Use Data Or Be Used By Data!

The December 8 issue of Seotistics is here for you!

It's undeniable that the Western data job market has changed and is still changing.

OK cool but what's your point?

Simple, it's necessary to go beyond labels (e.g. SEO, Product, Growth, Analyst) if you work with web data.

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Tomorrow I'll attend the Search Central Live event in Zurich! Come to say hi!

Data As Raw Material

The biggest disservice you can do to yourself as a professional is simping for data.

Data is nothing else but raw material.

This raw material is essential for our daily tasks, however.

Text, numbers and pretty much the information you store are all data.

Wouldn't it make more sense if anyone was at least proficient in some basic data tasks ?

Spoiler: yes it would.

Remember the holy DIKW Framework:

Data sits at the lowest level as an input.

It doesn't tell you anything and doesn't think.

Analyst VS Marketer (It Doesn't Matter)

The more you work, the more you notice labels are just illusory.

For sure, they affect your salary and all if you are an employee.

But again, many roles work with data and this isn't clear from their title.

This trend already exists in many forms:

• SEO -> Product/Growth -> CMO
• Analyst -> some role with a complete different name -> CDO

In terms of results, it shouldn't matter how you call yourself.

Yes, branding and positioning are super important but those are just titles for other people.

While you do your work there is no reason to limit yourself to a single role.

If you are a consultant or an agency, this is even truer.

Almost everyone works with some kind of data and you need a decent level of proficiency.

What DOES matter is the difference between Analysts/Marketers and Engineers:

The 2 are completely different... companies who delegate engineering work to analysts are doomed.

Let the analysts thrive and you will get awesome business results.

Let the engineers do their job without pointless bureaucracy and everyone will be happier.

So marketers are also analysts. You can say anyone analyzing data is a potential analyst.

The LLM Aid

As I tell you often know, LLMs changed the game and now the gap for non-technical people shortened.

It's not like you need to spend your life on remembering code, no one really cares or pay you for that effort!

Embrace LLMs and start understanding code this way, it's faster.

My personal recommendation is to use Claude (paid) inside Cursor... in most cases it's perfect:

For most of the SQL, Python and even Javascript code, this is fine.

A Tale From The Trenches

I was working on a project to unify the customer data in an enterprise company.

If you join something like this with only technical skills, you are screwed.

You have 3-4 engineers at your disposal, so it's not your responsibility to handle the "boring" technical stuff.

Where you must intervene and add value is:

• Define which data you need and why
• Build use cases and prepare requirements
• Communicate with all the necessary people

This sounds far from what many study but it's my normal routine.

Why should a data engineer know about marketing, after all!?

It's on YOU to instruct them about the requirements.

Not only that, you need to build a solid use case to convince the stakeholders and not waste budget (and time).

In this case a simple Analyst would never be able to massively contribute to the business without proper knowledge.

That's why I insist on you learning about data sources like GSC and GA4 and yes, from their BigQuery schema:

If you learn the UIs, you will never be able to understand how metrics are calculated and talk to engineers.

This makes a BIG difference if you are the only specialist in your team/project.

Shift Left Or Right?

The term shift left has many meanings in software engineering.

I was inspired by this article by Joe Reis and applied a twist based on what I usually talk about.

What people are located on a Business-Tech Spectrum? Nothing revolutionary here!

The issue with being on the right side as a non-engineer is that you are not an engineer (lol).

Some skills you may need (e.g. cloud platforms, DBT/Dataform) but you don't need to go into detail.

I see many technical marketers go out of their ways... my advice is not to, companies pay engineers for that!

You can retain your technical skills (they are important) but don't think those are what makes the difference.

And if you want to shift left, this is for you:

Being Comfortable With Changes

The market is what it is right now and upskilling is a necessity.

Of course, it's not like skills are the only factor to take into account but you need a bare minimum to be considered.

You can gradually start with:

• gradually shifting away from Excel/Google Sheets
• think about processes and draw them
• get comfortable with cloud platforms

If you already are a technical marketer, it's easier to dig deeper on the business side.

For example, how you can add value to the organization and be perceived closer to the business.

People with a background in content can simply learn a little bit more of technicalities.

Marketers and Analysts are 2 sides of the same coin.

The sooner you mentally get rid of current labels, the better you are in terms of added value.​
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👥 Join Our Community

Our Discord community offers a small place where we can talk business and web data.

If you hate all the noise of social media, then this place is for you.

I will start posting more there as we have a forum channel now.

This is the best way to stay updated in real time on Seotistics:

🔎 Analytics For SEO Ebook - Course / Ebook

You will:

✅ Use GSC and GA4 Data to their fullest potential

✅ Learn Python/SQL for your needs

✅ Get a complete blueprint for auditing websites

✅ Learn how to 10x your productivity

✅ Learn BigQuery to work on large websites

I teach you what's needed to go from 0 to a professional Data Analyst.

Even if you leave SEO, the foundations are the same for other jobs!

Also in ebook:

📚 Recommended Reads - Peak Content 🗻

Read these:

• ​Descriptive Web Analytics: The Unsung Hero To Drive Value​
• ​The Convergence - Shifting Left AND Right​
• ​The Outside-the-Box SEO Tactics That Actually Drive Business​​
• ​Becoming a “real” data analyst​
• ​SEO : You’re Prioritizing Your Content Creation All Wrong (Here’s How to Do It Based on Google Patents & Leaks)​
• ​Analytical Skills for AI and Data Science : Building Skills for an AI-Driven enterprise​
• ​Data Literacy In Practice​
• ​Becoming a Data Head​
• ​Storytelling with Data​

As usual, my most recent LinkedIn content is here.

❗️ Feedback and Recommendations

If you have ideas/recommendations for the next issues of Seotistics, you can simply reply to this email.

Marco Giordano
​Data/Web Analyst

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