There are lots of hot topics in the SEO
industry at the moment, from voice search to machine-based learning – and these
are all topics that we will cover in the coming months. However, we’d like to
start by looking more closely at data driven development, and the impact it has
had on SEO so far, and what the future may hold.
Data is everywhere these days, and some
people may say we are almost at a point of complete information overload. As
search marketers we can look on this huge amount of information as either a
blessing or a curse – after all, how much data is too much? We could spend days
and days sifting through all of the data available to us – but will add any
benefit to our clients at the end of the day?
We take SEO seriously, it is our job after
all, and so it is important for us to track our efforts to see what is working
and what isn’t, but you have to draw a line somewhere. You can’t track everything
just for the sake of it, as you will end up with more data than you know what
to do with. Instead we should all focus on tracking the things that are
important to our clients.
Is Information Knowledge?
There is a lot of confusion within the SEO world
about the definitions of information and knowledge it seems, with many people
believing they are one and the same – but they are not. Just because we are
uncovering more and more information through what we are tracking, this does
not mean that we are also uncovering more knowledge at the same time. We are
encouraged every day to spend money on tools for analytics or tools for data
discovery, but are these tools worth it – and will they increase our knowledge
in the end? The answer is probably no for the majority of them.
At Dale Street Digital we break it down
like this:
Knowledge is what we achieve
when we have broken down the available data to give us a clear and thorough
understanding as to what is happening on our client projects
Information, on the other hand,
is just the data that we get from analysing these projects – the raw facts if
you will.
What Information can data give us?
Target Demographic. The more
information you can get on your target audience the better as this will allow
you to tailor your products and services to them. You should look at things
like device usage and peal traffic times.
Keyword Research. Data can also
help with keyword and competitor research as well
What impact has data development had on
SEO?
As a team of search professionals, our main
aim is to increase the visibility of our clients brand or website through the
use of organic and paid search, and to therefore increase the number of
customers that they have the opportunity to engage with. The actual nitty gritty
of how we do this can be very complicated, after all Google itself takes over
200 things into account with its SERP algorithms. Add to this a ton of complex
information in the form of data, and we could easily end up getting tangled up
in ourselves and failing on our number one aim.
That is not to say that we are advocating
that we ignore data. It is extremely useful to us, as long as we stay focused
on the important pieces of information that we need to know and keep our client
projects goal in mind. Every client campaign is as different as the businesses
they involve, and so each campaign will have different metrics we need to track
and different information created that we need to analyse. By focusing clearly
on each projects goal, we will be able to manage the amount of data that we
consume and keep on track with the work that we need to do to make the clients
project a success.
Data development in this digital age is
amazing, and has given us access to the sort of analytics that can really help
us to streamline our campaigns and keep them right on track, but we need to be
careful not to be overwhelmed by it all. We can do this by sticking to the old
adage: ‘quality not quantity’ and by using data on a ‘need to know’ basis and
not a ‘nice to know’ basis. At the end of the day, this is what is going to
help us to drive results.
