What We’ll Cover:
What is Dynamic SEO?
Dynamic SEO, or adaptive content, is a form of SEO that changes the content based on the user’s search intent or interests. And if you want to claim that top SERP spot, and keep it, you need to get familiar with this practice.
Dynamic SEO is most important for those marketing a business site, blog, or ecommerce site – any site that attracts a ton of people for different reasons.
There are two types of dynamic SEO – user-based and site-based. For user-based dynamic SEO, it changes depending on the user’s activity, such as their browsing history or location. For site-based, the site’s rules change the outcome. The marketer sets certain parameters to display certain content, such as the time of day, stock market conditions, or weather conditions.
For example, your website might be the top SERP result for “running shoes” but does it stay at the top when the user types in “purple running shoes for athletes in the rain?” With dynamic SEO, it does.
How Does Dynamic SEO Work?
Employing dynamic SEO tactics will help to keep your content coming up in places where consumers go first to find the freshest and most relevant information, places such as newsfeeds.
The easiest way to explain dynamic SEO and how it works is through examples.
For example, if you are a major retailer with a category for shoes, you’ll probably have many different subcategories, such as sneakers, dress shoes, sandals, men’s, women’s, kids’, etc.
Because there are so many of each, instead of manually updating you can use fields (category, color, brand, etc.) to dynamically pull information from your database to title, description, H1, H2, and more.
Additional fields could be added as well to include other things that a user might search for, such as price, location, or style.
Dynamic SEO is usually done technically through JavaScript, AJAX, or in some cases through a PHP system. It is just one more place you can use to optimize your site and start getting your content in front of the right audiences.
What Should You Optimize?
So, now that you know why you should use dynamic SEO, let’s talk about what you should optimize. While your base content length is going to play a role in any of your SEO tactic’s success, there are a few other things to consider optimizing as well.
Category Optimization for Dynamic SEO
First, let’s take a look at category optimization. On a given page, you’ll likely have:
- A sidebar
- H1
- H2
- A small bit of text
- Category content
When it comes to SEO for ecommerce product pages and other high-traffic pages, you really want to focus on the keywords assigned to that particular category.
With SEO for dynamic pages, focus on using 3-5 keywords for any given category. You’ll use these keywords throughout your page, including in the H1, H2, alt tags, and any additional page copy. You can also use these keywords in technical SEO spaces, such as your meta description and any meta tags for your included images.
In a dynamic content and SEO setup, the most important keywords will remain the same, regardless of the products or services featured.
To keep the pages dynamic, only the nitty-gritty details change. For example, “red” is only included in those places for red shoes, “blue” is included in the SEO for products that are blue, etc.
It’s also extremely important that everything you include on the category level is, in fact, relevant to that category – no one wants to see women’s running shorts starting showing up on the shoe page. It looks bad for your business, and it looks bad to Google.
Another thing about SEO for dynamic pages: because we’re talking specifically about larger sites, as you optimize your category pages, you’ll want to pay special attention to any text links or pagination typically included at the bottom of the page.
Often, there will be hundreds of pages of pagination similar to what’s included on another category page. That’s typical with dynamic content and SEO.
However, it can create duplicate content and a roadblock for Google as they attempt to crawl so many pages. To counteract any issues, marketers can use a noindex or nofollow, which tells Google not to follow or index those links, or use a rel canonical.
Another element to pay attention to is the sidebar (and subsequent subcategories) are optimized. Not only should you make sure this is optimized for Google’s reasons, but it is also especially important to pay attention here as you implement SEO techniques for dynamic websites.
For example, your template could be dynamically optimized for the following subcategories:
- Best shoes
- Best running shoes
- Best Nike running shoes
- Best red Nike running shoes
- Best red Nike running shoes size 9
Again, by dynamically entering those keywords into your template, you can allow the relevant information from your database to be pulled and optimized on the page.
Don’t forget about optimizing Google meta tags, alt text for images, and your site’s meta description to make your dynamic SEO work go even further.
URL Structure for Dynamic SEO
Another thing to keep in mind from an SEO standpoint is your SEO structure.
The first rule? Keep them short.
You want clear, keyword-focused URLs. This will help Google recognize the content of your page and better crawl and index it.
And no, we don’t mean that you should keyword stuff your URLs. Include only the most important target keywords at each category level. Cut out any useless filler words, too. Keep only the target keywords.
In this case, you’ll want the keywords in your URL to with the correct category – directory style:
- https://www.dickssportinggoods.com/products/adidas-running-shoes.jsp
- https://www.dickssportinggoods.com/products/blue-adidas-running-shoes.jsp
A few other notes on URLs:
- Use hyphens to separate keywords
- Never use more than 2,083 characters (and really, you should never get close to this number)
And here’s the thing about URLs: you want them to remain consistent, not dynamic.
Even the slightest change in your URL could mean a serious drop in rankings.
For example, let’s say you have a URL that looks like this:
https://www.dickssportinggoods.com/products/blue-size8-adidas-running-shoes.jsp
What do you think the URL should look like for red, size 12 Adidas running shoes? You’ve probably guessed the answer:
https://www.dickssportinggoods.com/products/red-size10-adidas-running-shoes.jsp
What does that do? For starters, it makes it easy for power users to encode a URL to find what they’re looking for.
Not only does it make it easier for your users, but it also makes Google happy. Whenever Google’s crawlers can identify a pattern in a set of URLs, it is more likely to index those URLs correctly.
Start Running Tests with Dynamic SEO
Aside from saving you time and getting you the results you want, dynamic SEO also provides a ton of opportunities for you to run some tests on keywords and categories.
For example, if you have a website with thousands of different categories, dynamic SEO allows you to test a different title tag or description on just one section first. This way, you can see how it changes your results before you rewrite the content for every single page in the category. Within that controlled group, you can monitor to see how it does in terms of improved click-through rates and performance.
If the test goes well, you can then take those edits and roll it out to the rest of the website.
FAQs About Dynamic SEO
1. Is Dynamic SEO suitable for all types of websites?
Dynamic SEO can be used for all types of websites but ecommerce, blog, and business sites should especially focus on adding this technique to their SEO strategy.
2. What tools can help manage and implement Dynamic SEO effectively?
There are plenty of tools that can help you manage and implement Dynamic SEO effectively. Those tools include Google Analytics, Google Search Console, SEMrush, Ahrefs, Moz, Yoast SEO, and SignPost. Each of these tools has pros and cons depending on your industry and your needs, so don’t hesitate to try them out to see how they work for your business performance.
3. What is the role of Artificial Intelligence (AI) in Dynamic SEO?
Like anything else in digital marketing, AI is playing a big role in the success of dynamic SEO. AI tools can help with keyword research and analysis, content optimization, natural language processing, understanding user intent, trending topic prediction, customer support, and more. Don’t be afraid of using AI tools when it comes to implementing Dynamic SEO into your digital marketing strategies.
4. How often should you update your Dynamic Content?
This depends on your needs. If your content is highly time-sensitive or relies on current events, it should be updated regularly. If you just want to test different options or update evergreen content, you can update it less frequently – monthly, quarterly, or even annually.
5. What are the common mistakes to avoid when implementing Dynamic SEO?
When it comes to Dynamic SEO, be sure to avoid cloaking, a high-risk SEO tactic where different content is shown to Googlebots than is shown to users, content duplication, keyword stuffing, keyword cannibalization, slow page load speed, or redirection. All of these SEO pitfalls can negatively affect your page’s indexing and SERP rank. They also make your content look bad to users.
Meet Your Dynamic SEO Goals with Ignite Visibility
If you have an ecommerce site, a blog, or a business site, Ignite Visibility has all of your dynamic SEO needs covered.
Hundreds of businesses have used Ignite Visibility to improve their dynamic SEO and improve their visibility and SERP rank. No matter what industry you’re in, we’re here to support you.
Ignite can help you:
- Establish a sustainable Dynamic SEO strategy
- Rank higher on the SERP for your industry’s important keywords
- Integrate your SEO strategy with your social media, CRO, content marketing, and public relations strategy
- And more!
If you’re ready to see what Dynamic SEO can do for you, request a free proposal today!