Programmatic SEO: Scaling Product-led growth

In my last post, I talked about you need 10x the content from your competitor. That will get you pretty far, but if you want to go to the next level on how to scale that, I'll talk to you about programmatics SEO and information architecture. 

Programmatic SEO with PLG

Programmatic SEO is basically using data that might be proprietary to that, only your company has, or you have. You can actually take certain information out there, mix it with different types of public data and private data, and present it in a user-friendly way. 

Examples of programmatic SEO include platforms like weather apps, Zillow, and Yelp. Zillow, for instance, combines public data (such as house listings) with private insights to create a seamless user experience. Similarly, Yelp integrates public restaurant and business information with user-generated content like photos and reviews, as well as data submitted by business owners.

The hallmark of programmatic SEO is a user experience that is intuitive and engaging. Users can explore data through tags, labels, and categories that allow them to zoom in and out—from zip codes to towns, cities, and states. 

The user experience is also easy to consume a lot of the data with multimedia images, calls-to-action to contact and take the next step. Having this all presented in this template is highly powerful. 

I witnessed the power of programmatic SEO firsthand during my time at Unsplash, a stock photography website. Unsplash organizes photos using keyword tags and associates them with photographers. The platform presents search results in a way that encourages deeper exploration—users can view related photos, top photos, or other works by the same photographer. Calls-to-action like downloading a photo or contacting a photographer are seamlessly integrated into the experience. Features like shortcuts to edit photos further enhance usability.

Everything is free, allowing the user to go deep into the product website experience, thus allowing more time on the website and Google's understanding that this is actually helpful for the users. This is one of the attributes and parameters that Google SEO uses to see whether their users are completing the query.

This aligns with Product Led Growth philosophy, where the product itself serves as the primary driver of growth.

Information Architecture in PLG

That's a good segue into information architecture - laying out the different types of categories so that people can zoom in and out of your website. Even in your blog, there are different types of stories that are put together by different authors, alongside the related articles and the best of articles.

This interconnectedness is vital for SEO because it helps Google’s Crawlbot understand your site’s structure. When content is clearly related, Google recognizes the thematic consistency of your website. 

When contents are related, and the Google crawl bot is starting to understand, imagine that Google is like an AI - it's coming into your website or your product and saying, "Hey, these are the topics that this website is talking about; they're all very adjacent to one another." It understands that users are staying put, they're using the system, they're going deeper, they're visiting multiple pages. Clearly, we need to rank this higher because our users love this website, and it's very clear that it's meeting the search results that our users are typing into. 

When users can seamlessly find information about how to use specific features or access support resources through well-structured navigation, they are more likely to adopt the product fully. This increase the likelihood for them to come back and increase customer loyalty - key metrics for PLG strategies.

SEO is an Product Extension of PLG

PLG companies should leverage SEO as a scalable low-cost channel as well as having the public website experience become an extension of the product itself.

Acquisition: Using keyword research, creating pages that meet what the searchers are looking for and what the market wants.

Activation: Unlock the product and usable data publicly. Gain trust with your anonymous visitors. And create a path for them to dig deeper into your website and wanting more.

Retention: Discovering your website and the extension of your product becomes a memorable resource - that builds brand loyalty.

Referral: By becoming a trustworthy source, PLG word of mouth will happen naturally.

Thinking of your public website as a PLG product that ANY visitors can get value from… will segue them into using your freemium product and beyond.

People might be afraid of SEO in PLG

Many people have misconceptions about SEO—something I’ve observed during my 10 years working in the field. The acronym itself (Search Engine Optimization) can feel intimidating or overly technical. In the context of PLG, SEO should be viewed as an extension of the user experience rather than just some black box marketing tactic.

When designers and developers understand that programmatic SEO is about creating meaningful interactions with potential customers—rather than merely following abstract rules—they can build more effective products that naturally attract users. This focus on delivering value through thoughtful design not only improves user satisfaction but also contributes significantly to sustainable growth.

Read more about Product led Growth:

• 40% of sign-ups came from Word of Mouth 👄

• How to break the noisy market?

• Why you need SEO for PLG?

• 5 minute SEO

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I am Gary Yau Chan. 3x Head of Growth. Product Growth specialist. 26x hackathon winner. I write about #PLG and #BuildInPublic. Please follow me on LinkedIn, or read about what you can hire me for on my Notion page.