G2, one of the largest and most trusted B2B software review sites, turned the review industry on its head by programmatically collecting peer-to-peer software reviews and turning them into a comparison tool that enables B2B businesses to make informed software decisions. Today, 100% of Fortune 500 companies use G2 to find the best software providers.  

The cornerstone of G2’s market penetration and growth is its use of programmatic SEO (pSEO) pages. These pages are the foundation of G2’s reviews platform and drive over 2.3 million monthly organic visits (per Ahrefs), representing a sizable portion (~92%) of G2’s 2.5 million total monthly organic visits. 

Considering around 70% of G2’s traffic comes from organic visits (per SEMRush), it’s safe to say that pSEO is an impressive driver of G2’s overall growth and success.

How one pSEO page type fuels the entire G2 platform 

The entirety of G2’s pSEO engine is built on product pages. These pages follow an information-rich template to offer browsers a 360-degree view of the software provider. The template includes the following data points:

1. The software category the company falls within 

2. The overall star rating for the software provider and the number of reviewers

3. A list of features offered with customer ratings for each feature 

4. High-level pricing details and price tiers

5. Product reviews with details about each reviewer and the review context (e.g. company size, user role, industry, region, date of review, and how the review was collected) 

G2 houses over 140,000 product pages, following this URL structure: g2.com/products/[product name]. These pages account for about 1.1 million monthly organic views (Ahrefs).   

Data points from product pages are then used to create thousands of other programmatic pages including:

1. Category pages: these pages use details from the product pages to group products into different categories and sub-categories so browsers can view a ranked list of related products on a single page. 

2. Compare pages: these pages use details from the product pages to provide side-by-side comparisons of different products. 

3. Best software company pages: these pages are part of G2’s “best of” award and use a proprietary algorithm that draws from the product pages to create a list of award winners each year. 

4. Listicle articles: these articles use information from the product pages to generate long-form articles about “top software options” based on reviews. 

Breaking down G2 product pages 

G2’s product pages are designed to meet the search intent of visitors looking for unbiased reviews about software providers. Since users looking for software reviews are typically considered “mid-funnel” or “bottom-funnel” searchers, these pages are optimized to convert visitors into customers. G2 uses several CTAs throughout the page to pull visitors into the software provider’s sales funnel. 

The G2 product pages are robust and provide an overview of the product from various angles, using data points from the software provider and reviews as the primary source. Below are some of the most notable features of the product pages: 

1. Product overview section: The product overview offers high-level details about the software provider for an at-a-glance view of the product.

2. Reviews section: The reviews section is the crux of the G2 platform. Before they submit their reviews, reviewers are asked to provide high-level details about themselves including their industry, company size, role, and where they work. These details enable G2 to provide context-specific reviews to browsers of all types. 

3. Features section: The features section provides robust details about every feature available within the software platform. Each feature also receives a user rating, enabling G2 to create an extensive database of detailed information about individual product features. 

G2’s product page design reinforces time-on-site and conversions 

G2 product pages are designed with user experience in mind. They are optimized to encourage longer time-on-site and multiple page views per session — factors that also help boost search engine results page (SERP) rankings. 

Product pages use clear headers, and stack information hierarchically based on search intent. The software provider's name and overall rating are displayed prominently at the top of the page. The visitor can then easily navigate to the precise information they are seeking about the company via a navigation toolbar that features the following headers:

• Product information

• Reviews

• Pricing

• Features 

G2 also uses interlinking throughout the product pages to encourage visitors to click through to other pages on the G2 site. For example, users are encouraged to click to:

The product pages of alternative software options:

Comparison pages that show side-by-side comparisons with the software platform and one or more alternative platforms:

The broader category pages to see how the software provider stacks up against other software providers in its category or sub-categories:

Interlinking also helps search engines like Google crawl G2’s web content, boosting SEO performance. 

Breaking down G2 category and sub-category pages 

G2 groups software providers into different categories and sub-categories so visitors can view a comprehensive list of software options for their use case. Every product page folds into a category and sub-category page. 

G2's site has more than 6,100 category and sub-category pages, which account for close to 1.1 million organic monthly visits (per Ahrefs).  

Category pages are simple in design and house the sub-category pages. In some cases, the category pages also include long-form descriptions about the category; however, this is not the case for every category page. For example, the “marketing” category page and the “design” category page include a long-form description of the category at the top of the page while the “sales” category page does not. Below is an example of a category page. 

Sub-category pages are more robust and are designed to enable visitors to quickly and comprehensively compare software providers within a particular sub-category — for example, “CRM tools.” See an example sub-category page here. The category pages glean details from the product pages to deliver a holistic view of software options. Below are some of the most notable features of the sub-category pages: 

1. Sub-category overview section

The overview section offers high-level details about the sub-category including:

1. An eyebrow with links to the category page the sub-category nests within to improve interlinking on the site. 

2. A long-form description of the sub-category to capture keywords related to the sub-category.  

3. An overview of average ratings for different attributes of software providers within the subcategory.  

2. Ranked list of software providers within the sub-category

All software providers for a particular sub-category are listed on the page. The providers are default-ranked based on their “G2 score,” a unique algorithm that accounts for reviews, social listening cues, and other data aggregated online. Users also have the option to filter reviews by segment, rating, language, pricing, features, and other features/attributes or rank them by different criteria such as popularity or overall user satisfaction. 

Below are some notable user experience elements of the software ranking section:

1. Filtering capabilities to view software options with specific features, functionality, or attributes. 

2. Sorting capability to rank software providers by different scores (G2 score, highest user satisfaction, or popularity).

3. Product modules with condensed information about the product gathered from the product pages. Each module links to the relevant product page for more in-depth reading.

4. “Compare” buttons that link to relevant compare pages when multiple software options are selected. 

3. The G2 Grid®

G2 offers its own ranking system that maps to its proprietary grid. The G2 ranking is based on user reviews and data aggregated from online sources. The G2 grid allows users to easily see top-right software providers considered leaders in their market with high user satisfaction scores. 

The interactive grid allows users to click product icons and view product pages in detail. Visitors can filter the grid to see which software providers rank higher based on company size and other factors depending on the category.

4. Longform details about the sub-category

At the bottom of the sub-category page is a long-form section offering visitors a beginner’s guide. The guide is designed to capture traffic for relevant keywords and search terms such as  “what is [software category]” and “why use [software category].” 

Interestingly, this section does not appear on every sub-category page.  For example, it’s included on the CRM page, but not the graphic design page. It’s likely that G2 only uses long-form guides for popular or high-competition keywords to boost the performance of these pages against competitors.

Breaking down G2 compare pages

G2 allows users to view products side-by-side comparison with its compare pages. There are more than 37,000 compare pages on the G2 website which account for about 50,000 monthly organic views (Ahrefs). 

The compare pages pull forward data from the product pages and display them in a condensed, easy-to-read format that allows users to quickly understand how two or more software providers compare across various attributes and functionalities. (See an example of a compare page here.) The page information is laid out with clear headers and an intuitive hierarchy of information. Users also have the ability to export the comparison chart to Google Sheets or CSV to analyze and compare products further. These user-minded features ensure an optimal user experience to encourage longer time-on-site and lower bounce rates — two factors that help boost SEO performance. 

The page users interlinking liberally to connect visitors back to product pages. For example, at the top of the page, visitors can click to the product pages for each software provider being compared. The page also includes a “top alternatives” module with links to the product pages of other software providers (see below). 

Breaking down G2 “best software company” pages

G2 created a proprietary award called the “Best of” award which uses an algorithm that factors in G2 reviews and publicly available market data to rank the top 100 software companies across various categories. 

G2 programmatically created around 55 “best of” pages using its proprietary algorithm. These pages account for around 8,000 monthly organic visits (Ahrefs).

G2’s listicle articles

G2 uses data points from its product pages to produce long-form articles as well. These listicle-style articles follow a similar format for a series of “[#] Best [Software]” articles. For example, “15 Best Free Drawing Software for 2024” or “10 Best Free Word Processing Software in 2024.” 

There are about 100 programmatic listicle articles on the G2 site that bring in close to 79,000 monthly organic visits (Ahrefs).

The listicles use a simple template and pull elements from the product pages to generate the bulk of the article text. The template generally follows this structure:

1. Article introduction 

2. An overview of ranking criteria (pulled in from relevant sub-category pages)  

3. A ranked list of software providers (information pulled from the relevant product pages) 

   1. Category

   2. Description of software provider

   3. What users like best (from user reviews)

   4. What users dislike (from user reviews) 

4. A brief conclusion to wrap up the article 

While it’s unknown if G2 uses AI to generate the introduction and conclusion, this tactic would enable a fully programmatic approach to generate listicle-style articles.

pSEO pages power G2’s backlinking engine

According to Ahrefs, G2 has more than 30 million backlinks. G2’s product, category, “best of,” comparison, and listicle pages account for close to 45,600 (about 80%) of G2’s referring domains (per Ahrefs).

G2 has firmly established itself as a reliable and trusted third-party reviews platform. About 24,000 referring domains link to G2 product pages. These are primarily links from the software provider referenced on the product page. For example, Zoom includes a link to its G2 review page on its homepage alongside other peer review sites like Gartner Peer Insights and Trust Radius.

G2 also uses tactics like badges to encourage backlinks to the G2 product pages.  G2’s badges award companies with different honors like “2024 leader” based on their ratings compared to competitors. Companies are generally proud to include these badges on their websites to demonstrate their market standing from a neutral, unbiased source (peer reviews). 

How G2 uses AI to improve its pSEO pages 

The G2 product and R&D teams often experiment with AI to better understand user reviews and enhance pSEO pages. In a recent article, Sara Rossio, G2’s Chief Product Officer, explained that G2 reviews are “brimming with invaluable customer feedback regarding the software products and B2B services they utilize” and are “an ideal candidate for AI utilization.” 

Below are a few ways the G2 team is using AI to enhance its product and sub-category pages:

1. AI scans user reviews to identify features with positive and negative sentiments. These features are then highlighted in a pros and cons list within the review section of the product pages.  

2. AI scans reviews to identify key themes and overall sentiment about the software provider. These insights are then shared as a “user sentiment” overview on the sub-category pages.

Creating G2’s Massive Data Set: Resource and Time Requirements

G2’s entire site architecture and platform rely on a massive data set of peer reviews and programmatically created pages. Building this infrastructure is no easy feat, and involves a tightly coordinated team of experts, including but not limited to the following:

• Product teams who research customer journeys and map white space to deeply understand what’s important to B2B customers on review sites

• SEO strategists who match customer needs with search intent and keywords and identify new opportunities to capture organic visits

• Content specialists and UX strategists to determine the optimal hierarchy of information and page layouts for enhanced conversion rates

• Engineers to build the backend infrastructure that enables teams to capture relevant data points and use them for various purposes across pages 

• Web designers to build high-performance pages 

• Data analysts who collect information about page performance and understand user behaviors to optimize page content

Build a pSEO engine without expending your engineering resources

Building a high-performing pSEO engine like G2’s is not an easy task. The daydream platform enables businesses to build pSEO programs while minimizing internal resource spend. 

Our platform automates all of the key workflows involved in building and maintaining a high-performing pSEO engine. If you’re interested in using daydream and joining our growing list of customers including Notion, ProductHunt, and Tome, email us at [email protected] to start the conversation.