P
ay attention in just about any technology industry, and eventually you’re
going to hear the term “automation.” That’s because so much technol-
ogy consists of repetitive actions that are best suited to automation.So when you hear the term automation associated with SEO, you may be think-
ing, “Wow, optimization automation! How cool is that?” It would be super cool.
After all, there are a lot of repetitive tasks in search engine optimization.Using keywords on your pages is one area where you might be able to auto-
mate the optimization. A good content-generation system would make it
easy for you to quickly generate keyword-optimized content that you could
change out on your site regularly. Even tagging your site might be an option
for automation. It would seem like an easy task to create a piece of software
that would add your chosen keywords to the correct tags.The problem is, not all automation is created equal. And when you’re work-
ing on your SEO strategies, there are some things that software programs just
can’t do.Being creative is one of those things. You can tell a piece of software what to
do, but the software can’t look at a problem and find a creative way to solve
it. If the solution isn’t provided by an algorithm in the program, you’ll be
stuck without an answer.Automation has its good and bad points. Some elements of SEO lend them-
selves to optimization. Others just don’t.257
IN THIS CHAPTER
Should You Automate? ......................................................................................................
What to automate?Automation Tools ..............................................................................................................
Automated Optimization
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