Automatically generated content is a type of content not created by a user, but by the program itself. It can save you time and money, however, automatically generated contents are often not of high quality. It's not exactly a forbidden technique, but if you overdo it, search engines may penalize you.
As we continue to move forward with time, we try to save work and time. Therefore, we try to automate processes wherever possible. Thus, you can also use automation in content creation.
However, I must point out that I recommend using automatically generated content for projects that involve thousands of pages and where it is not possible to create texts manually. If you had to describe thousands of pages, then your work would be inefficient and you would unnecessarily lose time instead of optimizing more important steps.
Possibilities of using generated texts
Automatically generated content on websites can be used in several places. For example, imagine you have thousands of products for which you need to add descriptions. Initially, it is always necessary to focus on what we can use. For instance, our online store sells T-shirts. For each T-shirt, we have parameters like color, style, sleeve length, material, price, etc. Of course, each product has a unique name. Once you have gathered all the information that can be found for all products (which is why it's necessary to have well-managed products), then you are ready to meet with an SEO specialist. The SEO specialist will advise you on which parameters are sought after and what keywords would fit well into the product description. Imagine the SEO specialist advises you to emphasize the material of the T-shirts. For example, they might recommend inserting phrases like “cotton T-shirts” (material + category) into the generated content.
TIP: The most searched parameters (phrases) that will appear in the automatically generated content can be internally linked to a relevant page (e.g., a product description containing the phrase “cotton T-shirts” can also be a link to a listing of all T-shirts made of cotton material). This shows that the specific product listing is really important to you and the links will support it.
Template for automatically generated content
Once you know what phrases, parameters, and combinations are searched for, you can move on to working with a copywriter to start designing a template. Since we have gathered the product parameters, we can use them as variables and incorporate them into the text template. Look at how such a template for automatically generated content might look like when combining SEO with copywriting: “A quality [gender specification] [product name] [sleeve length] is suitable for everyday wear. You will surely love the [material] T-shirt in [color] color. The [print] T-shirt from the [brand] brand is available for an amazing [price].” “A quality men's XYZ T-shirt with short sleeves is suitable for everyday wear. You will surely love the red cotton T-shirt. The no print T-shirt from the Adler brand is available for an amazing 149 CZK.”
As you can see, automatically generated content can be quite simply created. However, it is important that the text, along with the variables, makes sense. From this example, you can see that the same template could be used for page descriptions (meta description). And because you discussed the parameters with an SEO specialist, the searched words will appear here – and if the searched phrase is the same as the page description (meta description), then the word will be bolded in the search results, which can increase click-through rate – and thus bring more visitors to the website.
First, prepare well and then think of texts that make sense to users!
Look at the basic examples where automation can be used.
- Page titles (title)
- Meta data – page descriptions
- Descriptions in categories/sections
- Descriptions on product pages
- Additional information to your articles
- Etc.
Thus, it does not only have to be descriptions, thanks to generated content you can also add, for example, a sentence to articles like: “The article “[article title]” by author [author name] was published on [publication date of the article]. It falls under the category [category name] and contains tags [list of tags]. It already has [number of comments] comments and readers rate it at [rating/number of stars] stars. The article was updated on [article update date].”
As I mentioned at the beginning, automatically generated texts are usually not very unique or high quality. Still, they can save you effort and work. If you have implemented generated content on websites (whether you did it yourself or with the help of programmers), then I especially recommend reviewing the most important pages – make sure the text really makes sense.
Pareto Principle, SEO, and Automatically Generated Content
On the most visited pages, eventually replace automatically generated content with manually written quality text. You might have heard of the "Pareto Principle" – it's about the 80/20 split. This principle can also be applied to e-commerce websites. In most websites I have dealt with, there's a wide range of products, but the most sold items usually only make up 20% of all products. The remaining 80% of products are not as business-critical. Therefore, within the scope of SEO, but also in terms of content strategy, determine the 20% of products that are business-critical for you and then optimize them manually. I don't mean to say that automatically generated content won't help you, but it definitely will never achieve the same results as quality text with added value for the user.
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