Use Data Or Be Used By Data!

The May 8 issue of Seotistics is here for you!

Welcome back to another Seotistics issue!

Today we cover one of the most important topics: methodology.

Many of you may have doubts on SEO projects or integrating data into your work.

Don't worry, we won't go hard on this, I will try to make as many examples as I can.

🔑 Key Analytics Concepts

Let's start with some basic definitions:

• Descriptive Analytics: Using current and historical data to spot trends. Plots, summarizing and aggregating data are all descriptive techniques.
• Diagnostic Analytics: finding the why, the root of why something happeneed.
• Predictive Analytics: making forecasts based on past data. This is the field of Machine Learning.
• Prescriptive Analytics: Optimizing processes and preventing damage.

When we talk about Analytics, we usually refer to the first definition.

And that's why I usually say that Analytics isn't enough to prove why something happened.

❓ Actionable SEO Tip - Ask The Right Questions

This issue can't be complete without some actionable SEO tip for you!

One thing I've always noticed is how many SEOs focus on answers, never on questions.

I know... this may sound strange the first time.

But hear me out, you can't solve problems if you don't ask the correct questions first.

Solid questions can unlock new growth opportunities and you can generate a lot by analyzing data.

I bet most of you have experienced this before:

• You have access to Search Console and Google Analytics data. They are free.
• You would like to increase organic traffic but you don't know where to start...
• Inspired by some random advice, you go after "quick wins" ignoring a strategy.

This is what many (unfortunately) do, they go after short-term gratification that does more harm than good.

I propose a different method that will skyrocket your success and make you more analytical.

❓ And this method involves asking questions, such as:

• Is this traffic drop seasonal?
• Will doing X improve my revenue or only the traffic?
• What does actually affect my earnings?
• Which data do I need to achieve my goal?
• What's the return on this action?

📊 Adding Analytics Into SEO

The first requirement is to have a clearly defined goal.

Now the question is what inputs and levers we can leverage and what to track.

🛠 Inputs (Or The Actions You Take)

Every action as a consequence and that's also true in SEO.

If your goal is increasing revenue, you may have different actions you can take:

• Increasing traffic
• Increasing conversion rate
• Running promotions on specific products
• And so on...

This largely depends on how your website is making money, be it Display Ads, Affiliate or your own products.

Still, this is a valuable piece of information because it allows you to think about the right path.

❗️Actions have consequences. This is the philosophy behind choosing the right levers.

📏 Metrics (Your Compass)

This is where I see the most mistakes.

Choosing metrics like Users, Clicks or Page Views alone doesn't lead to any tangible result.

Your ultimate goal is to impact revenue and profit, even if indirectly.

But even so, you can't only rely on financial metrics...

👉 Unique Query Count: we covered it in the 1st Seotistics issue. This is crucial to see which pages have more opportunities.

👉 Page Groups: Dividing pages into groups based on their performance. E.g. pages with many clicks can be classified as "High Performers".

👉 Content Decay: it measures if your content has been losing traction (traffic). I outline one simple method to calculate it in my ebook.

👉 Contribution to total clicks: what's the weight of a single page? If a page gets you 10% of your total clicks, it means it's quite important.

👉 Custom Events: anything you have set up in Analytics or Tag Manager that makes sense. This includes tracking CTAs or any other interaction.

These are not very "mainstream" metrics because many are focused on standard metrics such as clicks and impressions.

Those are also important but you need to take it to the next level!

💡 Effective Decision-Making

With this methodology, you are less likely to fail or accept SEO projects that are not going to work.

If there is no clear direction or a lack of resources, no amount of data can save you.

The approach of considering which actions you can take to work on SEO can be already used to filter out unfeasible projects.

Here are some common situations that can arise and what I would do:

❗️Which articles to optimize first? Find the clusters with the best performance and start working there for quick results.
​
You can also follow a similar approach but with content decay, the cluster with the most negative slope gets prioritized.

I also recommend to weight your decisions by revenue as well, so you would cross-check organic performance with the potential money you can earn.

❗️Where shall I expand my content? Go by Unique Query Count and verify why some pages have high numbers.

You will find many long-tail opportunities to create new pages (or sections of your current page).

❗️Which pages drag down my website? We've found different groups before so that you can see where are the low performers.

You set the criteria for the classes, the idea doesn't change.

🧵 My Selection Of Twitter Threads

A quick recap for those who haven't read them all or need a refresher:

• ​Keep It Real: Avoid bad SEO projects​
• ​The 10 + 1 Content Auditing mistakes​
• ​Content Auditing after Google Updates​
• ​5 Underrated SEO tasks to do with Coding​
• ​ROI-oriented SEO: how and why​
• ​Getting ROI out of Analytics for Big Websites​

👥 Launching a Community (Join The Waitlist)

I and some friends have decided to launch our personal SEO community. It won't be about Analytics only, as we will cover everything about SEO.

For sure, we will preserve the focus on data skills because that's the future of SEO!

🔎 Analytics For SEO Ebook (v2)

This ebook is aimed at SEOs or Business Owners who want to explore the combination of SEO and Analytics.

It will teach you or your employees to:

👉 Avoid common pitfalls that cost you money 💸

👉 Create meaningful analyses that add value 💯

👉 Shorten the learning time of Analytics ⏳

This comes with monthly updates because I want to create the Ultimate Guide out there.

The April update included the following new information:

✅ Categorize Pages

✅ More on Content Audits

✅ Handling Large Files

v3 (15 May as an estimate) will feature:

• Quick And Simple Way Of Detecting Keyword Cannibalization
• Statistical Inference And Statistics (Update)
• Update For Use Cases 2 and 5
• Going Deeper With Analysis (Google Analytics, Screaming Frog, etc.)
• R Approach To Some Problems

📚 Recommended Reads

These Analytics books are among the best out there. If you want to think like a true Analyst, look no further.

• ​Classify your website pages with Fuzzy Logic (Python)​
• ​R for Data Science​
• ​R For Marketing Research and Analytics (Advanced)​
• ​Generate SQL queries with this website​
• ​Anomaly Detection to find traffic drops after Google Updates (Python)​

You can always read previous issues on my creator profile page.

❗️ Feedback and Recommendations

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

Marco Giordano
​SEO Specialist & Data Analyst

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Bernerstrasse Süd 169, Zurich, Switzerland
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