Our Finance Clients Cut Their Ad Spend By Half After We Implemented These Programmatic SEO Techniques

Programmatic SEO techniques are flipping the traditional approach to search engine optimization on its head, and businesses are taking note. 

What makes it so different? It’s all about using smart technology to automate the heavy lifting. If you’re serious about scaling your content game, programmatic SEO is the way to do it—allowing you to grow faster and stay ahead in the race for visibility.

What is programmatic SEO?

Automated content at scale

Imagine being able to instantly generate a large number of SEO-optimized content that caters to different search queries—all without burning out your team. 

This is made possible with programmatic SEO. 

You can pump out thousands of content pieces, each one tailored to specific, long-tail keywords that your target audience is searching for. 

And, since long-tail keywords have a conversion rate of 36% on average (Source: The HOTH) this could be huge for your company’s bottom line.

For a website like TripAdvisor, for instance, it may be worth it to target “things to do in [location]” keywords. With programmatic SEO techniques, you can generate content for hundreds or even thousands of pages, all optimized for various top locations.

Source: Search Engine Land

That kind of precision helps drive organic traffic more efficiently than manually writing content ever could.

Does programmatic SEO still work?

Programmatic SEO is effective, especially if you’re targeting niche markets with long-tail keywords. These are the kinds of keywords that might not have as much competition but can lead to higher conversions. 

If you’re in industries like finance or e-commerce where there’s a huge range of products or services, programmatic SEO is a game changer. Imagine trying to manually create content for all of that—it’d take forever! But with programmatic SEO, you can generate a lot of content quickly, all focused on specific search intents, which brings in valuable organic traffic.

One of the best things about programmatic SEO is how adaptable it is. Google’s algorithms change all the time, and that can mess with traditional SEO strategies. But platforms and programmatic content deployed by our CMAX can keep up with evolving changes in keyword strategies. This is how we ensure your site stays optimized and competitive without you having to lift a finger.

And it’s not just about churning out content either. Programmatic SEO is about creating smart, relevant, and compliant content that’s actually useful for users. That’s why the content we produce is designed to focus on quality and compliance, making sure your content works for both search engines and the people who visit your site.

Advantages of programmatic SEO over traditional SEO

#1: Scale more rapidly

Programmatic SEO’s primary advantage lies in its ability to spur rapid growth, all for a fraction of the time and effort it takes traditional approaches.

Of course, traditional SEO is still amazing for creating quality content pages for those highly competitive head terms. But when you have to create content for thousands upon thousands of long-tail terms, the traditional SEO approach is becoming less effective. You need automation for this. 

Programmatic SEO is especially useful for industries like finance, e-commerce, and local SEO, where there are so many different search queries that need coverage. For a financial company that wants to target specific loan types or investment options, programmatic SEO can quickly generate pages optimized for high-intent keywords without breaking a sweat. 

#2: Quick adaptation to evolving markets and search algorithms

With the right programmatic SEO technology in place, staying ahead of market changes and search algorithm updates becomes a lot easier. 

Because the process is automated, you can quickly adapt your content to reflect new trends, keywords, or search behaviors without having to manually overhaul everything. When Google rolls out a new algorithm update or your industry shifts, programmatic SEO lets you tweak and scale content almost instantly, keeping your site relevant and competitive. 

With the flexibility that a programmatic approach brings, you’re never stuck playing catch-up with your SEO.

#3: Frees up time for other aspects of your digital marketing strategy

One of the best benefits of programmatic SEO is that it takes a load off your SEO team. 

With automated tools and data-driven insights, content creation for a huge chunk of search opportunities becomes a streamlined process, allowing your team to focus on bigger-picture strategies like improving user experience or cooking up new marketing campaigns. 

But what are the challenges of programmatic SEO?

We’ve talked about the advantages, but we don’t want to pretend it’s all sunshine and smooth sailing—especially if you’re trying to do this on your own without the help of an experienced agency.

Challenge #1: Maintaining the quality of content

A lot of businesses who try out programmatic SEO focus on cranking out as much content as possible using AI tools like ChatGPT, but that often leads to bland, duplicated material that doesn’t perform well in search rankings. 

Remember, ChatGPT has millions of users. As of March 2024, it’s giving the same answers to about 3.9 million subscribers in the US alone.  Source: Backlinko

Unlike human-generated content, programmatic SEO can lack the deeper insights and brand voice needed to really connect with audiences.

At Area Ten, we tackle this by adding a human touch to the process. Our team oversees the content to make sure it’s on-brand and meets industry standards, which helps make it more relevant and engaging.

Challenge #2: Getting search engines to properly index and crawl all that content

When you’re publishing thousands of pages at once, it can overwhelm crawlers and lead to delays or incomplete indexing. This can hurt your visibility in search results. 

To fix this, we use smart internal linking strategies that make it easier for search engines to crawl and rank our pages efficiently.

Challenge #3: Legal compliance

For industries like finance, legal compliance is another big issue. Automated content might miss crucial legal details, which can land you in trouble. 

CMAX.ai takes this seriously. We make sure the templates of our programmatic SEO content pass thorough reviews by expert writers and go through dynamic content checks for compliance. This way, we meet all the legal requirements without compromising quality.

But despite all that, we think programmatic SEO is perfect for finance. 

Why is programmatic SEO perfect for finance?

It’s an industry that spends a lot on ads.

Finance companies are known for pouring massive budgets into digital advertising, spending over $33 billion in the US alone (Source: EMARKETER). 

But here’s the thing: programmatic SEO can make these ad investments way more efficient. Instead of relying just on paid ads, programmatic SEO can help finance firms drive organic traffic through carefully optimized content. For a bank, this could mean creating pages about different loan types, which can draw in the right audience organically.

While both paid media management and programmatic SEO are great for quick wins, the organic traffic you get from the latter sticks around longer and feels more trustworthy to potential clients. By focusing on programmatic SEO, finance companies can reduce their dependence on paid channels and still see excellent results over time. 

With CMAX.ai, many of our finance clients even managed to cut their spending right in half after we implemented our programmatic strategies.

As a fast-growing industry, it often needs scalable solutions.

As a fast-growing industry, the finance sector often needs scalable solutions. That’s where programmatic SEO really shines.

Financial institutions have a ton of products and services—loans, investment options, credit cards, you name it. Managing all of that online can be overwhelming, but programmatic SEO makes it easy by automatically creating landing pages optimized for specific keywords and client segments. This means companies can cover more ground faster, without manually building each page.

Scalability is key here, especially for growing financial firms that are constantly rolling out new services. Programmatic SEO speeds up the process, allowing them to create tailored content for different client needs in no time. 

Take a credit card company, for example. They can use programmatic SEO to set up pages for all their card types, targeting searches like “best travel credit cards” or “credit cards for building credit.” Not only does this boost their SEO, but it also makes the user experience smoother by offering relevant content that addresses the searcher’s needs with pinpoint accuracy.

Niche is the name of the game.

When it comes to finance companies, serving different client segments with unique needs is key. 

Programmatic SEO does wonders here, helping content tailored to specific niche markets like small business owners or graduates seeking better loan terms for student debt. Instead of going broad, it focuses on long-tail keywords and financial products that pull in more targeted traffic—the kind that’s actually likely to convert. 

This means the content really hits home for clients who are searching for specific financial solutions, whether it’s student loans or retirement planning.

For instance, a retirement fund provider could use programmatic SEO to target terms like “best retirement funds for teachers” or “retirement planning for small business owners.” These types of posts draw in people with specific needs, making it more likely they’ll convert because the content speaks directly to their situation.

3 Programmatic SEO techniques that our finance clients love

#1: Capitalize on local SEO (yup, even if you’re 100% online)

When it comes to building trust and relevance, nothing beats localized content. 

The trust that proper local SEO brings can help put a significant number of searchers down your sales funnel, as local leads have shown to have a close rate of almost 15% (Source: LocaliQ). 

Even if you’re operating entirely online, addressing regional financial concerns—like local investment opportunities or specific tax regulations—creates a real connection with your audience. People want content that speaks directly to their lives, and tackling local issues does exactly that.

Also, did you know that around 58% of all businesses don’t even bother with local SEO (Source: Ahrefs)? If your competitors belong to this group, then this is your chance to gain a significant competitive advantage.

Optimize your website with other local SEO best practices, including updating your website listings, so that you can dominate search results for terms like “cpa in New York” or “accountant near me”.

At Area Ten, we excel when it comes to hyper localized SEO content thanks to our extensive experience in programmatic SEO. Through our expertise and proprietary technology, we’re able to take advantage of those low-competition, high-impact long-tail keywords—hidden gems that your competitors are missing. 

#2: Prioritizing compliant content

When it comes to creating financial SEO content, you must not overlook compliance with key regulations from institutions like the Financial Conduct Authority in the UK or the Department of Financial Institutions in the US. 

The problem is, with the constant change in industry standards, static, outdated programmatic content can quickly become a liability for compliance. You see, search engines are getting smarter these days, favoring sites that showcase authority, trust, and expertise—something that’s especially crucial for financial businesses.

When compliance is crucial in your industry, you shouldn’t settle for programmatic SEO systems that just churn out low-quality output. 

That’s why, with our approach here at Area Ten we make sure that all programmatic content we create is fully compliant with the latest regulations. With our proprietary tech, CMAX, we produce high volumes of content that not only meets compliance standards but also scales seamlessly.

This is our secret (and we’ll gladly share this with you during consultation): we pair our tech with expert human writers who create initial content that’s aligned with legal guidelines and your brand’s voice. This process involves thorough review and approval cycles with all our clients to ensure that any regulatory standards are met. 

Then, this initial content is used as training data for Natural Language Processing (NLP) so that all automated content produced by our system remains compliant. This way, you get the best of both worlds: the efficiency of automation without sacrificing quality.

#3: Shift your focus to smart interlinking

Smart interlinking is a game changer when it comes to improving both user experience and SEO performance. 

Our CMAX platform stands out for this reason, as it’s able to automate cross-linking in real time, using advanced algorithms to react to user behavior and evolving SEO practices. Basically, this tool learns as it goes, spotting the best opportunities for contextual links and adjusting them to ensure that both users and search engines can easily find the most relevant content.

As your content grows, our tool keeps everything connected, making sure your website stays efficient. We also take advantage of topic clusters, grouping related content—like mortgage advice, investment tips, and financial planning guides for finance sites—into organized silos. This not only helps boost your authority on these subjects but also improves search rankings for a variety of keywords.

How to execute programmatic SEO

What is the programmatic SEO process?

At Area Ten, we’ve refined our approach as a leading programmatic SEO agency service. 

Here’s how it works:

• Keyword research and data gathering: First, we identify long-tail keywords that are relevant to your business but often overlooked by competitors. Using data-driven SEO analysis, we pinpoint the ones that offer the best ROI potential.
• Content template creation: After nailing down the keywords, our writers jump in to create content templates that match your brand’s voice and follow industry standards. These templates are the backbone for generating thousands of consistent pages, so we make sure to take great care with this step.
• Content generation and deployment: With CMAX, we automate the creation of thousands of landing pages. The best part about our system is that it keeps the content dynamic and up-to-date, unlike traditional static page generators.
• Interlinking and optimization: Once the pages are live, we focus on smart interlinking. This creates a network of internal links that improves the rankings of these pages while improving the user experience at the same time.
• Post-deployment testing and adaptation: Finally, we continuously test and adapt. CMAX runs micro-tests on each page, providing performance insights across the board and tweaking content to improve search results even further. 

To give you a better idea of how things are supposed to go, let’s say that you’re a company offering different types of loans. Here’s what you should be doing over the course of eight weeks:

Week 1: Planning and data organization

We recommend starting things off by breaking down your loan offerings into categories. 

Source: MoneyMe

This helps you organize your content strategy and ensures you’re covering each loan type clearly. Separating loan categories helps you customize the content to fit the unique needs of each segment, thereby making your messaging more relevant as well as improving your search rankings.

Next, focus on outlining key loan details like interest rates, terms, eligibility, and benefits. Having all this info easily accessible will make content creation a breeze, ensuring every page is packed with the important stuff clients need to make smart decisions. It also enhances the user experience, giving potential borrowers everything they need upfront.

Week 2: Content strategy

Behind any good content strategy is solid keyword research.

Start by uncovering relevant keywords for your category pages. Each type of loan should have its own set of targeted keywords so your content can speak directly to what people are searching for. This not only boosts your chances of being found but also helps attract the right kind of traffic, which leads to better conversions.

Remember, content planning should focus on what your users need.

Pro tip: When writing or outlining content, use those keywords strategically while highlighting how your loans meet client needs. This ensures your content isn’t just packed with keywords but is also genuinely helpful. 

Week 3: Page creation basics

Start by creating easy-to-navigate pages for each of your major loan categories. You can use any basic web editing tool, or if you’re feeling old-school, sketch out a layout on paper first. This will give your site a solid foundation and get it ready for optimization down the road. 

Organized content makes life easier for your users and sets you up for success.

Make sure to include all the important loan info

Each page should cover the essentials, like interest rates, terms, eligibility, and benefits—basically, everything your users need to know. 

Clarity and transparency are key

The clearer and more straightforward your info, the easier it is for visitors to trust you, which is super important if you want conversions.

These basic pages may just be the starting point, but you have to put a lot of care into this process. After all, these pages will form the backbone of your site, setting the stage for more complex and specific content later on.

Week 4: SEO basics

The two most important things you need to get right this week are:

• Optimizing meta tags
• Working on mobile responsiveness

Most searchers won’t even bother with your website if you neglect these, and here’s why.

Why optimizing meta tags is important

If you don’t have clear, keyword-rich titles and meta descriptions for each page, your site won’t stand out in search results. These little details don’t just make a big difference in how search engines rank your pages; they also affect how likely someone will even visit your website in the first place. 

Why mobile responsiveness is important

With mobile searches taking the majority of all searches on Google, mobile responsiveness is non-negotiable these days. Around 63% of all searches in the US occur on mobile (Source: Semrush), and Google itself even crawls websites from the perspective of a mobile browser. 

Optimizing with mobile-first indexing in mind is just the way of life for SEO experts now, and that isn’t changing anytime soon, so get used to it.

So, don’t skip this step. We even provided a roadmap to fix your mobile-first indexing strategy in 6 weeks.

Make sure your site looks and works great on mobile devices by tweaking layouts and adjusting image and text sizes as needed. 

It’s worth noting that some content management systems like WordPress come with mobile optimization built in, so you may want to consider using one of those to make things easier.

Source: SeedProd

Week 5: Internal linking and navigation

A good user experience is key to attracting clients, and that’s what you should focus on for week five.

First, work on your internal links. After all, good internal linking and solid navigation go hand in hand.

Try adding links to relevant loan info, application forms, or FAQs on each page. This helps users smoothly move from one section to another, making it super easy to navigate your site. Plus, when you make it easy for visitors to find related content quickly, you’re not only improving their experience but also increasing the chances they’ll spend more time checking out your offers.

Next, work on the design of your website’s navigation itself.

Make sure it’s easy for people to find what they need with clear menus and easily accessible contact info. A well-organized site keeps visitors from bouncing off and guides them toward the info or services they’re looking for. 

Week 6: Monitoring and improvement

Constantly monitoring and adapting is the key to long-term SEO success. Any SEO expert worth their salt will have this as part of their strategy,

Start by checking how your pages are doing with tools like Google Analytics. It helps you see how visitors are interacting with your site and whether your content is hitting the mark. Keep an eye on things like bounce rates, session lengths, and conversions—these metrics show you what’s working and what might need a little tweak.

Source: Hotjar

Then, take what you’ve learned and tweak your content and design to make things clearer and more engaging. Adjusting based on real data means you keep up with what users want and any changes search engines make. 

Week 7: Speed optimization

A whopping 40% of all online users will leave any website that takes longer than three seconds to load (Source: WebFX).

That’s a massive loss for any business.

If your website speed isn’t up to par, you can forget about converting any of those users. But that’s not all; a slow website can negatively impact your rankings too.

If you want to make sure your site performance gets a passing grade, here are our tips:

• Simplify the design elements of your site. Avoid unnecessary animations.
• Compress all images and use WebP or AVIF instead of JPG image formats
• Don’t load the page with unnecessary code. Minify JS and CSS files and avoid spamming the site with third-party scripts.

Week 8: Testing and learning

Ultimately, a huge chunk of the process will be trial and error. But eventually, this will help you find out what works best.

Experiment by trying out different headline styles, writing more detailed explanations, or even updating your loan rates to see what grabs people’s attention. Sometimes, just a small change can have a big impact on how engaged your users are and how often they convert. Testing out these options gives you valuable insights into what really clicks with your audience.

Also, it’s super important to stay in the loop.

SEO is always changing, so keeping up with new trends and techniques helps you stay competitive. In the end, continuously testing and learning ensures your SEO efforts are always improving and meeting the needs of your users.

Remember that this is just a basic execution of programmatic SEO.

When you’re managing larger sites that need thousands of pages, having some extra expertise can really help.

Partner with an SEO agency that doesn’t just bring individual expertise, but unites a collective force to execute SEO initiatives with precision and efficiency. 

With their combined experience and proven track record of successful large-scale projects, the right agency can become an extension of your team—handling every aspect of your SEO strategy to deliver results that scale rapidly. If you’re aiming big, support from reliable digital marketing experts can take your programmatic SEO to the next level.

Don’t settle for anything less than an agency offering full execution, 100% solutions, and zero excuses. How else do you get bigger results, faster?

What you’ve learned

• Programmatic SEO enables the automated creation of large-scale, SEO-optimized content, especially suited for targeting long-tail keywords.
• In the debate between traditional SEO vs programmatic SEO, the latter has the potential for faster scaling, better adaptation to changing markets, and reduced manual labor.
• For finance companies, programmatic SEO helps reduce ad spend by driving organic traffic with tailored, compliant content targeting specific search queries.
• Techniques such as localized SEO, smart interlinking, and compliance-focused content creation are key to successful programmatic SEO implementation.
• Maintaining quality, ensuring crawlability, and staying compliant are common challenges but can be addressed with a mix of automation and human oversight.

Meet Area Ten

At Area Ten, we redefine SEO with our groundbreaking programmatic technology, driving impactful results—4x faster and with 10x greater scale. Our goal is to combat digital marketing inefficiencies, offering 100% solutions and 0% excuses with our SEO services. 

With over a decade of experience, we empower businesses from ambitious start-ups to global enterprises, using AI-driven strategies to deliver predictable, scalable growth. We innovate on top of existing innovations, offering bigger results, faster.

Schedule a FREE SEO Fast Track today.