How to bridge the gap between gathering & harnessing SEO data

Data means nothing if you don’t know what to do with it. Instead of just passively gathering SEO data, you need to actually harness it. Use it to make improvements and adjustments, and implement real change at your organisation. Here are some practical ways that you can start to close the gap between SEO data and ACTION.

Harnessing SEO data – be truly data-driven

Gathering data for data’s sake and pouring over vanity metrics are surefire ways to misallocate and misspend SEO budgets. Vanity metrics can be used to sell cheap SEO tactics you don’t actually need — so be vigilant when talking to a expert SEO.

SEO data is meaningless unless implemented as part of an ongoing strategy. You need SEO tactics that offer long-term results, so always be on the lookout for data that validates your current SEO approach.

Here’s how to transition from SEO gatherer to implementer:

1. The essential goal here is achieving insights from data. Know what you are interrogating, and have a thorough understanding of SEO cause and correlation. Dig beneath the surface to what’s really going on.
2. Spend time analysing data once it’s been collected — benchmark results against different tracking periods, competitors, etc. Try to isolate traffic and rankings incidents as much as you can to keep the data ‘clean’. It will help you make better conclusions about current SEO results.
3. Ensure that every SEO decision taken can be backed up by solid data — even experimentation should be testing a solid hypothesis, not just a ‘hunch’.

Organisational structure & communication

In the same way that marketing can be said to be everyone’s job, SEO needs to be factored into your organisational structure. SEOs need to have access to sales teams, decision makers and content creators in order to do their jobs effectively.

Similarly, the role of SEO needs to be protected and understood. Any website or content upgrades should be run past the SEO team. PRs need to get SEOs involved in coverage. The company’s SEO data needs to be something that all stakeholders and interested parties understand.

This is where communication steps in — SEOs need to effectively pass on data insights, rather than just parroting off the latest report. It’s easy to lose the thread of a wider argument when faced with a wall of SEO terminology.

Other teams and leaders should constantly push for the ‘why’ behind data, and SEOs should sharpen their ability to spot wider commercial trends.

Frequent reporting

Staying on top of data is one of the best ways to manage SEO change and deal with rankings fluctuations effectively. From real-time data to predictive analytics, SEOs need to constantly be pulling in different data sources into dashboards or reports to get a coherent overview of what’s actually going on.

Timetabled and allocated reporting periods ensure that SEO teams are forced to make sense of, and evaluate, data. Reporting keeps campaigns fresh and flags up any technical SEO issues before they have a chance to develop too far. Make time to delve into your latest SEO reports.

Know what you’re looking for

The two ways that people often mess up SEO data:

1. Confirmation bias — they go to the data with a foregone conclusion
2. Overwhelm — they feel overwhelmed by the scope and complexity.

Get a good frontline SEO team (or agency), who aren’t afraid to look at data in an open-minded way. Be wary of dialogue that only focuses on superficial ‘quick wins’ and ‘boosts’.

It can be hard to quantify and qualify SEO expertise, but there will be some SEOs who class themselves as link-builders and content creators, others as technical SEOs and hybrid developers. Make sure you have the right person and the right tools at the data coalface.

Don’t harness SEO data just for SEO

There are plenty of insights lurking in SEO data than can be incredibly useful for social, content, leadership, recruitment, IT and customer service teams — to name but a few!

Any business that keeps SEO data firmly under lock and key in the ‘SEO silo’ is seriously missing out.

SEO data is one of the most direct connections you have to your frontline customers. You’re essentially talking about their language and behaviours.

Familiarise everybody possible with data and metrics — use custom reports to cut out unhelpful data ‘noise’ and keep things streamlined. Make SEO part of your company’s language, and encourage all teams to adopt a data-heavy approach.

Identify black holes

What if you simply don’t have data for something? It could be a sign that your SEO strategy is not as comprehensive as it could be.

You may need to up your game when it comes to SEO tools and technologies, or invest in ones that are better integrated into your data infrastructure. A comprehensive SEO audit should flag up any room for improvement,

One of the first steps in making the most of your SEO data is taking a step back and reviewing your data processes. Are you really giving staff the right training and tools to be data-driven SEOs? Is everyone on the digital team part of this unified, shared vision?

Have an opinion on this article? Please join in the discussion: the GMA is a community of data driven marketers and YOUR opinion counts.