Search engine optimization doesn’t work in a vacuum. Experts have to align SEO with all other marketing efforts to improve overall user experience and increase sales. As our day-to-day processes become increasingly more complex, we start struggling with enormous amounts of information we need to analyze.
To solve this problem, businesses started to use data science to their advantage. Modern SaaS are able to extrapolate enormous quantities of data from the web and present them to end-users in a more manageable way. You no longer have to jump from site to site checking competitors’ search engine placements. Instead, you get all the info within a single dashboard.
Although data science doesn’t have a direct impact on SEO, we still rely on it on a daily basis. Companies use this scientific discipline to create software that can help us with links, keyword research, website audits, and numerous other things.
In this article, we talk about the concept of data science and how it affects search engine optimization. Enjoy!
What is data science?
According to one of the definitions, data science is an interdisciplinary field that combines math, statistics, computing, machine learning, and AI to bring valuable insights. A data scientist can help a company extrapolate valuable knowledge that would improve internal processes.
Aside from commercial intent, data science can help improve various aspects of our society. The field is of public importance, and we can use it for just about anything. Some of the most popular data science topics dig into climate impact, traffic improvements, weather forecasting, and so on.
Like other digital marketing strategies, SEO can also benefit from the process. In fact, since the inception of optimization programs, we’ve used data science to assess website performance, research keywords, and, overall, build a better SEO strategy.
Specifically, it allows you to extract valuable information regarding your performance. You can use various SaaS to analyze data on every web page and see how visitors are behaving. Furthermore, a modern tool such as Google Analytics 4 uses machine learning to predict the outcomes of different marketing campaigns.
Relationship between SEO, data science, and SaaS industry
Almost every major marketing SaaS uses data analysis to provide information to end-users.
Aside from SEO, you can also use these platforms for SMM, PPC, email campaigns, affiliate marketing, sales, and finances. Companies such as HubSpot, SalesForce, and MailChimp have become some of the most powerful entities in the business world today.
So, what are the best data-driven tools for an SEO expert?
· Google Analytics
Without a doubt, the present and the future of search engine optimization. This tool provides some crucial insights about the website users and how they behave visiting your site. The new GA4 will have an even better future, helping you predict the outcomes of campaigns and analyzing cross-platform user behavior.
The best thing about GA is that it’s completely free. If you have a new site, we suggest that you create an account as soon as possible and start tracking your performance.
· Google Search Console
While Google Analytics focuses on users, Google Search Console provides insights about our placement within the SERPs. You can use it to check how a page ranks for specific search queries and how our organic traffic has changed over time. Like Google Analytics, Search Console is a free tool made by Google that you should get as soon as possible.
· AhRefs and SEMRush
Industry experts commonly use AhRefs and SEMRush to check their link profiles. These SaaS are perfect for tracking new links coming to your pages, but you can also use them for keyword research. Keep in mind these platforms extrapolate data from Google’s software.
· Screaming Frog
An audit is an important part of search engine optimization. During the process, you’re trying to establish all errors on your site. With Screaming Frog, you can gain data insights regarding broken links, titles, metadata, and indexing. Furthermore, you can integrate the platform with Google Analytics and Google Search Console, making your life that much easier.
· Hootsuite
Although not an SEO SaaS, this platform can do miracles for your optimization. The platform helps track performance on social media and boosts your performance. And while Facebook and Instagram visitors don’t have a direct impact on your search engine placement, they give numerous indirect benefits.
While each one of the top-tier tools is worth your money, you should still be careful when committing to one of them. These digital products tend to be very expensive, and you can easily fall into the trap of overspending.
This is why many brands simply hire an SEO company to perform their optimization. For example, MiroMind spends hundreds of dollars each month for all this software. By hiring us, you can gain professional assistance and avoid spending company resources on numerous SaaS solutions.
6 Benefits of data science for SEO
When creating a marketing campaign, SEO experts have to take numerous things into account. Over time, search engines have become extremely sophisticated, analyzing any minor change to your site. This is why data-driven SaaS has become irreplaceable for your marketing activities.
Aside from tracking a website’s performance, the software can help create valuable content, perform audits, build links, and take other steps to improve your SEO efforts. Here are 6 benefits you can gain from these programs!
Tracking customer behavior
Back in the day, Google placed focused on various metrics that were easy to manipulate. As a result, the top results were often littered with nonsensical content, which is not only low in quality, but also doesn’t answer user intent.
As time went by, the company found ways to implement better indicators. Nowadays, Google heavily relies on user behavior to assess any web page or blog post. The search engine tracks every click and relies on heat maps to understand how people interact with web pages.
So, when analyzing data during an SEO campaign, you need to put emphasis on important metrics like bounce rate and CTR. They are clear indicators of how the target audience perceives content quality. You can use various tools like GA3 and GA4 to assess the website’s user experience.
With data science, we can gain a boatload of valuable data that can help us mold our marketing strategy. By improving website performance and content, you’re not only satisfying the needs of search engines and algorithms. You’re also increasing the conversion site-wide.
Performing competitive analysis
Analyzing your web competitors can be an extremely complex process. In the end, there are dozens and dozens of businesses working in every field. Many websites have hundreds and even thousands of pages that rank for various keywords and have gained numerous links over the years.
We use SaaS to gain data insights about all of these entities. SEO specialists can extract meaningful information by simply accessing Google Search Console or AhRefs. All this information helps us understand how we compare to our competition and whether we can break into a specific market.
Alternatively, you can use data to find hidden patterns and developmental opportunities. By analyzing other companies’ link profiles, you can find blogs that can potentially link to you as well. You can also use a keyword tool to find phrases that are easy to rank.
One of the best ways to make an impact is by focusing on sites that have similar authority as yours. If you already can’t compete with larger brands, then you should find smaller businesses and try to mimic their keywords. If they managed to rank these phrases and gain traffic from them, you might be able to do so as well.
And while you can always visit search results to see your top competitors, the entire process is much easier from within the software’s dashboard. With all these insights, you can create an SEO strategy based on what others are doing, slightly tweaking it for your particular needs.
AI content
AI-generated content is a relatively new topic within the marketing field. As it usually goes, a part of the community is very high on ChatGPT, while others perceive it as something that can harm their Google placements.
Whatever the case may be, it’s another feature that might become an integral part of SEO in the near future. And while this software doesn’t yet know how to build internal links or sell services, it’s only a matter of time until it learns.
You can use these platforms to create content from scratch. Alternatively, you can just use them for basic outlines, assessing word count, and other actions. So, you don’t necessarily have to copy-paste AI-generated text, but the data can still serve you well in improving your articles.
Even if you’re not using ChatGPT, there’s a chance you’re using some other platforms that rely on data science. For example, software such as MarketMuse, Frase.io, and SurferSEO have become popular for content optimization. Grammarly is the top tool for grammar and style checkups, and there is also various plagiarism software that you can find online.
Improving user experience
With the right tools, you can also improve user experience on your site, thus driving more traffic.
Google and other search engines have started penalizing platforms that are struggling with response errors, poor design, and slow loading speed. So, decision-makers started using tools to assess their performance and whether it meets search engines’ standards.
As we’ve already mentioned, Screaming Frog is one of the better SaaS for this particular purpose. It allows you to check things such as broken links and other errors on the site. On top of that, you can also use it to create some important elements, such as sitemaps.
Unlike keyword and link research tools, UX platforms are much more straightforward. This is mostly because they don’t use various data sources for their insights. Instead, they only analyze the things that occur on your site. In other words, there’s virtually no chance for them to make a mistake, providing reliable information to decision-makers.
Link building
Tracking links is extremely tricky. Even if you’re using an Excel spreadsheet to count everything that you’ve done so far, there’s a good chance things will change over time. Often, we get links from people we don’t know, which is why it’s hard to keep track of our performance without tools.
One of the biggest problems brands encounter doesn’t have to do with inbound links but with outbound links. Companies occasionally link to reputable sources as a way of enriching their content. The issue occurs when the destination site removes said article resulting in a broken link. This can severely decrease user experience.
Tracking links can also tell us about bloggers who are reading our content. If someone has linked to you without an outreach, this indicates they like your posts. This can present a new partnership opportunity. Even a short “Thank You” email can go a long way in building relationships within the industry.
Of course, the main reason why we track links is to learn how we stack against competitors. Some of these platforms tell us how many links an article needs to rank among the top results. So, by meeting the quota, you can penetrate the top spots in SERPs.
Outcome predictions
Outcome predictions are a relatively new concept. It’s based on machine learning, where computer systems predict the results of our future marketing campaigns. Outcome prediction is especially important for PPC but might also help us with other types of marketing strategies.
The upcoming Google Analytics 4 will have this feature. Although we don’t know much about it yet, from what we’ve heard, it will focus on Pay-Per-Click. In other words, you can gain a probability breakdown of certain outcomes. This will be a much-needed functionality for PPC marketing agencies.
If you’re looking for data-driven optimization services, contact MiroMind today! Our SEO agency uses the best software and modern methods when optimizing clients’ pages.