SEO Strategies for Programmatic Sites

4 SEO strategies for programmatic sites:-

Planning and executing SEO strategies for sites with hundreds of millions of pages is no easy task, but there are strategies to make it simple.

Programmatic pages are pages that have been generated automatically on a very large scale.

The SEO strategies for these pages are used to target multiple keyword variations by automatically creating landing pages at that scale.

These pages can typically be found in major verticals like e-commerce, real estate, travel, and news sites.

These verticals rely on programmatic pages to build their SEO strategy and have a dedicated page for each product and category.

This setup can lead to hundreds of millions of pages - they're efficient, functional, and user-friendly, but they come with some SEO challenges.

Many strategies that generally work for sites with only a few hundred pages will not necessarily achieve the same results on larger sites.

Small sites rely on manual and meticulous content creation, compared to programmatic pages, which are the main traffic pages of the site.

1. Keyword research and keyword modifiers: -

Well-planned keyword research is one of the biggest challenges in a programmatic scale operation.

When working on a large set of pages and keywords, it is important to choose and find the right keywords to target on all pages.

In order to function both efficiently and effectively, it is recommended that one divides the pages on the site into a few templates before delving into the search itself.

Some examples of these models might include:

Categories

Subcategories

Product pages

Static Pages

Blogs

Information pages

Knowledge base/learning

Once all of the page templates are in place, it's time to create some keyword sets and keyword modifiers.

Keyword modifiers are additional keywords that, when combined with the main terms and the main keywords, help the long tail strategy.

Programmatic pages usually contain the majority of the site's pages.

As a result, these pages are typically the most important on a larger website, both in terms of search volume and desirability.

Make sure one uses the correct keyword modifiers in the content of each page template.

The main difference from typical keyword research is the emphasis on keyword modifiers.

One has to find relevant keywords that can be implemented over and over on all relevant pages.

One has the keyword modifiers, need to implement them in the title tags, descriptions, title tags, and content of the page template (s) the modifiers are intended for.

Even when multiplying this strategy by millions of pages, having the right keyword modifier makes updating the programmatic pages a much simpler and much more efficient process.

An update will affect all pages in the same category, so if we update the SEO title tag of a stock page template, all pages in the same category will also be updated.

The intent of the keywords is informative.

Keyword Intent focuses on how to match search intents to keyword modifiers.

Target researchers who are looking to collect certain information.

They want more information on stocks or companies, market caps, expert valuations, market trends, etc.

2. Internal link: -

Intelligent internal link plans are vital for large sites.

They have the ability to dramatically increase the number of pages indexed and then pass on the equity of links between pages.

When working on massive sites, one of the top priorities should be to make sure that Google finds and indexes the pages on the site.

Looking at the big picture, the goal is for page A to link to page B and page C, while page B will link to page D and page E, etc. 

Ideally, each page will receive at least one index link from a different page index on the site.

For programmatic sites, the issue here is the fact that new pages emerge every day.

In addition to existing pages, it is imperative to calculate and project in order to be able to relaunch internal links for new pages. Help these pages be discovered quickly and indexed appropriately.

One strategy that makes it easier to link is to add a "related pages" section to the site.

Adds value for users and crawlers, as well as links to relevant pages based on affinity.

One can link to similar content based on category, product type, content, or just about any other descriptive element.

Similar content should be sorted in numerical or alphabetical order.

HTML sitemap: -

Even large websites use HTML sitemaps to help crawlers find new pages.

They are extremely effective when working on large scale sites with millions of pages.

In general, many eCommerce and real estate websites sequence their sitemaps alphabetically / categorically to ensure that no page will stand alone.

3. Exploration budget and deindexation rules: -

The crawl budget is a very important issue that large websites need to consider.

When one has tens of millions of programmatic pages, one has to make sure that Google systematically finds and indexes the most valuable pages.

The value of pages should be based on content, revenue, business value, and user satisfaction.

First, choose the pages that should not be indexed:

Use the favorite analytics tool to find out which pages have the lowest engagement metrics (high bounce rates, low site time averages, no page views, etc.).

Use the Search Console to find out which pages have high impressions and low CTRs.

Combine these pages into one list.

Check if they have any inbound links.

Analyze the attribution of these pages to revenue and leads.

We have all the relevant data and we choose the pages that should be removed from the index, add a no-index tag to all of them and exclude them from the XML sitemap.

The results were incredible.

Although we lost over half a million visits in a month, the overall engagement stats on programmatic pages have improved dramatically.

By removing irrelevant pages, more room has been made for relevant and valuable pages to be discovered by the Google robot.

4. SEO Split Tests: -

The advantage when working on a large scale SEO campaign is that one has access to the big data and can be used for SEO efforts.

Unlike traditional A / B tests, which test human behavior, split A / B tests are only intended for crawlers.

The split testing process is usually based on the same or similar page templates.

Divide the page into two or three groups - one group acts as a control, while the other groups are enabled.

Test the following criteria:

Adding structured data.

Modification of the keyword modifier of SEO tags (title tag, description, H tags, etc.)

Image ALT Tags

Content length

Page performance

Internal link

For example, we can first adjust the SEO tags, then continue to test other verticals after construction.

Pinterest's dashboard also shows how their growth team relies on split testing experiences for their SEO strategy.

Pinterest's goal was to create an experimentation tool that would help them measure the impact of SEO changes on their rankings and organic traffic.

Since programmatic pages are different from most others, it is imperative that one creates and optimizes these pages in the right way, which requires several tweaks from the normal SEO strategy, as well as the application of new and proprietary strategies.

Programmatic page searches are meant to match the search query, whether it's a search by product, address, or information.

This is why it is essential to ensure that the content is as unique as possible and that the user will have the best answer for each query.