Use Data Or Be Used By Data!

The April 7 issue of Seotistics is here for you!

Using web data is cool but what about delivering something?

I will show you how and why to deliver products to your audience.

If you don't know how to present and use your data, this issue is for you.

P.S. I've written a new article about Content Management & Operations, go check it out!

Please move this email to your Primary inbox or reply to it. This is to prevent Seotistics goes into spam by accident. Gmail users can read this tutorial to do it.

Read this in your browser

📣📣 Important Announcements 📣📣

I will be speaking in Brighton on April 11 (this Friday) at 1.40pm about "How to do content auditing with SEO/web data for small & big websites" in Auditorium 2.

(If anyone wants to meet, just DM me).

Progress on my new course has been made and I will announce more soon!

You can preorder it at a 30% discount until launch (May 12)!

It gives you all the missing business and marketing skills I mention when talking about Web Analytics.

If you purchased my previous course, go to this lesson here and the last section contains a special promo code for you:

Adding Actual Value

Actual value is hard to quantify if you are used to thinking in terms of raw numbers.

Data can add value in multiple ways:

by reducing costs
by improving efficiency
by unlocking new opportunities that lead to more revenue

If you think about them, it's quite simple to get some ROI out of data!

For example, one of the best ways I added value in the past was by identifying which pages didn't serve the website.

Of course, this process does NOT only consider one channel, you have to consider everything.

Content pruning executed properly is good at reducing fixed costs and can, occasionally, improve organic performance.

Another example is how I used my international cannibalization framework (described in both of my products) to monitor a nasty SEO problem.

In that case, the solution was easy but the problem was gnarly.

Need to do this for other channels too, this idea works wonders.

Data alone doesn't work if you don't know what to do in your industry.

It all boils down to business knowledge in the end!

Many are attending Udemy courses or even going to college again to learn new technical skills.

That's cool but remember that understanding the context takes practice.

Most of my daily work is understanding the business and the context of data.

You'll realize why understanding an industry is important once you actually work with data.

The Product Approach To Data

For this reason, some people like thinking of data as a product.

Data products can be used to add value with the end user in mind by addressing specific problems.

The DAAP (Data As A Product) approach consists in treating your data as manageable assets:

If you are analyzing some web data, you want to ideally serve this information to your audience.

What about a dashboard?

Yes, a dashboard is a product and it needs maintenance.

With A Caveat

Yes, data can be considered a product but be careful...

Analytics is mostly research and exploration, the product approach doesn't really work at this stage!

Once you have understood what there is to understand, you can follow the product approach.

As per measuring performance accurately, remember that in Web Analytics, you will never get great accuracy.

The majority of the data we work with is accurate enough to make useful decisions.

But accuracy and value are not the only thing to take into account!

When analyzing a website for the 1st time, you need to figure out what really matters.

How is the website making money?

Based on that, it's easier to figure out what to crawl and what to focus your attention on.

When Solutions Replace Problems

If a stakeholder comes to you requesting a dashboard, something is wrong.

A dashboard is a solution, not the actual problem they are trying to solve.

It's better if you tell them which solutions they need.

In most cases, you can send emails or quick information instead of creating a data product.

Can you create a dashboard for this?

Well, saying NO is part of the job.

Output Types

Dashboards aren't the only way you can showcase your prowess with data!

Scripts: most of the stuff you find on social media is loose code. You run it on your machine (or on your cloud) and that's it.

Apps: pretty much like scripts but you have an interface and some nice features.

Dashboards: do I even need to explain them?

Reports: if you can't really summarize your findings and need to go into detail.

Notebooks: for analyzing websites, you can either use Google Colab or Jupyter Notebook.

Canvas: it's like a notebook but better. It's literally a canvas where you can drag and drop components, tell stories and show a process.

To be fair, most of the time you can just send emails with what people need, really.

I don't work much on scripts or apps because I need to do 1-off explorations or write SQL code.

Once you start getting used to data, you will get familiar with notebooks and less with spreadsheets.

Notebooks give you infinite freedom and are ideal for dissecting and transforming data.

I still open stuff in Excel to inspect it but notebooks are omnipotent.

If you want to master notebooks and level up your data game for SEO data, my course will help you:

[Analytics For SEO Course - v4]

If you want to be guided and start from scratch, this is the course for you!

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!

Learn Analytics for SEO Now!

The Average Workflow For A Marketer

You don't need to try ALL of the output types I described...

you can get away with much less!

The process I recommend for content auditing can apply to any channel and for the majority of use cases:

I have to play with canvases a little bit more because as of now, I am only relying on notebooks, dashboards and reports.

The reason is that canvasing software is usually paid or expensive, but notebooks aren't.

When training other people, we always start and end with notebooks!

In general, this is most of the coding stuff you need for Web Data:

And yes, you can now help yourself with AI (Claude is the GOAT).

How It Works Now (& How To Fix It)

Companies pay expensive agencies to implement dashboards based on irrelevant data.

How often have you seen the following:

vanity metrics
bounce rate, avg. position
pie charts (ugh)

This is the bingo of bad web dashboards.

Sure, they may look cool but they don't serve any business purpose.

And you have also seen:

Using API data for both GSC and GA4 (instead of the BigQuery exports)
Semrush/Ahrefs instead of GSC for your query data (ugh)
Tracking generic events
Setting them as key events

This loop creates a load of data products that will never be used and will only create more costs.

So it's important you iterate multiple times and don't just come up with one version:

Excalidraw and Miro in particular are my BFs when it comes to prototyping.

In a bigger scheme of things, this how I often structure Web Data projects:

All of this is deeply covered in my upcoming course "Think Like a Web Analyst".

The idea is to go beyond "tactical" thinking like dashboards and tools and think about people and problems.

Against The Mainstream

Most of Web Analytics focuses on technical skills and very very marginally on business value and marketing.

Companies care about money, though.

This is why knowing more business is absolutely crucial for winning the game!

Technical skills are always important but those are implicit.

Soft skills aren't obvious at all!

👥 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.

Join our Discord Community!

🔎 Analytics For SEO Ebook (v8)

If you want to learn about Analytics for SEO and prefer self-study, this is for you!

It will teach you or your employees to:

👉 Prepare audits that make sense and are actionable 🔥

👉 Avoid common pitfalls that cost you money 💸

👉 Create analyses that add value and money💯

👉 Move the needle faster with efficient SEO systems ⏳

This comes with periodical updates to keep the content fresh.

Unlock Powerful Insights Now!

📚 Recommended Reads - Peak Content 🗻

Some more peak to read:

I am preparing even more articles for you on the Seotistics blog, just wait!

My LinkedIn Content:

❗️ 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

Follow me on 🔽🔽🔽:

Bernerstrasse Süd 169, Zurich, Switzerland
Unsubscribe · Preferences

Seotistics - Web Analytics + Business + Strategy

▶️ How To Go From Web Data To Products