Programmatic vs Editorial SEO - Why you need both
Programmatic vs Editorial SEO - Why you need both
Programmatic SEO and editorial SEO are not opposing forces in your content strategy.
This week’s newsletter is sponsored by the Digital PR agency Search Intelligence, which uses PR methods to grow a link portfolio and North Star Inbound, which is a recommended agency for SEO and content strategy. See their case studies linked in the newsletter.
If you have read my book, you will know I am a huge proponent of the outsized SEO opportunities resulting from an effective programmatic SEO strategy. Aside from the scaled results possible with programmatic SEO, it is also significantly more affordable than an editorial SEO strategy because each new programmatic page only adds marginal cost while editorial content expenses scale linearly.
However, even with an effective programmatic strategy, there’s still a place for editorial SEO and vice versa. Furthermore, even when there isn’t excellent ROI potential from an editorial SEO strategy (see past newsletters), there’s always room for some editorial SEO.
[SPONSORED by Search Intelligence]
Digital PR link building tip:
Use advanced Google search operators to find Digital PR ideas that are most likely to be picked up by popular outlets.
Here is an example:
"site: publisher_domain intitle:revealed intitle:most"
This search will give you the articles that a publication wrote, which contain the words “revealed” and “most” in their title.
To be even clearer, programmatic SEO and editorial SEO are not opposing forces in your content strategy. They're complementary approaches that, when used correctly, can skyrocket your organic search performance.
What is programmatic SEO
Programmatic SEO is about leveraging data and automation to create large volumes of targeted content. The heavy lifter, the workhorse, can churn out thousands of pages designed to capture more specific queries that match user intent. Think of it as your SEO net, ready to drag into the vast landscape of niche searches.
With such a lofty goal, getting caught up in a spam effort is straightforward, so it’s critical that any programmatic SEO effort first validates the use case and the need for what is being created.
Good programmatic SEO is not a "set it and forget it" solution. It requires:
1. Solid data foundations that are input into a creative solution for users
2. Smart templating with a strong useful design
3. Ongoing optimization as the product team learns about how the implementation solves user needs
4. Quality control measures to keep the programmatic solution as high quality as possible.
When done right, programmatic SEO can drive massive organic traffic gains. But when done poorly, it's spam at scale with a penalty waiting in the wings.
Zillow and Tripadvisor are great examples of programmatic SEO, but imitation sites in their respective spaces are not. (I won’t call any out publicly, but respond to this newsletter for a longer conversation.)
Programmatic costs
The costs of great programmatic SEO will be significantly higher than poor alternatives because the best solutions will rely on proprietary data, creative implementations, and broad internal engineering support. Programmatic products are typically not supported by only an SEO manager; they will have a PM and multiple cross-functional teams.
Editorial SEO
Editorial SEO, on the other hand, is your targeted effort. It's about crafting high-quality, authoritative content that targets competitive keywords and converts users from that content. This is where you showcase your expertise, engage your audience, and drive users down a funnel.
Editorial content must be well written and professional because if it is not, it will achieve the opposite result.
Editorial content:
1. Builds trust and credibility for the products and overall brand
2. Targets high-value, competitive keywords
3. Creates linkable magnets that others can reference
4. Supports your overall brand strategy as a category thought leader
The problem is that it doesn't scale quickly. You can't automate thought leadership or industry expertise; each piece of content will be expensive if it’s not done right.
Editorial costs
High-quality content could cost over $1,000 per piece, while lower-quality content will still cost hundreds. Added together, a $150,000 annual budget on content will only net 150 pieces of content. (There are lesser-known middle-of-the-road solutions, including AI - message me for recommendations).
Additionally, a time component makes good editorial content slow to produce. A great writer can only create a few good pieces of content per week, which means that at 47-50 working weeks per year, you are again limited by the physical constraint of time.
Wirecutter.com is an excellent example of solid editorial SEO, while AI/low-quality content competitors are very much not.
The Balancing Act
Here's where many get it wrong—they try to balance programmatic and editorial SEO as if you can only choose one. Agencies typically recommend editorial SEO because they can produce the content for that strategy. It is much harder for an outside agency to impact SEO implementation if the deliverables are shipping code internally.
Internal SEO leaders like to advocate for programmatic SEO but then give up when the going gets difficult. Getting buy-in to invest in an expensive long-term SEO project is challenging.
In an ideal world, many organizations (if SEO is a fit for them) should do both, but with the right proportions.
Programmatic SEO provides the volume and reach when it's a fit, while editorial SEO provides the authority and brand building.
User journey
Another way to look at this is through the lens of user journeys. Programmatic efforts often target a higher part of the funnel, while compelling editorial will target a lower part.
Ineffective editorial SEO is also aimed at a higher place in the funnel. However, this is not a great investment because it is difficult to generate ROI at scale by paying significant sums for high-in-the-funnel efforts.
The funnel target of each piece of each SEO asset can be calculated by developing an assumed conversion rate. High-in-the-funnel material will have assumed conversion rates in the low tenths of a percent, while low-funnel pages like a pricing or comparison page could have conversion rates in the double digits.
Quantity vs quality
Remember, in the world of SEO, it's not about choosing between quantity and quality. It's about using each approach where it's most effective to create a search strategy that's greater than the sum of its parts.
The last way of looking at this, which is effective, is quantity vs quality. Inevitably, programmatic SEO content will be of lower quality as measured by the output of the written word than manually written editorial content. If there is a high quantity of potential users across a broad spectrum of intent, it makes sense to make that tradeoff between quantity and quality. On the other hand, if there is not a broad intent spectrum, SEO efforts should be as high quality as possible to the limited quantity.
Survey templates
An example of this is the programmatic SEO efforts we built while I was at SurveyMonkey with survey templates. Since there were a limited number of template use cases that actually mattered to an end user, the quality of the template was extremely high, and a survey expert even wrote it.
The opposite of this is Zapier, where the quantity upside was broad because the target was building a software pairing page for every software. The quality of the words on that page did not need to be exceptionally high. There is no requirement to have 1,000 words of high-quality content.
ROI is the tiebreaker
Instead of looking for a programmatic vs. editorial SEO effort, think of both and resource the ideal strategy based on potential ROI without choosing which one is better based on personal preference.
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