SEO
7 Essential Tips & Tricks You Might Not Know
It may not look like one of the fancy, paid SEO tools you’re used to logging into, but Excel remains one of the most versatile and powerful tools in an SEO professional’s toolbox.
You can use Excel to track and analyze key metrics such as rankings, website traffic, and backlinks.
Use it to create and update meta tags, track and analyze competitors’ SEO strategies and performance, build automated reports, and take care of many of the data tasks you’ll encounter every day.
Combine your Excel knowledge with Python, Tableau, R, and other tools, and there is nothing you can’t do.
If you’ve never worked with data before, you’ll find Excel has a bit of a learning curve, but you can use it right from the start. And it’s flexible enough to scale and grow as your site grows.
Why Excel For SEO Tasks?
While many paid tools can help you do the same tasks, Excel is a fantastic option to enhance, combine, or replace those tools.
- It’s affordable and comes with a range of tools you already use.
- There are a ton of resources and courses to help you learn.
- Easily handles large amounts of data.
- Sorting and de-duplicating – a feature often missing when you need it.
- Create and manage databases with simple formulas.
- Data ports easily to other tools and is available for other tasks.
- Pivot tables and smart charts.
1. Combine Multiple Data Sources
You will often find yourself having to merge data from multiple sources.
This is intuitive and quick in Tableau, Python, or R, but you can do the same in Excel using Power Query.
There are a few steps to this process, but it’s not as complicated as you might think – even if you are new to working with data or Excel.
Power Query has automated and simplified tasks that required a lot of time and skill.
And it is probably THE best Excel feature for business and SEO professionals.
Seem a bit daunting? Don’t worry. There are several courses and tutorials on YouTube to get you started.
What It’s Good For:
- Building reports.
- Analytics and sales data.
- Combining data sources to identify opportunities and gain insights.
2. Data Cleaning
Much of your time is lost simply preparing data for analysis. It doesn’t have to be that way.
Large lists are often larger than they need to be. Finding and manually removing all the duplicates, however, can be a serious pain.
Excel can do this instantly for you. Simply go to the “Data” tab and click “Remove Duplicates.”
Unwanted spaces and blank lines tend to cause havoc with many tasks, formulas, and statistics.
Excel will remove them for you simply by going to Edit > Find > Go To. Select “Special,” “Blanks,” and tell Excel how it should handle them.
“Convert text to columns” can be a lifesaver, especially if you’ve received data where the addresses or names are all in the same cell or you need to extract domains from email addresses.
Go to Data > Text to Columns. Then, indicate what to use for Delimiters (comma or space) and preview the results. When you’re ready, click “Next,” choose a destination, and click “Finish.”
When To Use It:
- Data analysis.
- Data processing.
- Processing and cleaning lead databases.
- Working with any data.
3. Power Excel With Add-On Tools
Some of the more complex tasks, such as crawling, require a bit of coding knowledge.
If you don’t have that in your skillset, however, there are tools you can download, integrate with other tools, and add on.
SEOTools offers off and on-page SEO tools, integrations, connectors, spiders, and several other tools that make it easy to customize your Excel and create custom projects.
SEOGadget brings the power of Moz, Grepwords, and Majestic to Excel.
Analysis ToolPak is for serious data analysis. This add-on improves and automates in-depth statistics, perfect for forecasting, trending, regression analysis, and more complex data analysis tasks you might otherwise perform in R or Python.
When To Use It:
- Reporting.
- Regular data analysis.
- Presentations.
- Integrating and coordinating with other teams.
4. Infographics And Charts
Data is useless if you can’t understand it.
In fact, data visualization and storytelling are likely some of the most important skills you can have. This is where tools like Power Query and PivotTables come in.
Built right into Excel, pivot tables are the other valuable tools you have for this purpose.
However, instead of just creating a straight pivot table and a related chart, save yourself some steps by creating a master “template” first that you can then replicate as needed and adjust to suit your needs.
In many instances, however, you will need to work with dates or segments of the data. For that, you’ll want to enter splicers and timelines.
- To splice data into segments: Select the pivot table and go to PivotTable Tools > Analyze > Filter > Insert Slicer. Then, simply input how you would like to segment the content (e.g., by product or topic).
- To utilize timelines: Click the pivot table’s tools option, go to Analyze > Filter > Insert Timeline. Once there, you can choose what you’d like to use, style it, add captions, and more.
If you’ve never used Excel’s PivotTables before, a short tutorial will have you on your way to analyzing data in no time.
Still want a little more? Make your reports, social media, and updates even better by upping your data visualization game with add-ons like People Graph.
When To Use It:
- Reporting.
- Daily updates.
- Surface data analysis.
- Team collaboration and integration.
5. Automate Common Tasks With Macros
SEO, particularly agency SEO, is full of repetitive tasks like weekly reporting that consume much of your time. Excel’s macros are the answer. And they’re really easy to use.
Under the “View” tab, click “Macros” and “Record Macro.”
Fill out the details.
The macro is now recording. So, simply walk through the steps that you’d like to automate. And when you’re done, go back to the ribbon and stop the recording.
When you’re ready to run the automation, go to the macro button in the ribbon, click “View Macros,” and select the desired macro from the list.
If you have some macros that you use more often than others, you can add them to the Quick Access Toolbar.
When To Use It:
- Sorting.
- Calculations.
- Reformatting data.
- Setting up new site documents or new pages for reports.
6. Easily Import Feeds And Data Into Excel
If you use Google Alerts or publish frequently, automatically importing feeds into Excel can be a huge time saver.
To start, simply grab the RSS feed address. (Or, create an alert for Google Alerts and have them delivered as an RSS feed.)
Then, go to Google Sheets and use the IMPORTFEED function to bring the updates straight into a spreadsheet.
Alternatively, you can add the information to separate columns.
From here, you can regularly download and import the data into Excel, combine it with other related data, or integrate it into your custom dashboards.
If you need something a little more automatic, use Google Apps Script or one of the add-ons available to automate the process.
Want a little more data behind your reports? You can scrape and import Google Search Results into Excel, too.
7. Backlink Analysis
To analyze backlinks with Excel, collect backlink data with tools such as Ahrefs, Majestic, or Google Search Console.
Then, import it into Excel and use it to analyze your backlinks in a number of ways:
- Who links to you: Use Excel’s sorting and filtering tools to filter the data and use the IF function: IF(logic, true_value,[false_value]) to sort and identify domains linking to you.
- What do people link to: Sort and filter to see the anchor text used most often for your backlinks (using frequency/count).
- When did people link to you: Organize the data by date to see how old your links are and when most of your backlinks were acquired.
Find trends or patterns in your backlink profiles with pivot tables, groups, charts, and graphs by combining your backlink and sales or conversion data.
Highlight specific data based on certain conditions with conditional formatting. This makes it easy to spot backlinks from high-authority websites or backlinks with specific anchor text.
Summary
Many people overlook Excel either because they think it’s too basic to be of much use. Or it looks too intimidating or daunting to learn.
But those of us who use it understand just how powerful it can be and the unlimited possibilities it provides.
Hopefully, these tips will help you craft better strategies, find new opportunities, and tell your story with better reports and dashboards.
Featured Image: Paulo Bobita/Search Engine Journal
SEO
Google March 2024 Core Update Officially Completed A Week Ago
Google has officially completed its March 2024 Core Update, ending over a month of ranking volatility across the web.
However, Google didn’t confirm the rollout’s conclusion on its data anomaly page until April 26—a whole week after the update was completed on April 19.
Many in the SEO community had been speculating for days about whether the turbulent update had wrapped up.
The delayed transparency exemplifies Google’s communication issues with publishers and the need for clarity during core updates
Google March 2024 Core Update Timeline & Status
First announced on March 5, the core algorithm update is complete as of April 19. It took 45 days to complete.
Unlike more routine core refreshes, Google warned this one was more complex.
Google’s documentation reads:
“As this is a complex update, the rollout may take up to a month. It’s likely there will be more fluctuations in rankings than with a regular core update, as different systems get fully updated and reinforce each other.”
The aftershocks were tangible, with some websites reporting losses of over 60% of their organic search traffic, according to data from industry observers.
The ripple effects also led to the deindexing of hundreds of sites that were allegedly violating Google’s guidelines.
Addressing Manipulation Attempts
In its official guidance, Google highlighted the criteria it looks for when targeting link spam and manipulation attempts:
- Creating “low-value content” purely to garner manipulative links and inflate rankings.
- Links intended to boost sites’ rankings artificially, including manipulative outgoing links.
- The “repurposing” of expired domains with radically different content to game search visibility.
The updated guidelines warn:
“Any links that are intended to manipulate rankings in Google Search results may be considered link spam. This includes any behavior that manipulates links to your site or outgoing links from your site.”
John Mueller, a Search Advocate at Google, responded to the turbulence by advising publishers not to make rash changes while the core update was ongoing.
However, he suggested sites could proactively fix issues like unnatural paid links.
“If you have noticed things that are worth improving on your site, I’d go ahead and get things done. The idea is not to make changes just for search engines, right? Your users will be happy if you can make things better even if search engines haven’t updated their view of your site yet.”
Emphasizing Quality Over Links
The core update made notable changes to how Google ranks websites.
Most significantly, Google reduced the importance of links in determining a website’s ranking.
In contrast to the description of links as “an important factor in determining relevancy,” Google’s updated spam policies stripped away the “important” designation, simply calling links “a factor.”
This change aligns with Google’s Gary Illyes’ statements that links aren’t among the top three most influential ranking signals.
Instead, Google is giving more weight to quality, credibility, and substantive content.
Consequently, long-running campaigns favoring low-quality link acquisition and keyword optimizations have been demoted.
With the update complete, SEOs and publishers are left to audit their strategies and websites to ensure alignment with Google’s new perspective on ranking.
Core Update Feedback
Google has opened a ranking feedback form related to this core update.
You can use this form until May 31 to provide feedback to Google’s Search team about any issues noticed after the core update.
While the feedback provided won’t be used to make changes for specific queries or websites, Google says it may help inform general improvements to its search ranking systems for future updates.
Google also updated its help documentation on “Debugging drops in Google Search traffic” to help people understand ranking changes after a core update.
Featured Image: Rohit-Tripathi/Shutterstock
FAQ
After the update, what steps should websites take to align with Google’s new ranking criteria?
After Google’s March 2024 Core Update, websites should:
- Improve the quality, trustworthiness, and depth of their website content.
- Stop heavily focusing on getting as many links as possible and prioritize relevant, high-quality links instead.
- Fix any shady or spam-like SEO tactics on their sites.
- Carefully review their SEO strategies to ensure they follow Google’s new guidelines.
SEO
Google Declares It The “Gemini Era” As Revenue Grows 15%
Alphabet Inc., Google’s parent company, announced its first quarter 2024 financial results today.
While Google reported double-digit growth in key revenue areas, the focus was on its AI developments, dubbed the “Gemini era” by CEO Sundar Pichai.
The Numbers: 15% Revenue Growth, Operating Margins Expand
Alphabet reported Q1 revenues of $80.5 billion, a 15% increase year-over-year, exceeding Wall Street’s projections.
Net income was $23.7 billion, with diluted earnings per share of $1.89. Operating margins expanded to 32%, up from 25% in the prior year.
Ruth Porat, Alphabet’s President and CFO, stated:
“Our strong financial results reflect revenue strength across the company and ongoing efforts to durably reengineer our cost base.”
Google’s core advertising units, such as Search and YouTube, drove growth. Google advertising revenues hit $61.7 billion for the quarter.
The Cloud division also maintained momentum, with revenues of $9.6 billion, up 28% year-over-year.
Pichai highlighted that YouTube and Cloud are expected to exit 2024 at a combined $100 billion annual revenue run rate.
Generative AI Integration in Search
Google experimented with AI-powered features in Search Labs before recently introducing AI overviews into the main search results page.
Regarding the gradual rollout, Pichai states:
“We are being measured in how we do this, focusing on areas where gen AI can improve the Search experience, while also prioritizing traffic to websites and merchants.”
Pichai reports that Google’s generative AI features have answered over a billion queries already:
“We’ve already served billions of queries with our generative AI features. It’s enabling people to access new information, to ask questions in new ways, and to ask more complex questions.”
Google reports increased Search usage and user satisfaction among those interacting with the new AI overview results.
The company also highlighted its “Circle to Search” feature on Android, which allows users to circle objects on their screen or in videos to get instant AI-powered answers via Google Lens.
Reorganizing For The “Gemini Era”
As part of the AI roadmap, Alphabet is consolidating all teams building AI models under the Google DeepMind umbrella.
Pichai revealed that, through hardware and software improvements, the company has reduced machine costs associated with its generative AI search results by 80% over the past year.
He states:
“Our data centers are some of the most high-performing, secure, reliable and efficient in the world. We’ve developed new AI models and algorithms that are more than one hundred times more efficient than they were 18 months ago.
How Will Google Make Money With AI?
Alphabet sees opportunities to monetize AI through its advertising products, Cloud offerings, and subscription services.
Google is integrating Gemini into ad products like Performance Max. The company’s Cloud division is bringing “the best of Google AI” to enterprise customers worldwide.
Google One, the company’s subscription service, surpassed 100 million paid subscribers in Q1 and introduced a new premium plan featuring advanced generative AI capabilities powered by Gemini models.
Future Outlook
Pichai outlined six key advantages positioning Alphabet to lead the “next wave of AI innovation”:
- Research leadership in AI breakthroughs like the multimodal Gemini model
- Robust AI infrastructure and custom TPU chips
- Integrating generative AI into Search to enhance the user experience
- A global product footprint reaching billions
- Streamlined teams and improved execution velocity
- Multiple revenue streams to monetize AI through advertising and cloud
With upcoming events like Google I/O and Google Marketing Live, the company is expected to share further updates on its AI initiatives and product roadmap.
Featured Image: Sergei Elagin/Shutterstock
SEO
brightonSEO Live Blog
Hello everyone. It’s April again, so I’m back in Brighton for another two days of Being the introvert I am, my idea of fun isn’t hanging around our booth all day explaining we’ve run out of t-shirts (seriously, you need to be fast if you want swag!). So I decided to do something useful and live-blog the event instead.
Follow below for talk takeaways and (very) mildly humorous commentary. sun, sea, and SEO!
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