Templated Content

[illmasterj]

We have the AI content thread, but what about templated content (manually written) at scale? I've never done this and would love to execute on it correctly the first time.

Say you're going to publish content on fishing laws in every single state, and you have the template:

Title/H1: Fishing Laws in %state%
H2: %state% Fishing Regulations
H3: Seasons
H3: Catfish Bow, Crossbow and Hand Fishing Regulations
H2: Fishing Licenses in %state%
H3: Requirements
H3: Stamp Privileges
H3: Exemptions
H2: %state% License Types and Fees
H3: Residents
H3: Non-residents
H2: Where to Buy a License

The words in between the headings are different, but the headings and title format are identical for every state. Is it an issue to do this 50 times over? What about if it was done for every state/province in the world (3000+)?

Is it smarter to have, say, 3-4 templates to be used at random for the same content type instead? Or is this overkill?

 

[voLdie]

IMO I think it is fine to use one template if it makes sense.

I have been killing it with a few of these topics/templates.

The best advantage I have found is you can create a real nice template in a Google Doc and then have a cheaper writer fill them out almost like a form.

I have managed to get quality articles at like 10$ a piece when the outline is super structured and detailed(this is usually always information and template-able content).

I have even been thinking about turning these article outlines into a web form and having people fill out pieces of them from various job boards / survey-type sites and paying 50 cents per question or something lol.

I have seen people doing those long-as surveys for pennies so if you can break an article down enough maybe this is possible.

Just spitballing.

 

[Ryuzaki]

The words in between the headings are different, but the headings and title format are identical for every state. Is it an issue to do this 50 times over? What about if it was done for every state/province in the world (3000+)?

I think it's perfectly fine to use one set of headers. That's useful to the user to quickly find data for various places, rather than you mixing it all around and making it confusing.

But I'm very confident that Google doesn't care, because I use to build these "database sites" and make nice money from them and sold them off. It worked fine. And if you're talking about having all the text (minus the headers) manually written, it's even more fine.

 

[zak]

I've started using programmatic/templated content on one of my sites, and it's taking off so far.

Google's statement on duplicate content (the main concern for templates) seems pretty clear:
"Duplicate content on a site is not grounds for action on that site unless it appears that the intent of the duplicate content is to be deceptive and manipulate search engine results."

Templates aren't inherently deceptive, and they aren't meant to manipulate search results.

Now, that's assuming your templating is done right.

Good: "Best fishing spots in %state%"
Bad: "Best fishing %synonyms_for_spots% in Florida"

If it starts to smell like doorway pages, you're doing programmatic SEO wrong.

 

[illmasterj]

But I'm very confident that Google doesn't care, because I use to build these "database sites" and make nice money from them and sold them off. It worked fine. And if you're talking about having all the text (minus the headers) manually written, it's even more fine.

Yes, all text will be manually written. Is there an issue with using the same format for the title tag and meta description as well?

Did you sell these sites off because you felt they wouldn't last (not as stable as your current sites)? Or just because of where you were in your IM journey?

 

[Ryuzaki]

Is there an issue with using the same format for the title tag and meta description as well?

I had no issue using similar Title Tags. I don't think I messed with Meta Descriptions then.

Did you sell these sites off because you felt they wouldn't last (not as stable as your current sites)? Or just because of where you were in your IM journey?

I sold them because they were all in the same drug rehabilitation niche and I was selling one of them and I was able to sweeten the pie by selling them all as a package deal. The buyer was in the niche in pay per call and that's what I was doing. He rolled it all into his own network. I wanted out though, it was super competitive. Google was threatening to not even allow it on Adwords any more and signalling years and years early that the YMYL stuff was coming and it was all going to come crashing down.

 

[MrMedia]

I do a verion of this. It works extremely well providing that the inbetween content is totally different.

I use a spreadsheet to brief to the writing team with variations of each header across each article x5 so in reality most are unique but within a format

This is the true secret to scaling in my opinion.