Programmatic SEO is often touted as a silver bullet for scaling content and dominating search results, but getting it right requires more than simple plug-and-play measures. Building a durable, robust, and high-performing engine requires a multidisciplinary team and continuous refinement. 

Step 1: Define your ideal customer profile (ICP) and product offering

An ICP is a composite sketch of who buys your product. Your ICP will help guide your initial pSEO content roadmap. To avoid overcomplicating content decisions, keep your ICP description tight with a one to two-sentence overview of the customer’s goals, aspirations, and pain points. Let’s look at the company Klover, a financial app allowing users to access their earned wages before they are deposited into their bank account. Klover’s ICP descriptor might be “people who are in a complicated financial situation and need to access their money at more convenient intervals.” 

Next, create an outline of your core products or features. In the case of Klover, these products are:

• Instant Cash Advance: Klover’s advanced payout offering

• Points Program: Klover app users can accumulate points for sharing their data and completing activities and redeem them for rewards

• Financial tools: Klover app users can create spend and save goals that they track in the app

Step 2: Identify product-related content opportunities

To find meaningful product-related content opportunities that can be scaled programmatically, ask yourself: "What specific features or aspects of our product do people search for in Google in many different ways?" This question will help you identify core topics that can be expanded into numerous long-tail variations, creating a wide range of targeted content.

For example, Klover’s Cash Advance product provides its customers with payday loans. People might search for payday loans in various ways, focusing on 1) specific loan amounts and 2) their location (usually state). These searches might look like:

• “$50 payday loan”

• “$200 payday loan”

• “Payday loan in New York”

• “Payday loan in Iowa” 

Based on these search patterns, Klover could create a content template: “[Amount] payday loan in [State].” This template could generate hundreds or thousands of unique pages, each targeting a specific combination of loan amount and state. 

Don’t stop with just one search pattern — repeat this process to generate a list of dozens of content ideas. 

Step 3: Identify audience-related content opportunities 

To find meaningful audience-related content opportunities, ask yourself: “What else does my ICP typically search for on Google?” To identify these opportunities, there are three core strategies:

1) Analyze your own organic traffic and content patterns

Use a tool like Ahrefs to discover your website’s most successful non-branded/non-product-related content that could be replicated at scale. 

 Here’s how you can complete this process with Ahrefs:

1. Access the “Top Pages” report in Ahrefs Site Explorer and look for non-branded content 

2. You might also consider filtering for blog content only since this is typically where non-branded content lives (use the URL filter to include only blog posts (e.g., “/blog/”)

3. Analyze the best-performing/most visited content by sorting organic traffic and identify any patterns/themes

Klover hasn’t created blog content yet. If your company is in the same position and hasn’t developed much non-branded thought leadership content yet, skip straight to strategy 2 or 3 (see below).   

2) Analyze competitors' organic traffic and search patterns

You likely know your list of competitors by heart. Still, it’s worth a quick Google search “alternatives to [your company name]” to find additional competitors targeting your ICP.  Another shortcut is using Ahref’s “Organic Competitors” feature to generate a list of competitors; however, since Ahrefs generates a list of competitors based on companies that rank for similar keywords as your own, this list may be insufficient if your site currently has limited traffic. 

You’ll want to generate a list of at least 10-15 competitors that you will then narrow down to those that meet a certain organic traffic threshold (we recommend at least 50,000 monthly organic visits without factoring in traffic to the homepage.)

From there, you’ll go through the same process you did with your own website, analyzing the company’s site structure on a tool like Ahrefs to find the top-performing content and noteworthy content patterns. 

Here’s a breakdown of what the process would look like for Klover:. 

1. Identify 10+ ICP competitors: MoneyLion, Brigit, Chime, Dave, Empower, SoLo Funds, Varo, Albert, Beem, EarnIn.

2. Narrow the list to those with high organic traffic volume (without factoring in their homepages): Moneylion, Beem, and Chime.

3. Look at the top organic pages of these websites: MoneyLion example below

Look at the “site structure” section on Ahrefs to find that Money.com/learn brings in about 67% of the website’s organic traffic. 

Look at the “top pages” section on Ahrefs and filter the URL to “/learn” to see the pages  with the highest organic traffic.

We can start to see some interesting patterns:

• “How-to-get-200-loan,” “1000-dollar-online-loan,” and “100-loan,” and “online-payday-loans-in-new-york" → all relate to “[Amount] payday loan in [state].” This is a similar strategy to the one we identified in the product-related content opportunities.

• “Need-money-today” and “how-to-make-1000-quickly” → all relate to “How to make [amount] quickly.” 

• “How-much-does-instacart-pay” → could be an opportunity for “How much does [gig job] pay?”

3) Analyze media sites in your niche

In some cases, you may not be able to find any competitors with significant organic traffic or noteworthy topic patterns. If this is the case, you can look at media companies and other niche sites publishing content related to your space. For example, Klover might look at a financial advice website like Nerd Wallet.

Step 4: Identify a winning strategy to scale

Now that you have a list of dozens of potential strategies, you’ll want to narrow them down to one pSEO strategy that you will scale before moving on to another. 

To scale your pSEO strategy, create an initial set of articles and grade them against a standard rubric that includes 1) performance criteria, 2) a rating scale, and 3) performance indicators for each rating. 

At daydream, we grade and optimize the strategy first (growth metrics) and then the content templates or frameworks (quality metrics). Each performance criterion is graded on a 5-point scale, with specific KPIs for each score.  

Growth metrics 

1. Criteria one — potential search volume: How much search volume is there for this of long-tail search?

2. Criteria two — scalability: How many articles can we generate for this topic?

3. Criteria three — edge: Can we get an edge in the SERPs for this search query by incorporating proprietary data?

4. Criteria four — competition: How competitive is this search pattern?

Quality metrics 

5. Criteria one — overall quality: How comprehensively does this article cover the topic?

6. Criteria two — information gain: Does the article contribute valuable insights?

7. Criteria three — grammar and spelling: Are there any grammatical or spelling errors?

8. Criteria four — tone: How well does the article read?

9. Criteria five — comparison to competitors: How would you rank the article against its top 3 competitors? 

Step 5: Create a content framework to support the winning strategy

One of the biggest mistakes companies make when deploying pSEO is creating generic content with the intent to optimize it later on. 

For example, a travel company might be tempted to generate thousands of generic "Top 10 Things to Do in [City]" articles with a numbered list of top activities sourced from across the web. Instead, they should focus on creating unique content from the start. Take Airbnb, for example. Their “Best Things to do in [City]” articles summarize top attractions and include information other sites cannot: their top-rated Airbnb Experiences by activity type and neighborhood. 

To decide on a content framework (the sections of your articles), search Google for a few topics within your pSEO strategy and write down the common sections of top-ranking pages. You’ll also want to consider what information you can access that others don’t to make your content stand apart (more on this in step 6).

Once you have a general outline, a subject matter expert or content strategist who knows the customer well should build out a comprehensive framework to ensure that the sections are genuinely helpful to a reader. A framework for a series of pSEO articles fitting the theme “Best Restaurants in [City]”  might include:

• Suggested headings and subheadings: develop a hierarchical structure for your content using H1, H2, and H3 tags. For example:

  • H1: Main topic or keyword (e.g., “Best Restaurants in [City]”)

  • H2: Major subtopics (e.g., “Top rated cuisines,” “Price ranges,” “Popular neighborhoods”)

• Placeholders for dynamic elements:

  • Data points: e.g., “{average_restaurant rating,}”

  • Quotes: e.g.,, “{restaurant_critic_quote}”

  • Examples: e.g., “{popular_restaurant_example}”

  • Images: e.g., “{restaurant_photo}”

  • User-generated content like customer reviews, user photos, community tips

• Internal linking structure: design a system for internal linking that:

  • Connects related pages (e.g. linking between different city restaurant guides)

  • Highlights key category pages or hub content

  • Incorporates a breadcrumb navigation structure

• Templates for meta information:

  • Title tags: e.g., "{City} Restaurants: Top {Cuisine} Options in {Year}"

  • Meta descriptions: e.g., "Discover the best {cuisine} restaurants in {city}. Our guide covers top-rated eateries, price ranges, and local favorites for {year}."

  • Image alt text: e.g., "Interior of {restaurant_name} in {city}"

Step 6: Use a dataset to coincide with a winning strategy 

Once you’ve created a content framework, break down the data you need for each section. Remember: The foundation of successful pSEO lies in unique, high-quality data. For this reason, proprietary data is gold. This can take many forms:

• First-party data gleaned from your product (e.g., G2 uses its vast set of B2B software reviews to create pages that compare [software company A] to [software company B].)

• Data gathered from customer interviews and conversations (e.g., customer surveys or anonymized audience/customer sentiment data gleaned from sales intelligence tools like Gong)

• Distilling new meaning from existing, complicated data sources. (e.g., Twingate uses complex data from NVD about security vulnerabilities (called CVEs) and distills it for readers with simplified descriptions of “CVE [number] Report - Details, Severity, & Advisories.”) 

To create well-rounded content, you’ll also need to gather existing data and insights from other sources. For example, Tome uses customer review data from G2 to produce its “Productivity Tip” pSEO articles, which feature pricing, alternatives, and reviews about different AI productivity tools. You can use web scraping tools like Pythons Beautiful Soup or Scrapy to extract information, but make sure that your practices are ethical and comply with the websites’ terms of service and that you cite/credit all sources. 

In addition to building an initial dataset, you’ll also want to implement: 

• Data cleaning practices: Remove duplicate entries that can skew analysis/lead to inaccurate conclusions and fill in missing values. You’ll also need to parse the data for spelling errors and formatting issues that could lead to errors in the generated content.

• Data normalization: Create consistent naming conventions and standardized units of measurement across your dataset. You’ll also want to ensure data type consistency, such as storing all numerical fields as numbers to facilitate calculations and comparisons. 

• Data updates: Schedule regular data pulls from third and first-party sources and implement proper authentication and rate-limiting measures to ensure smooth and compliant data retrieval. 

Step 7: Generate content 

Once you’ve created a data set and content framework, you’ll turn on content generation. This process should involve a combination of AI and human intervention to ensure content meets brand standards and quality expectations. Below are a few strategies to consider:

1. Choose the right AI partner: Most LLMs have limitations in their knowledge scope, potentially affecting the relevance and accuracy of generated content. Consider partnering with platforms like daydream that combine LLMs with external, up-to-date knowledge bases for more comprehensive and current information.

2. Enhance contextual understanding: LLMs often struggle with nuance and deeper context, which can lead to generic or off-brand content. Collaborate with prompt engineering experts (like ours at daydream!) to craft detailed, brand-specific prompts that guide the AI in generating content aligned with your brand voice and standards. 

3. Implement human reviews: Establish a thorough review process to mitigate the risk of factually inaccurate or misleading content (which is plausible with LLMs). Involve subject matter experts from your organization or content strategists to verify and refine the AI-generated content.

4. Implement continuous learning mechanisms: Set up feedback loops that allow your AI system to learn from human edits and improvements, continuously enhancing its output quality over time.

Step 8: Ongoing performance monitoring and content optimization 

Simply “flipping on” the switch to generate a high volume of pSEO content is never a solid strategy. Continuously experiment and optimize to ensure content meets business objectives—and continues to meet them—as the digital content universe expands.

Potential KPIs might include:

• Rank in the top 3 positions for priority keywords

• Achieve a target number of monthly organic visits

• Maintain an average conversion rate for content (from visitor to "register" click)

• Increase average time on page (measured in minutes or seconds)

You’ll also want to conduct regular content updates to ensure continuous growth. These updates might include:

1. Refreshing articles with up-to-date information and data (daydream’s platform can do this instantly).

2. Updating articles based on SEO best practices (e.g., updating meta descriptions or building internal links between pages).

3. Experimenting with different content layouts and interactive features to boost reader engagement. 

Build a pSEO engine with daydream

We’re working with some of the fastest-growing startups like Notion, Descript, and Tome to help them accelerate their organic growth through AI-driven pSEO content. 

Our team of SEO experts helps companies plan and execute high-performing pSEO strategies, while our SaaS platform provides all the tooling necessary to get a robust, high-performing pSEO engine up and running without the expensive price tag. With daydream, you can:

• Identify the most valuable long-tail search patterns to focus on.

• More easily import data from the public web or internal data sources to build comprehensive datasets.

• Combine LLMs with internal and external knowledge bases to create differentiated and up-to-date content. 

• Programmatically generate 90th percentile content at scale. 

If you’re interested in using daydream and joining our growing list of customers, email us at thenukak@withdaydream.com to start the conversation.