The Seotistics newsletter is written by Marco Giordano, a Data/Web Analyst with the goal of combining business and web data. Tired of the usual boring Analytics content without any business impact? Seotistics teaches you how to use Analytics, web data and even content in your workflow while helping you with Strategy.
SEO Growth Ain't All - Why Consistency Is The King ๐
Use Data Or Be Used By Data!The August 28 issue of Seotistics is here for you! |
Growth is one of the main focus for many SEOs and you may think this is a great thing. But is it? I am here today to show you why consistency is preferrable in some cases.
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. ๐ Why More Isn't Always BetterGetting more traffic or organic growth is sold as the Holy Grail. Unfortunately, many businesses don't need crazy growth. AI has been recently used to push informational articles and generate low-value content. All of this must be maintained, as you may already know from my past Seotistics issues. And the problem lies here, costs go up and content slowly decays... โ๏ธ Growth Isn't As You ThinkOne of the most common mistakes done by non-technical people is to think that everything in nature follows predefined patterns. If I study more, I will get a higher grade. The more articles I publish, the more traffic I will get... Not really, growth can take on many forms and it's rarely linear. Additive relationships aren't that common in SEO. Some of you may consider exponential then. First, you write 200 posts, wait for them to get indexed and then ranking. That's more credible and you may see exponential growth at first, especially if you start with 0 traffic. But this doesn't tell you the whole story. Sometimes, growth follows a logarithmic pattern, meaning that the game gets harder and harder: Learning a new skill usually falls under log growth. It's harder for an experienced SEO to get better at SEO but easier for a novice. This is the case for some websites who are already dominant. A more realistic growth could look like this: Exponential at first, then plateau, then growing again and slowing down. Nature doesn't follow exact patterns, accept this. Plateuing traffic is also another reality of SEO, not everything can always grow! N.B. Don't take this section as the absolute truth. It's just an exemplification. ๐งฎ The Role Of Data In GrowthOne of my biggest pet peeves is reading most of the Growth Marketing articles. Data skills are stated to be among the skillset of many growth professionals but I tend to disagree. Just because data is available to anyone, it doesn't mean you have to use it by yourself. While A/B testing and aggregating data is fairly easy, the Mathematics behind some choices isn't that straightforward. The most common mistakes I've seen involve other factors though:
Data CleaningWell, you already know from this past issue, you need to clean your data. This activity is mandatory for every analysis, barring no exception whatsoever. Interpreting ResultsMany businesses don't really care about growth per se, they want money. Showing a loss in traffic may not affect revenue that much. When you report results, it's important to show which other areas are impacted. I showed you before some good examples of presenting data and finding insights. ๐ง Assumptions/BiasesThis is a problem for any professional as our brain is affected by several biases. We humans tend to assume a lot of things but the reality tells the opposite. One of the most common mistakes is thinking that traffic growth is always positive. Traffic may be affected by seasonality or sudden demand shifts and it may not lead to more money. Learning basic testing and exploring algorithms helps a lot in dealing with biases and assumptions. My friend Giulia Panozzo showed an example with CausalImpact in one of her past presentations: Lately, I've been exploring the crazy field of Anomaly Detection... In plain English finding those pages that look abnormal, or even specific days. Monitoring a website and keeping its quality is much more important than growing for big players. Oh, time data and all of that's covered in my Analytics for SEO Ebook, 20% price drop until September 3! ๐ก The Role Of Data In GrowthThe role of your data can be represented through the stages I usually share in my content: Data can't be used for predictions if you have barely analyzed it descriptively first. Another key difference may completely ignore is the one between explaining and predicting. I've never seen anyone discussing it in Marketing... If you want to predict something, your goal is different from understanding and description. You don't need to understand everything if your goal is to predict... but what about SEO? If you need to describe traffic drops or analyze GSC data, you can still accept some degree of uncertainty. The important is formulating the right questions and elicting action later on. Growth can be supported by the data you have, given that you are able to drive meaningful decisions.
P.S. This topic is tough, I will leave it for my ebook or for my posts, expect more content on it! ๐ก Keeping RankingsYou want your website to survive, not to grow and bye bye! Growth and consistency aren't always related, I'd even daresay they have no relationship by default. Big players want to keep their rankings and increase profit instead. Consistency helps them protecting their kingdom. This is the exact opposite of small websites or those looking for quick profit. You can flip a lot of websites but fail to create a strong brand or keep rankings.
This is even more important for active domain buyers who are more susceptible to fall for cheap tricks. The best advice I can give in this case is to ask for Google Search Console and Analytics and ask someone to analyze data (cough cough like me). Digital EEAT ContestMy friend Mike Ginley has started this nice contest where the person with the most Pageviews wins an exclusive t-shirt. Well, I am no less, please visit the page below! ๐ https://www.digital-eat.com/marco-giordano/ ๐ Full context:
๐งต My Selection Of Twitter ThreadsA quick recap for those who haven't read them all or need a refresher:
๐ฅ Join Our CommunityOur Discord community offers a small place where we can talk business and SEO. If you hate all the noise of social media, then this place is for you.
๐ Analytics For SEO Ebook (v5) - 20% Off!!!This ebook is aimed at SEOs or Business Owners who want to explore the combination of SEO and Analytics. If you want to start building your data empire, this is the (initial) path to take. [20% price drop until September 3, only $55.99] It will teach you or your employees to: ๐ Avoid common pitfalls that cost you money ๐ธ ๐ Create meaningful analyses that add value ๐ฏ ๐ Shorten the learning time of Analytics โณ This comes with monthly updates because I want to create the Ultimate Guide out there. v5 includes the following new information: โ More than 2x the original size โ 10+ Python/R Notebooks โ How To Detect Seasonality/Anomalies โ Content Audits in Detail โ Exclusive Content
๐ Recommended ReadsSome advanced reads for the brave of heart. I will write some blog posts on these topics later on, if I notice interest!
If you are studying Stats/Math or even Computer Science, you will love this. For all the others, I will cover how these topics affect SEO later on. โ๏ธ Feedback and RecommendationsIf you have ideas/recommendations for the next issues of Seotistics, you can simply reply to this email. Marco Giordano Follow me on ๐ฝ๐ฝ๐ฝ: |
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Seotistics - Web Analytics + Business + Strategy
The Seotistics newsletter is written by Marco Giordano, a Data/Web Analyst with the goal of combining business and web data. Tired of the usual boring Analytics content without any business impact? Seotistics teaches you how to use Analytics, web data and even content in your workflow while helping you with Strategy.
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