategy that still delivers on performance. With programmatic SEO providing the best of both worlds, it’s not surprising that businesses are eager to understand and utilize this new digital marketing tactic.
As an agency with firsthand programmatic SEO experience, we’ve built this article to help guide you through the process, how it works, what makes it different from traditional SEO, and examples to help you start applying it.
How Does Programmatic SEO Work?
When utilized correctly, programmatic SEO allows for quick and repeatable content generation that consistently drives traffic from diverse demographics. Typically, it begins with a simple title template, for example: 10 [Food, Activity, etc.] to visit in [Travel Destination]. The title must contain at least one or more variables to work effectively. In our example, the variables are [Food, Activity, etc.] and [Travel Destination]. From this simple template, thousands of SEO content pieces can be created. Here are just some examples:
10 Restaurants to Visit in Berlin, Germany
10 Casinos to Visit in Las Vegas, Nevada
10 Museums to Visit in Rome, Italy
What Makes Programmatic SEO Effective?
The key to ensuring your programmatic SEO is effective every time is two things: intent and value. Each piece of content needs to be hyper-niche, targeting a specific audience (in our example, these would be travelers planning to vacation in Berlin, Las Vegas, or Rome). Additionally, the content must match the intent of the search. When someone searches “Museums in Rome, Italy,” would a page like “10 Museums to Visit in Rome, Italy” be what they’re looking for? Absolutely. However, if they were searching for “Oldest Museum in Rome,” that intent wouldn’t be as clear. This could be an educational or informational search, rather than a search from someone planning to visit. When value and intent are maximized, programmatic SEO becomes a secret weapon to bolster your website’s SEO quickly and easily.
What Is the Difference Between Programmatic SEO and Normal SEO?
In simple terms, programmatic SEO is like a streamlined version of traditional SEO. Programmatic SEO depends on an easily repeatable template, making content easy to create without sacrificing effectiveness. Normal SEO involves more unique ideas that are found using keyword research and targeting high-volume or low-competition keywords. In normal SEO, no two articles generally use the same or similar titles as is practiced with programmatic SEO. The title, value, and even intent differ drastically from article to article, while programmatic SEO focuses consistently on a specific title, intent, and value.
Industries Where Programmatic SEO Works Well
Programmatic SEO is not for every industry. For some, especially hyper-niche businesses, programmatic SEO just won’t apply due to a lack of workable variables. Here are some of the industries that utilize programmatic SEO the best.
Tourism: Tourism encompasses diverse locations across the globe, with various methods of travel and tourist activities in each location. This makes for multiple variables that easily support repeatable programmatic SEO content. This programmatic SEO content will cater to travel planners from various demographics.
Software as a Service (SaaS): Software companies typically serve diverse customer bases, creating technology with various use cases. When applicable, they can target each demographic or geographic location using each use case for their software.
Education/E-Learning: Education and e-learning companies offer courses in dozens of different subjects. From general subjects like math (Online Math Courses for High School Students) and English (Online English Courses for High School Students) to more niche learning opportunities like first aid training (First Aid Training Courses in Saskatoon). Finding variables that work is incredibly simple.
Real Estate: In Canada alone, thousands of people search for houses to buy or rent every day. Whether it’s a national or international real estate website, they benefit greatly when using programmatic SEO. The best part is it’s as easy as making content pages titled “Houses for Sale in Waterloo” and “Apartments for Rent in Montreal.” Just like that, you’re getting traffic from renters in Montreal and future homeowners in Waterloo. The geographic variation alone is expansive.
We’ll identify if your business can take advantage of Programmatic SEO in less than 10 minutes. The question we are looking to answer: Do you have a scalable variable that will net valuable content?
3 Scalable Programmatic SEO Examples
Example 1: Local Leads
We made Local Leads as a local business lead generation tool to help B2B companies find prospects across the world quickly and easily. We’ve created a streamlined programmatic SEO strategy through content pages like these:
Recruiters in San Jose, CA
Marketing Agencies in Kitchener, ON
Manufacturing Companies in New York City, NY
We achieved this using this simple template: [Industry] Leads in [Local Area]. The possibilities for variation are endless, and this variation allows us to deliver unique, non-identical content easily. What makes it so effective is Local Leads’ large library of use cases. Our tool is workable for any industry imaginable on an international scale, meaning we'll basically never run out of programmatic SEO titles to use.
Example 2: TripAdvisor
TripAdvisor is a travel platform that provides travelers with information on hotels, restaurants, attractions, and destinations, all on a global scale. Users can use TripAdvisor to plan trips, compare prices, book accommodations, and find activities based on community feedback and insights.
TripAdvisor has mastered the use of programmatic SEO in the tourism industry, utilizing the searches from travel planners to create dozens of high traffic pages. Similar to our example before, their strategy depends on the variables of destination and activity. They’ve used this strategy to create unique content pages like these:
THE BEST Restaurants in Spain
THE 10 BEST Restaurants in Paris Updated December 2024
THE 15 BEST Things to Do in Niagara Falls (2024)
THE 15 BEST Things to Do in New York City (2024)
THE BEST Sushi in Tokyo (Updated 2024)
They even use eye-catching phrases like "top 10" or "15" and include the year (2024) to lend more variation to their titles. With a programmatic SEO strategy like this, TripAdvisor receives thousands of visitors per day on their programmatic SEO pages, capturing visitors from across the world.
Example 3: Canva
Canva is a digital graphic design platform that allows users to create presentations, social media graphics, posters, and more for free. Its selling point is its simplicity. It’s easier than other mainstream design platforms like Adobe Suite, using primarily drag-and-drop for designing. Canva offers free templates, images, and design tools for both professional and amateur design projects.
Canva utilizes programmatic SEO in a way that scales it beyond just a design platform, optimizing SEO for different niche design capabilities as seen with these content pages:
Free Business Card Maker
Free Resume Templates
Free Online Poster Maker
Searches like these target Canva’s core user base, non-designers who want their business cards, resumes, posters, and many other projects to be simplified.
When Programmatic SEO goes wrong: How to prevent it
When used incorrectly or in industries where it’s not applicable, programmatic SEO will end up hurting your overall SEO strategy.
As previously mentioned, programmatic SEO relies on a consistent and repeatable content strategy. When your content doesn’t offer enough variation, Google’s algorithm could consider your pages to be duplicate content, preventing them from being indexed (appearing on search results).
More issues arise with industries that struggle to create programmatic SEO opportunities. When you try to force a programmatic SEO strategy when not applicable, the value and intent are the first things to be impacted. When your content loses its value and intent, it is no longer effective or able to drive relevant traffic.
Delivering High-Value Programmatic SEO Examples: Tactycs Does It For You
Is programmatic SEO an option for you? If you believe it is, or even if you are unsure, Tactycs is the all-in-one programmatic SEO solution for you. Our agency specializes in creating customizable programmatic SEO bundles to fit every business’s needs. With our expertise, we cultivate practical programmatic SEO strategies that grow website traffic and increase domain authority and search engine rankings. We’ll equip you with the programmatic SEO strategy you need for consistent, long-term business growth.
If you’ve ever wanted to try programmatic SEO but were too confused or overwhelmed to start implementing it, fill out the form below!
