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.
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πΈ The State Of Web Data In 2024 (Not What You Expect)
Published about 2 months agoΒ β’Β 8 min read
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Use Data Or Be Used By Data!
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The July 15 issue of Seotistics is here for you!
Data, data is everywhere! But how are companies reacting to it?
There is a lot of misinformation outside and the AI crowd doesn't even care about data management.
P.S. v2 of my Analytics for SEO course is out on July 22, so the next Seotistics issue will come out on Tuesday.
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.
Only a few companies have Big Data and need tools to handle it.
In SEO/Marketing, this is quite uncommon because we don't actually need a lot of data to make decisions.
No, you don't have that much data. β Many companies never reach the 1TB threshold of useful data. β Data rarely grows exponentially in companies, don't be scammed!
π ββοΈ The other myth is that BigQuery is "expensive", which is completely false.
It costs a few bucks to store your GSC and GA4 data in most cases.
But then why do some people complain about costs?
Because they didn't optimize their tables!
Data Engineering is complex and there are many operations to perform, like:
Removing useless columns
Choosing the right types for the columns
Partitioning/Clustering/Sharding
Writing the correct SQL code
Structuring the tables correctly
This exhaustive article by Axel Thevenot shows you how a Data Engineer does it.
Many agencies migrate data to BigQuery and then forget...
but that's not how it's supposed to work!
That's why we need engineers or technical people who know what to do.
Drowning In Data? Here's The Cure
The idea is quite simple, managing data is not necessarily the responsibility of a marketer but why not learn it?
Storing data is one thing but handling all the rest requires a little bit more work on your end.
Documenting data, use cases and processes takes time and consistent improvement to ensure people understand you.
How would you document this sample process and connect it to your data sources? Think about it.
You don't need to bother about access management or other stuff as a marketer...
but how to use data depends on you since you are the domain expert.
The State Of Things
Too many solutions on the market are a waste of time and money.
Some years ago, I was auditing some custom tools (for a client), aimed at emulating SurferSEO and suchlike.
I have never been a fan of them because they are overpriced and almost pointless...
anyway, this custom tool wasn't needed at all because:
there was no solid content team
no overarching strategy or view
no process(es) to support the tool
Common sense recommends that this is a BAD decision.
Now, handling this situation properly would have saved them a lot of money.
Operations: The Unsung Brother Of Strategy & Tactics
Strategy and tactics are everywhere, but operations get often ignored.
Operations act like the glue between strategy and tactics, despite many business books tend to place operations below tactics (wrong!).
Most of the stuff we do can be codified in terms of processes and documented.
I don't have strict rules for documenting processes but I try to make myself as clear as possible.
My main complaint with modern Web Analytics is that it's Google-centric and no one talks about how to use data.
Cool, I have used GTM and then what?
This is why Seotistics exists, to provide an alternative that focuses on the uncomfortable facts of the industry.
Stuff no one talks about, such as:
Understanding business requirements
Picking the right solution
Not another GTM/GA4 hack, not 5 tips to improve your tracking and not even Tech SEO content.
When I started to play with web data, the vast majority of the resources online weren't relevant to SEO...
or they were focused on tutorials and tips rather than explaining to me why we needed something.
The same goes for other marketing channels, not just SEO!
Too many Google tools and not enough Analytics. β Analysis and suchlike mean to dissolve into essential components. β Tagging & Tracking are different fields that are often bundled with Web Analytics.
Today is the same!
I recommend testing your solutions and breaking things until you realize why you are doing something.
The gap between business and web data is more than alive.
That Time I Realized Simple > Complex
Back then I used to test a lot of cool complex solutions, for example entity scraping, analyzing text and so on...
while there are interesting use cases, it was very hard to justify them and add meaningful ROI.
So far my best and most valuable work has been:
Pivot tables (yes, you read that right)
Analyzing traffic over time (yes, correct)
Once again, let's recall this blessed chart for evaluating solutions.
Because the majority of use cases are simple enough and many struggle with the foundations.
You may want to test complex ML/AI solutions but they require a LOT more maintenance and thought.
The ROI isn't even there sometimes because they cost a lot and tying them to the business is hard.
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.
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