The Seotistics newsletter is written by Marco Giordano, an SEO Specialist focused on content and Data Analyst. Tired of the usual SEO content? Seotistics teaches you how to use Analytics and data in your workflow while helping you with Content Management & Strategy.
π Making Sense of SEO Data After the HCU
Use Data Or Be Used By Data!β The December 11 issue of Seotistics is here for you! After the most recent HCU (Helpful Content Update) and the Discover bug, it's finally time to understand what's been going on. Whether you are an SEO or a business owner, it's wise to know what has lost traction and what can be done to recover traffic. I show you some ideas to take action today. N.B. This isn't about code or manual stuff, it's all about strategy and management. |
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. βRead this in your browserβ PrerequirementsBefore we start, I need to name some requirements so you don't jump into data without understanding your situation. Consider the following caveats:
You need the following tools:
You will understand why I mentioned BigQuery in a moment. P.S. We will see more "technical" stuff in the next Seotistics issue! Understanding Traffic DropsDifferent business models rely on traffic differently. A publisher is much more susceptible to drops compared to an Ecommerce. Losing clicks on blog content will hardly harm your sales; the same can't be said for categories and products. A 70% drop in traffic for a publisher is usually a death sentence, especially if it's coming from Discover. Luckily, you can usually assign business value to traffic, thanks to GA4 or any other data source where you can see how much you get per page (Mediavine/Raptive/whatever). The most basic check you can do consists of checking 2 timeframes to see which pages and queries dropped: This approach is limited to 1000 rows and tedious, you can't automate or scale it. That's why we either use the API or rely on BigQuery (Bulk Export), which gets you more data. Looker Studio is the same as using the API, in case you wondered. The BigQuery approach is long-term as it can't backfill data so your best shot for now is to rely on the API. N.B. The average position is overrated as it's quite misleading and you'd need to filter more to get a realistic value. Just check Clicks and then Impressions. You can easily see if you were hit by the HCU by looking at sharp declines and checking the dates of the drops. This you already know, I am here to show you something more advanced and useful... Seasonality/Outliers TrapOne of the most common rookie mistakes is not considering the role that seasonality plays in your analyses. The same goes for the outliers, exceptional observations that happen occasionally and deviate from the norm. A day with a spike in clicks followed by a sudden drop is NOT negative. Seasonality is a different beast as you should know when it happens. If you don't, which is the most common case, you can:
In most cases, you can theorize what's seasonal and what's not by looking at the clicks per month (you can use a pivot table). [If you want to learn more about the topic, you can check my ebook]. The ProcessMaking sense of the past, what happened before. My process is as follows:
Those of you who have read my past issues know that it's always about this framework:
As already stated multiple times, simply comparing 2 timeframes isn't good if they are large and multiple things can happen in the meantime. In this case, the interval is only some months, so you do NOT need any complex calculations. ExecutionFinding what lost traction doesn't require a PhD unless you have a huge website. The main issue is around action and execution. What to edit and how? The answer can radically change case by case but here's what you can do:
Honest remark: some SERPs are infested by parasites or high DA domains so there isn't much to fix lol It can happen, after hours of analyses you still can't find possible explanations or what's wrong. There isn't really something to analyze in those cases (check this example), so read the next section instead. Going Beyond RecoveryRecovery isn't always easy or possible and I hope you didn't actually think every problem can be solved with SEO. The domain I showed didn't lose much money with the HCU but lost 9/10 of the total revenue due to the Discover bug (which can't be prevented, it's a bug). This is where we mention one of the most powerful concepts in Content Marketing: Content Distribution & Repurposing. There is no reason to leave market share to competitors, as you can create a true content machine. Google kicked my website out of Discover (see Discover bug) and even hit it after the HCU in favor of goliaths. This is the fate of many websites in the last few months and a subtle invite to get better at planning. There are many things you can do today:
A more recent example is this one, you can really make a lot of money with Facebook! Strategic ConsiderationsGoogle is proving once again how dangerous is to invest in one single channel. As SEOs, we must do SEO (duh) but nothing stops us from specializing in complementary channels. I don't recommend ditching your strategy after every update but I do advise you to:
A website with strong organic performance is more susceptible to disruption after updates. Always try to move your users from your website to your email list or groups. π Recommended Reads - Peak Content π»Some interesting reads on the topic and why I recommend you diversification all the time. For those of you who've already read the old issues, I recommend scrolling up and devouring the resources about Content Distribution & Repurposing!
π₯ Join Our CommunityOur Discord community offers a small place to talk business and SEO. If you hate all the noise of social media, then this place is for you.
π Analytics For SEO Ebook (v6)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. It will teach you or your employees to: π Avoid common pitfalls that cost you money πΈ π Create meaningful analyses that add value π― π Shorten the learning time of Analytics β³ This comes with monthly updates because I want to create the Ultimate Guide out there. v6 includes the following information: β Strategy in terms of SEO & Data β Decision Making β Integrating Data with SEO
v7 will include additional info on DataViz and topics on request. π One-Hour CallIf you have doubts about SEO or Analytics, you can book a call with me. Have doubts about your content website or with your data? Look no further, I can help you: β
βοΈ 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 π½π½π½: |
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Seotistics - Analytics & SEO
The Seotistics newsletter is written by Marco Giordano, an SEO Specialist focused on content and Data Analyst. Tired of the usual SEO content? Seotistics teaches you how to use Analytics and data in your workflow while helping you with Content Management & Strategy.
Use Data Or Be Used By Data! The September 16 issue of Seotistics is here for you! Everyone talks about data but not many showcase actual processes that support the business. Seotistics exists to tie (Web) data to business and I am here to show you some nice examples. You should adjust them based on your specific use cases, so follow the logic! 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...
Use Data Or Be Used By Data! The September 9 issue of Seotistics is here for you! It was hard to put these concepts into words and connect them to Web Analytics. Pretty much any job isn't about hard skills alone... the highest-paid professionals think differently. I want to show you how to abstract concepts and what is common sense in daily data life. P.S. Seotistics has a new look! Go check it out π Please move this email to your Primary inbox or reply to it. This is to prevent Seotistics...
Use Data Or Be Used By Data! The September 2 issue of Seotistics is here for you! It's finally September and as the end of the year draws near, companies still miss some key factors. When auditing websites, you will see that the stuff you want is never there... so you educate your client(s) and teach them the value of data. I am here to show you the way. P.S. My previous issue contains a lot of information on Content Management instead. Please move this email to your Primary inbox or reply to...