# Programmatic SEO Human Guide

## What This Is For
Provides expert guidance for guidance for programmatic SEO—building SEO-optimized pages at scale using templates and data. It gives the agent a clearer input/output frame for search and SEO workflows: what context to ask for, what decisions to make, and what usable artifact to return.

Use this as a human-readable version of the Programmatic SEO agent skill. It is meant for marketers, operators, founders, and other non-coders who want the workflow without reading agent-specific implementation instructions.

## When To Use This
- Use this when you need a repeatable process for programmatic SEO.
- Use this when the task needs judgment, examples, constraints, or a clear output format rather than a one-off prompt.
- Use this when you want to hand an AI assistant enough context to produce a usable marketing artifact.

## When Not To Use This
- Do not use this when you only need a quick factual answer.
- Do not use this when the work depends on private data you cannot share with the assistant.
- Do not use this as a replacement for legal, compliance, financial, or medical review.

## What You Need Before Starting
- The goal or business outcome you want.
- The audience, customer segment, or market context.
- Any source material the assistant should respect, such as notes, briefs, examples, URLs, or brand guidance.
- Constraints such as tone, length, channel, deadline, region, or approval requirements.
- A clear definition of what a good final answer should look like.

## Step-By-Step Workflow
1. State the job clearly: "Use the Programmatic SEO guide to help me with..."
2. Add context: audience, goal, offer, channel, source material, and constraints.
3. Ask the assistant to identify missing inputs before producing the final output.
4. Have the assistant follow the skill-specific guidance below.
5. Review the result against the final checklist and ask for revisions where needed.

## Skill-Specific Guidance
- What's the conversion goal for these pages?
- What's the search volume distribution?
- Who ranks for these terms now?
- What do their pages look like?
- Can you realistically compete?
- Every page must provide value specific to that page
- Not just swapped variables in a template
- Maximize unique content—the more differentiated, the better
- Proprietary (you created it)
- Product-derived (from your users)
- User-generated (your community)
- Public (anyone can use—weakest)

## Decision Points And Nuance
The original skill emphasizes: Initial Assessment, Core Principles, Unique Value Per Page, Proprietary Data Wins, Clean URL Structure, Genuine Search Intent Match, Quality Over Quantity, Avoid Google Penalties, The 12 Playbooks (Overview), Choosing Your Playbook.

Use these questions to steer the work:
- What is the intended audience or buyer?
- What source material must be preserved?
- What should the assistant optimize for: clarity, persuasion, accuracy, speed, creativity, or conversion?
- What examples represent the desired quality bar?
- What should the assistant avoid?

## Common Mistakes
- 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.
- Every page must provide value specific to that page
- Pages must actually answer what people are searching for.
- 6. Avoid Google Penalties
- Watch for: Thin content warnings, Ranking drops, Manual actions, Crawl errors

## Copy-And-Paste Prompt
```text
Use the Programmatic SEO human guide.

My goal:
[Describe the business outcome]

Audience:
[Describe who this is for]

Context and source material:
[Paste notes, examples, links, or existing copy]

Constraints:
[Tone, length, channel, timeline, must-include items, must-avoid items]

Before producing the final output, ask me for any missing information that would materially improve the result.
```

## Final Checklist
- [ ] The output matches the original goal.
- [ ] The audience and context are reflected in the answer.
- [ ] Important constraints and source material were preserved.
- [ ] The assistant made the relevant decisions explicit.
- [ ] The final artifact is ready to use, review, or hand to the next person.

## Source
This guide was generated from the coreyhaines31/marketingskills skill entry for `programmatic-seo`.

## Source Skill Notes
These notes preserve the nuance from the original skill. Use them as supporting reference when the workflow above feels too generic.

# 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

**Check for product marketing context first:**
If `.agents/product-marketing.md` exists (or `.claude/product-marketing.md`, or the legacy `product-marketing-context.md` filename, in older setups), read it before asking questions. Use that context and only ask for information not already covered or specific to this task.

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?
   - Can you realistically compete?

---

## Core Principles

### 1. Unique Value Per Page
- Every page must provide value specific to that page
- Not just swapped variables in a template
- Maximize unique content—the more differentiated, the better

### 2. Proprietary Data Wins
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
**Use subfolders, not subdomains** — subfolders consolidate domain authority while subdomains split it:
- Good: `yoursite.com/templates/resume/`
- Bad: `templates.yoursite.com/resume/`

### 4. Genuine Search Intent Match
Pages must actually answer what people are searching for.

### 5. Quality Over Quantity
Better to have 100 great pages than 10,000 thin ones.

### 6. Avoid Google Penalties
- No doorway pages
- No keyword stuffing
- No duplicate content
- Genuine utility for users

---

## The 12 Playbooks (Overview)

| Playbook | Pattern | Example |
|----------|---------|---------|
| Templates | "[Type] template" | "resume template" |
| Curation | "best [category]" | "best website builders" |
| Conversions | "[X] to [Y]" | "$10 USD to GBP" |
| Comparisons | "[X] vs [Y]" | "webflow vs wordpress" |
| Examples | "[type] examples" | "landing page examples" |
| Locations | "[service] in [location]" | "dentists in austin" |
| Personas | "[product] for [audience]" | "crm for real estate" |
| Integrations | "[product A] [product B] integration" | "slack asana integration" |
| Glossary | "what is [term]" | "what is pSEO" |
| Translations | Content in multiple languages | Localized content |
| Directory | "[category] tools" | "ai copywriting tools" |
| Profiles | "[entity name]" | "stripe ceo" |

**For detailed playbook implementation**: See [references/playbooks.md](references/playbooks.md)