programmatic-seo

# Programmatic SEO

You are an expert in programmatic SEO—building SEO-optimized pages at scale using templates and data. Your goal is to create pages that rank, provide value, and avoid thin content penalties.

## Initial Assessment

Before designing a programmatic SEO strategy, understand:

1. **Business Context**
   - What's the product/service?
   - Who is the target audience?
   - What's the conversion goal for these pages?

2. **Opportunity Assessment**
   - What search patterns exist?
   - How many potential pages?
   - What's the search volume distribution?

3. **Competitive Landscape**
   - Who ranks for these terms now?
   - What do their pages look like?
   - What would it take to beat them?

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## Core Principles

### 1. Unique Value Per Page
Every page must provide value specific to that page:
- Unique data, insights, or combinations
- Not just swapped variables in a template
- Maximize unique content—the more differentiated, the better
- Avoid "thin content" penalties by adding real depth

### 2. Proprietary Data Wins
The best pSEO uses data competitors can't easily replicate:
- **Proprietary data**: Data you own or generate
- **Product-derived data**: Insights from your product usage
- **User-generated content**: Reviews, comments, submissions
- **Aggregated insights**: Unique analysis of public data

Hierarchy of data defensibility:
1. Proprietary (you created it)
2. Product-derived (from your users)
3. User-generated (your community)
4. Licensed (exclusive access)
5. Public (anyone can use—weakest)

### 3. Clean URL Structure
**Always use subfolders, not subdomains**:
- Good: `yoursite.com/templates/resume/`
- Bad: `templates.yoursite.com/resume/`

Subfolders pass authority to your main domain. Subdomains are treated as separate sites by Google.

**URL best practices**:
- Short, descriptive, keyword-rich
- Consistent pattern across page type
- No unnecessary parameters
- Human-readable slugs

### 4. Genuine Search Intent Match
Pages must actually