Use Data Or Be Used By Data!

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The May 1 issue of Seotistics is here for you!

The first issue of Seotistics wants to make clarity on the very basics of Analytics for SEO.

The newsletter will follow this structure:

• Weekly considerations about Data
• An actionable tip
• Selection of Twitter Threads you may have missed

P.S. Future issues may add more sections and feature more text, this is only the introduction!

🔑 Key Analytics Concepts

Let's start with some basic definitions:

• Data-informed: transform information into actionable insights. For us, the goal is making SEO/Business decisions.
• Data-driven: a popular buzzword with allegedly the same definition as above. It's technically incorrect because you are driven by insights, not data.
• Data: information in digital form, e.g. the number of clicks for your pages. Alone it has no purpose since it's raw material.
• Findings: what you discover after analyzing data, so potential patterns.
• Insights: opportunities to improve your SEO/Business. You can think of them as adding context to findings.

This will put you in the top 1% bracket that knows how to interpret and question SEO case studies.

Not everything you will find can be turned into an insight... and for this reason it's important to test!

🧮 Actionable SEO Tip - Count Your Queries

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

One thing I've always noticed is how many SEOs don't take the number of queries into account.

While Impressions are a good leading indicator, they don't tell you anything about the queries you rank for.

This information can be used to spot weak areas or pinpoint pages with more opportunities.

You can even use Google Sheets thanks to the Search Analytics Sheets add-on.

The process is as follows:

1. Pull Google Search Console API data (you can even use Google Sheets)
2. Insert > Pivot table
3. Rows: Page, Values: Query (Summarize by COUNTUNIQUE)
4. Remove totals since you don't need them
5. Congrats! You now have the number of unique queries per page.

But what if we wanted to take it further? What if we wanted to track this change over time?

It's possible to do it with some wrangling:

Create a new column named "Month" and input the formula below, then auto-fill the other cells.

Now, create another column named "Adj_position) and input the formula below, then auto-fill the other cells.

Then, you can remove the decimals as illustrated below:

Now you are ready to create your pivot table:

Rows: Adj_position, Columns: Month, Values: Query (Summarize by: COUNTUNIQUE)

Filter: Adj_position should be less than or equal to 10

You can also apply Conditional Formatting to spot the cells with the highest numbers...

The problem with the result above is that it's not ready for publication and needs more tweaks:

• Rename the month columns
• Adjust the table title

But as you've noticed that's a lot of manual work and steps by now... what if we make mistakes as we do it?

That's why this newsletter exists and why Python/R are generally preferred over spreadsheets!

Coding allows for reproducibility and easy automation, that's the entire point of this newsletter!

💡 The Reproducible Alternative (For Coders)

Since spreadsheets aren't that reliable, we can use coding to simplify and automate this task.

This Google Colab notebook shows an example of how to do the same thing with coding.

I recommend you run the code locally and avoid using Google Colab. Also, the notebook above is for both Python and R.

Go to Runtime > Change runtime type and select the correct language, if you want to test it online first.

Nonetheless, I still recommend you run the code locally!

P.S. the code is only an example and can be improved a lot. Formatting and presenting tables is an art that would require much more time to explain...

I used the R code in the notebook to get the table in the tweet below 😎

Marco Giordano @GiordMarco96 You must admit my table drips 😎 This is my usual heatmap with a twist, more formatting! Presenting data is mandatory nowadays. I would only change the palette to have red as high instead. pic.twitter.com/PraXaEtqT3 April 14th 2023 0 Retweets 17 Likes

💡 The SEO Insights

Now that you got your table, it's possible to:

👉 Find which position bands displayed more variability

👉 Start asking questions about seasonality (not confirming it, only asking)

👉 Assess progress over time

This analysis gives you an overview of the situation and needs a deep dive to be more actionable.

But even so, you can find anomalies or interesting patterns in the query count that can lead to quick improvement or growth.

🧵 My Selection Of Twitter Threads

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

• ​Why is Google Search Console underrated? The Best Tips​
• ​Content Management: unleash it full power​
• ​Ultimate Google Search Console Audit, Part 1 ​
• ​Publishers/Content Websites guide to save money + time​
• ​Combining SEO and Data for a company​

👥 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 includes 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.

• ​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​

❗️ 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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