A data-driven approach allows companies of any scale to develop SEO and marketing strategies based not on the opinion of individual marketers but on real statistics. Big data helps better understand your customers, adjust your strategy according to the obtained results, and even decide on the further development of your product line.
Data-driven SEO and marketing activities leave no space for bad shots. A few years ago, all changes on sites were made virtually at random, based on other companies’ cases or theoretical knowledge. The results obtained often came as surprises for the marketers themselves. However, modern business has a huge number of sources of reliable data, which allows you to customize your SEO techniques and avoid annoying mistakes.
According to Forbes, 95% of businesses cite the need to manage unstructured data as a problem for their business. You may imagine what a tremendous amount of marketing data we leave unused? Especially thinking we already have it at our disposal. So, today, we’ll share tips on how to use big data, what features to pay attention to, and how each particular metric and feature can help you earn more.
Simple guide on how SEO big data helps companies perform better
Right now, we are literally surrounded by big data, and companies can get it from various sources. No wonder those who find ways of utilizing big data get a full and stable advantage in the market. According to Mckinsey Global Institute, data-driven organizations are not only 23 times more likely to acquire customers but also six times as likely to retain customers and 19 times more likely to be profitable!
Based on reliable statistics and data modeling tools, companies can refine their SEO strategies more clearly and modify them to achieve better results. Big data leaves no space for the “box-ticking” approach. So, here’s where big data is used to increase SEO effectiveness:
Collecting customer data
User data is the basis for designing an SEO strategy and predicting visitor behavior on a website. Thanks to Google Analytics, you can get the following user data:
- age;
- gender;
- geographical location of site visitors;
- devices from which the site is opened;
- channels of acquisition, etc.
All this helps to understand your audience better and adjust your existing strategy to the real needs of users.
Additionally, thanks to services such as Hotjar, marketers and SEOs can track user behavior on the site. You can see the website’s weaknesses, understand why users do not click on certain pages, or at what stage they close your site.
Basic SEO metrics
Modern SEO data analysis services allow you to get a lot of data that is necessary for search engine optimization:
- bounce rate;
- dwell time;
- repeat visits;
- page loading time;
- click-through rate (CTR);
- internal and external links (big data can be very useful for linkbuilding with SEO);
- number of broken links;
- pages that rank better than others;
- current positions of each page in the SERP, etc.
Using SEO data from Google Search Console, Screaming Frog, and other services, an SEO specialist can detect errors and weaknesses of the site in time and improve them. Moreover, getting this data takes just a few minutes. The only thing left to do is bring everything together in one report and prepare a list of future work.
Keyword research
Keywords remain the foundation for successful SEO promotion. But the approach to using them has changed a lot in recent years. Long-tail keywords are on the scene now, as well as keywords that respond to the user’s intent. That is, you don’t just get search results that match your keyword. You get results that match the keyword and its contextual essence.
Therefore, you need to find new variants of existing keywords, new topic ideas, and related keywords for successful SEO promotion. The secret is to find keywords with a high search volume and low competition on Google. A useful and simple feature that can help to analyze search queries is a keyword research tool. SEO tools deeply examine your keywords, find more relevant long-tail keywords, and analyze your competitors.
In particular, this service will provide the following information:
- search volume;
- difficulty;
- CPC and paid competition;
- traffic overview;
- who’s competing for the keyword;
- competitor pages that rank high for this keyword;
- who is running paid ads for each keyword;
- what ads with this keyword were tested out, etc.
In addition, you can add a list of your own keywords to analyze them more thoroughly. Bulk keyword analysis and export are also available.
With reports generated with the keyword research tool, you can plan your content marketing activities, build your semantic core from scratch, as well as update and extend it.
Competitor activity analysis
Big data analysis lets you know what your competitors do or have done to get the current results. Loads of information are freely available, and you do not need to be engaged in industrial espionage. So, you can easily collect the following important data:
- your competitor’s website traffic;
- how many pages of their site are indexed;
- which pages rank best;
- how much your competitor spends on paid ads;
- who their direct competitors are, etc.
That will give you an upper hand in the questions predicting your opponent’s strategy. You and your company can easily benefit from knowing what keywords your competitors use, what are the strengths and weaknesses in their online presence, and so on. Given all this data, you may answer more appropriately.
Plus, if you’re just starting an online project in a specific niche, it might help look at your competitors first. Some niches are open enough, and with some investment, you can easily beat the competition. Other niches are challenging, and you will have to spend hundreds of thousands of dollars to get to the first page of search results and outrun the competition. In this case, you might want to focus on your other products or services or consider a different strategy.
Align SEO with the marketing campaign
Big data helps to establish a more substantial alignment between various marketing activities and SEO. With the availability of info on every product and process within your organization, you are getting a number of tools to connect the SEO and marketing tasks more closely.
With one common CRM and publicly available big data, the impact of all marketing activities can be tracked in terms of SEO. On the other hand, the ultimate goal of search engine optimization is to increase conversions, just like any other marketing activity. With big data, you can track the results of everything you do, including tracking conversion rates.
Apply product improvement
Big data provides the ability to foresee what customers are expecting from a new product or service. That presents evidence and arguments for product improvement and increases the probability of success of the whole enterprise. You can drive innovation from your data, fulfill your customer’s needs, and get to the market faster.
Big data helps in providing business intelligence that can reduce costs and optimize expenses. As mentioned above, by studying your client’s global image, you may plan further product development.
You can use big data insights to modify business processes based on several variables, which helps cut costs and increase profits.
To get more ideas on product development and to improve your retail SEO, you may:
- Use on-site surveys and then process the answers;
- Analyze the most popular products and pages on your site;
- Examine what users are typing in the internal site search bar;
- Collect user requests from the support team, etc.
Summary
Data-driven marketing and SEO are no longer a gimmick available only to large companies. In fact, every business has a huge stream of data about users, visits, purchases, and so on. Many data sources are completely free, others may seem expensive at first glance, but they are ultimately efficient.
Thanks to the data-driven approach, you no longer need to read between the lines each time you want to launch an advertising campaign or make any SEO changes to your site. Big data clears the way to advanced targeted marketing, proactive customer service, efficiency improvements, etc.
Plus, in perspective, further development of the Internet will inevitably cause even more data exchanges between different services and gadgets. Those who know how to handle this data and take advantage of it will outperform their competitors forever.