Boost your marketing strategy with the right SEO data
Grappling the Google SEO beast takes time and effort, I know.
Once we’ve started our journey we need to check our progress and build on our success.
Measuring progress means we usually check loads of data and all the data lives in different places.
You know, the kind where you have 25 tabs open and your computer is starting to ooze smoke.
Then we have to spend ages trying to make sense of it all.
Before we know it, we’re down the SEO data rabbit hole. Or if you’re like me, you give up and go and fiddle with Instagram instead.
So imagine if there was a tool that could pull all your relevant SEO data into one place.
A tool that allowed you to see all the information you need to know quickly and easily.
You’d finally have the SEO superpowers you need to make useful, strategic decisions about your marketing efforts.
Well, that tool exists and today we are talking about it.
Get ready!
Tune in to learn:
- Why SEO data is important to your business
- Which core metrics you should be looking at
- Which SEO tools will give you the data you need
- How to create a strategic Google Search Console SEO report
- How Supermetrics can save you time, make better business decisions so you can focus on the right stuff
- How to set up with Supermetrics, and what kind of reports it delivers
- How useful running Google Ads alongside your SEO strategy is
- Anna’s tip for analysing your SEO data and making good marketing decisions
Listen to the podcast
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With Supermetrics, you can:
📈 Pull all the SEO data you need into a single report — whether it’s Google Sheets, Excel, or Google Data Studio
📈 Automate keyword research, content audits, and more
📈 Set triggered email alerts to stay informed when a keyword’s position changes
Start your free 14-day Supermetrics trial.
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If you like what you’re hearing on The Recipe for SEO Success Show, support the show by taking a few seconds to leave a rating and/or comment on iTunes, SoundCloud, Spotify, or Stitcher. Thanks!
And big thanks to MorryMorgan from Australia for their lovely review:
“Humour + Lessons.
Love the humorous and casual way Kate discusses SEO while sharing valuable lessons in what can be a very dry topic”.
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About Anna Shutko
Currently, she runs connector product marketing at Supermetrics, overseeing the launches of new products and connectors
She is also a host of The Marketing Analytics Show, where she catches up with marketers and analysts to learn how they’re using data to make better marketing decisions.
Interesting fact: Anna is Finnish-Russian, but her Russian parents didn’t give her a middle name. So she got an honorary middle name from her team at Supermetrics, which is Mikaela, and the CEO’s name is Mikael.
Connect with Anna
Useful Resources
- Google Search Console
- Bing Webmaster Tools
- Ahrefs
- SEMrush
- Supermetrics Templates
- Google Sheets Templates
- Data Studio Dashboard Templates
- Google Search Console Analysis Template
- Supermetrics Support
- Technical SEO audit blog
- Organic keywords Template
- Marketing Analytics Show
Supermetrics Demo: While we are unable to include the exact demo Kate promised in the show, you can check out the Supermetrics YouTube channel for all kinds of useful tutorials on getting started with Supermetrics.
Transcript
Kate Toon:
This episode of the Recipe for SEO Success is proudly supported by Supermetrics.
Building an SEO report from scratch takes hours of manual work. A large chunk of that time goes to copy/pasting data from Google Analytics, Google Search Console, and SEMrush.
Supermetrics helps you automate the boring part of SEO reporting and focus on what matters: analyzing the number, optimizing your performance, and coming up with new ideas.
You can start your free 14-day Supermetrics trial at Supermetrics.
Kate Toon:
Grappling the Google SEO beast takes time and effort, I know. Once we’ve started our journey, we need to check our progress and build on our success. Measuring progress means we usually check loads of data, and all the data lives in different places. You know the feeling when you have 25 tabs open and your computer is starting to ooze smoke, and so is your brain. Then we have to spend ages trying to make sense of it all, before we know it we’re down the SEO rabbit hole, or if you’re like me, you give up on it all and go and fiddle with Instagram instead.
Kate Toon:
So imagine if there was a tool that could put all your relevant SEO data in one place. A tool that allowed you to see all the information you need to know quickly and easily. You’d finally have the SEO superpowers you need to make useful strategic decisions about your marketing efforts, or for your clients. Well, that tool exists, and today we’re going to talk about it, get ready.
Kate Toon:
Hello. My name is Kate Toon, and I’m the head chef at The Recipe for SEO Success, an online teaching hub for all things related to search engine optimization, and digital marketing. And today I am speaking to the lovely Anna. Hello Anna, and welcome to the show.
Anna Shutko:
Hi, I’m so happy to be here.
Kate Toon:
And it’s a very early there for you, isn’t it? Well, quite early.
Anna Shutko:
Quite early, yeah.
Kate Toon:
So you’re based in Helsinki, am I right?
Anna Shutko:
Yes, you’re correct. And the weather there is absolutely fabulous.
Kate Toon:
Is it?
Anna Shutko:
I’m so happy. We finally have a warm summer, which is-
Kate Toon:
What does warm mean?
Anna Shutko:
-super cold for us.
Kate Toon:
What does warm mean? It’s like seven degrees? What is it? Come on.
Anna Shutko:
It’s plus 19 degrees Celsius, I’m not sure what’s in Fahrenheit.
Kate Toon:
We don’t do Fahrenheit. That’s just for the Americans. Sorry, Americans. They’re all right. I’m in Australia obviously, so we have that every day Anna. Not to make you jealous, but-
Anna Shutko:
I’m a bit jealous, but okay.
Kate Toon:
You’re welcome to visit anytime. Well, I’m going to awkwardly read out Anna’s bio while she sits there. It’s always an awkward moment. Anna is a product and marketing professional, specialising in tech, SaaS, and startup growth. Currently she runs the connector product marketing at Supermetrics, overseeing the launches of new products and connectors. She’s also the host of the Marketing Analytics Show, where she catches up with marketers and analysts to learn how they’re using data to make better marketing decisions. Interesting fact, here we go. Anna is Finnish, Russian. I can’t even say it, but her Russian parents didn’t give her a middle name. So she got an honouree middle name from the team at Supermetrics, which is McKayla. And the CEO’s name is McKayla. That’s really cute.
Anna Shutko:
I know. I’m so proud of my honouree middle name and thank you for the awesome bio reading right there.
Kate Toon:
Now, can you speak Russian as well?
Anna Shutko:
Yeah, I do. I speak Russian, Finnish, English.
Kate Toon:
I’m going to practise my Russian. This is the only Russian I know, which I thought would be very handy.
Anna Shutko:
Oh my God.
Kate Toon:
Here we go.
Anna Shutko:
Go ahead.
Kate Toon:
I’m going to say [foreign language 00:03:37], which I think is I love you.
Anna Shutko:
Oh my God, yes, it’s right.
Kate Toon:
Was I good?
Anna Shutko:
It was okay.
Kate Toon:
Would I be understood if I went up to a Russian person and said [foreign language 00:03:49].
Anna Shutko:
I think so.
Kate Toon:
How do you say it properly Anna?
Anna Shutko:
Я люблю вас.
Kate Toon:
Я люблю вас.
Anna Shutko:
Yeah. You would have understood.
Kate Toon:
Cool. I think love is a language that needs no words.
Anna Shutko:
Exactly.
Kate Toon:
But anyway, we’re not talking about love today. We’re talking about data. And I’m going to be perfectly honest with you. Data is one of my least favourite things.
Anna Shutko:
No way.
Kate Toon:
It is. Before I start with the first question and I have to tell you that I am not a fan of data. The last couple of days I’ve been working on a keyword research report and I got lost in the data. I was pulling out reports from SEMrush, adding them to Excel, trying to get my Google stuff in. And I find it really overwhelming, and I know a lot of people do. And so what they often do is just ignore the data, and make decisions based on how they feel that day. So I know you love data. You’ve got a whole Podcast about how people use data. Can you explain to the audience why SEO data is important both for the humans marketing their business, and to Google?
Anna Shutko:
So data is super important in terms of SEO analysis, because right now in 2021, it cannot be a guessing game anymore. So you have to have accurate data, and the data has to be granular enough so you learn how to analyse it to come up with relevant strategy for your SEO. That means analysing keywords like you tried maybe with SEO tools like SEMrush, Ahrefs, many others. So analysing keywords, SERP positions, all these queries, traffic, how many clicks, how many impressions there are, and many other things I’m going to talk about.
Kate Toon:
So you covered off a few of them there. The next thing I was going to ask you is, if you could maybe think of two or three or four or five core metrics, because obviously there’s vast amounts of data. So if someone was approaching this and they were brand new to looking at data, what would be three or four metrics that you would say were the most important out of all of them?
Anna Shutko:
Sure. So there are many areas of SEO, as you can imagine, it’s not just one big SEO thing. So to make it easier for your audience, you would subdivide it into three groups. So one would be content keywords rankings. So these would be metrics like search engine result page position of a particular page, keyword cost, keyword difficulty and how these keyword are related to your landing pages. Are these longtail keywords, are they short tail keywords, all of these data.
Anna Shutko:
Then there is link building, which is a very, very important thing. And this can be internal link building. So how your pages and your articles are related to each other, how they’re connected, and external link building. So how well your website ranks and what are the components of it? So how many links are from good quality higher domain rank website you have on your pages.
Anna Shutko:
Then there is anchor texts. So what these links exactly are? Which keywords you’re linking to? And then of course all these metrics that use white pages authority, domain authority, all the authority metrics, which can actually be different from tool to tool, but you get the idea. Then there is more difficult, more challenging technical side SEO reporting and that includes metadata optimisation, and more, maybe advanced research. And metrics tracking such as HTTP status codes, for example, if your link is broken, it will give you 404, so is it 405, et cetera, error codes, redirects and they’re many other metrics to check how well every single page is working. If something needs a redirect, or is a link broken, so all these metrics.
Kate Toon:
Wow, that was a long list. I’m going to go back to the first part of it because we’re talking a little bit more today about keywords optimization. So you mentioned some of the core metrics there, as you mentioned SERP position, keyword difficulty, obviously the volume that keyword gets, the click through rate potential is obviously a really good one there. And then obviously you brought in as well, domain authority sometimes called the authority score. If you’re using SEMrush, they will have a different name for it, which helps gives a good indication of, even if that keyword has all the attributes that you want, who are you playing against? Who you are up against? And what’s their authority? And if they’re very far ahead of you, have you really got a chance.
Kate Toon:
Now, all that data, that’s a lot to take in. If we try and keep it more in the realm of keywords today, which tools do you like to use to access data? Which tools do you recommend? We don’t need to spruik the tools, they’re not getting free advertising, but what are some of the tools that you like to use to gather data?
Anna Shutko:
Sure. So my favourite tool here would be obviously Google Search Console, because who doesn’t run marketing on Google? So I would use Google Search Console to track volumes of traffic to particular pages, or to the website in general. I would not maybe focus on these metrics. I would use them as indicators, but I would not obsess over bringing a particular number of users to a certain web page. Just to see how many people are there, and if there is a drop then trying to figure out whether the algorithm has changed, or maybe there is some internal factor affecting that. So this should be a health score metric so to say, but like I said, I wouldn’t obsess over it. Same applies to if you’re running marketing on Bing. So any webmaster tool, depending on the search engine. Then like you previously mentioned, there would be tools like Ahrefs, SEMrush.
Anna Shutko:
Ahrefs is great for link-building. Many marketers told me that historically they’ve built their database for people who are doing more of link building, and like mentioned this would include keyword difficulty, all the different rankings, all the different backlinks, which website has which back links? How many backlinks our competitors are getting? All that information. So basically I would use this for backlink strategy, planning, and competitor analysis. Because they provide very good backlinks the competitors are getting.
Anna Shutko:
And then there is SEMrush, which has a very, very good keyword database. So if you want to, for example, write a new blog post and you want to figure out what people are looking for. What is their search intent? How are they phrasing it? And I would use SEMrush because they have a lot of varied keyword data. And then again, I would check such things as keyword difficulty, whether it’s long or short tail keyword, page score, so all these metrics in general. Then when it comes to report building, I would use either a spreadsheet like you made a mention you did, or a data visualisation tool. But that also depends on your user case, who you’re building this report for.
Kate Toon:
Keyword research, content audits, and gap analysis are important for SEO success, but they’re boring and time-consuming as hell. Doing the same steps over and over again is not fun at all.
That’s why I love Supermetrics. With Supermetrics, I can easily pull data from Google Analytics and SEMrush to Google Sheets for content auditing. Once I have all the data in one place, it’s easy to see which posts I should update or remove.
Here’s the best part: I just need to build the report once, and Supermetrics will update all my data automatically — an absolute lifesaver.
And we’ve got a special prize for you! — a Google Search Console reporting template for Google Data Studio. This template will help you analyse your website’s search queries, most popular landing pages and branded vs. non-branded keywords performance. So grab it for free at Supermetrics.
Kate Toon:
Fantastic. So the big three, they’re Google Search Console or Bing Webmaster Tools. If you’re a Bing human, I’m sure you’d have heard some of them out there. There’s a lot of great data we can get out of Google Search Console. But I love what said there about using it as indicators for trends, and not getting too fixated about my rankings gone up one or two, or gone down one. This is going to shift and change.
Kate Toon:
And like you said, I agree Ahrefs sponsored the Podcast long ago, thank you, Ahrefs. And they grew out of definitely a link-building background. Obviously they have comprehensive keyword tools now. SEMrush grew out of keywords and they have links in there now. But I think it’s great, if you could afford to, to have all the tools. But then often what we end up with, with all these tools is too much data. So let’s cut to the chase. You work for Supermetrics who are very kindly sponsoring the Podcast. We’re going to be talking a lot more about Supermetrics over the coming weeks. Give me a simple rundown. What is it? And what does it do?
Anna Shutko:
Sure. So Supermetrics is a data pipeline if you will. So we help transfer data from a variety of different data sources, maybe Google Search Console, your Ahrefs or SEMrush. And then all the different other marketing platforms such as Facebook ads, Google ads, LinkedIn ads, HubSpot, literally you name it, to data destinations, or tools, or platforms where marketers can build reports, analyse their data. So these could be Google sheets, Google data studio if we’re talking about Google, Microsoft Excel, databases, data warehouses, and many other tools where you can store your data.
Anna Shutko:
So the benefit of Supermetrics is that you don’t have to worry about refreshing the reports. Once you’ve built it, you can set up automatic refreshes, so the data flows in and you would only have to focus on the analysis for it. And you can combine data from a variety of different sources, and I’m also going to talk more about this later. So once you’ve built your SEO dashboard, you can also add your PPC data there and get a more holistic overview of how your channels are performing together. And in addition, it’s not just confined to marketing. So we have a Shopify connector. So if you’re running an e-commerce business, you can also get your purchases, orders, renewals, and all that data, and combine this with marketing data to see how that affects our bottom line. So that’s a bit about Supermetrics in a nutshell.
Kate Toon:
I’ve so much I want to dig into there. I think you’ve mentioned the two core things. One, that it combines data. So you’re not having to go through that horror of downloading… You have to set it up, and we’re going to talk about set up in a minute. But then I love the fact that you said that it continues to create those reports, so it’s automatically populating. That’s a bit life-changing. And just to recap there, so it works with Excel, it works with Google sheets as well, and it works with Google data studio. I noticed on the site there’s a few other ones that I’ve not even heard of like Snowflake. I don’t even know what Snowflake is, I feel very out of it.
Kate Toon:
And in terms of who it’s for, we talk about small, medium businesses, enterprise, e-commerce agency, so it’s for everybody. It sounds, I’m going to be perfectly honest with you, it sounds pretty geeky. And it sounds like it’s going to be hard to get started. So tell me what the first steps are with Supermetrics setup. We’ve got a code that we’re going to repeatedly mentioning in the ads, you’re going to hear it again and again. I’ve gone there. I’ve downloaded the thing. What are the first few things I can do to start using Supermetrics?
Anna Shutko:
Sure. So I think everybody just freaks out when they hear the word data, and when they hear the word, analysis, exactly. But I have to say that this is an absolutely useless fear, so it doesn’t exist really. And Supermetrics makes it really easy to pull data. I started with the company something like four years ago, and when I first opened the sidebar of our Google sheets tool, I was shocked myself. I remember I was shocked how easy it was to pull data from anywhere and build a report. I have no technical background at all whatsoever. So for any marketer, for any analyst, it should be super easy UI wise. What should you start with? That’s a very good question. I would recommend starting with either a Google sheet, because who doesn’t know Google sheet? Or Excel, if you prefer Excel, they work in a more or less similar fashion, or then a Google data studio.
Anna Shutko:
Google data studio for those of you who do not know, is a free dashboarding tool from Google. So it helps you build reports on the fly. You can just connect to different data sources, and build different graphs, charts, et cetera, and share this report or this dashboard as if you would have shared a spreadsheet, so super easy. So like I said, either start with Google sheets or data studio, depending on what you want to build. So for Google sheets, super easy to get started. Just go to Supermetrics. You will find a button there, start your free trial, and then it will take you to spreadsheets. So basically you will download the add-on. It’s an add-on. Super easy to install, super easy to open. What you will see in your spreadsheet, on the right there would be a sidebar. And from there you can pick a data source.
Anna Shutko:
So where you want to get data from, for example, Ahrefs. You would then pick what time span you want to get data from? So, for example, last month. So from the first until the end of the month. Then you would pick metrics, for example, I want to get keyword difficulty, or I don’t know, domain authority score, or anything you pick. And then you have an option to split it by dimensions, for example, specific pages you want to get data for. And then at the very end, you have a selection of options, for example, you can choose how you display data, whether you want to use headers or not and all that stuff. And then you click your data and then data populates your reports. So magic happens, and it’s super easy.
Kate Toon:
It is pretty magical. And even if that sounds complicated, what I also love, and I do love this, is that in the template gallery, I’m a Google sheets person, I’m an Excel person. All these reports are already made. So there’s one, for example, for channel mix reporting, there’s one for e-commerce performance. Facebook ads, monthly reporting template, Google ads tracker. There’s millions of ones, all with really cool, all those pie charts, and those wiggly charts that really impress clients. All those heat map, there’s a heat map analysis one. And the great thing about those templates, they’re pre-made, is it shows you the data sources you can pull in. I didn’t realise until we just talked now, you can also pull in Twitter as well, which is great. From an SEO point of view, there’s already an organic traffic and keywords template.
Kate Toon:
There’s an SEM and SEO data comparison template, SEO content audit template. You’re putting me out of business here, because I’m big into templates and they’re already there. And as you said, there’s one’s for Excel and data studio as well. So I’m going to give you a couple of scenarios, Anna. So say I am an e-commerce store, and I’ve got Shopify and I’ve got my Google analytics. What report could I pull together that would give me useful information about maybe deciding, I’ve got all these products, which ones am I going to optimise first? I’ve never optimised anything. I’ve never really thought about keywords. Could I generate a report that’s going to help me highlight which products are best optimised? Or something like that. How could an e-commerce person use this tool?
Anna Shutko:
Definitely. So like you said, imagine you have an e-commerce store and you have a page for every product, and on this page, you have certain content about this product, so this content also includes keywords. And here you would want to analyse two things. So you wouldn’t want to analyse obviously your SEO efforts, so how many clicks are we getting from SEO? What is your position? And SERPs, so how well people are discovering your products. Does it match the search intent? So if people are looking for period underwear, can you also put all these relevant phrases in search queries on your page so that it ranks well? And then if you’re running ads on Google ads, for example, then you would want to analyse your keywords, but in paid search ads. So again, for example, how well are my ads performing? And how well it’s converting?
Anna Shutko:
So how many clicks am I getting from these ads? And how many people are then buy the clothes that I sell? So another thing is that in addition to this bottom line revenue part, which will be coming from Shopify, so their sales, orders, et cetera, you can also analyse PPC data together with SEO data, with the help of Supermetrics. So for example, you can pull in data from like I said, Google ads, combine it with the data from search console, to answer questions like, what are the best converting search phrases through Google ads, for which we don’t currently get enough clicks from organic search? Or for example, do we have a significant organic traffic portion for some phrases, and we don’t really target them with PPC or . What is the ratio of clicks between PPC, SEO for any given search phrase? So all the things like this. You wouldn’t want to track clicks, CTR, cost, rankings, and conversions for paid and organic keywords to see what performs well, and in which scenarios. And then you would want to combine them with different pages, and then the product mentioned on these pages.
Anna Shutko:
We also have a template for this. So if it feels like no, too complicated, you can go to Google sheets template gallery that we have, and just search for SEM and SEO comparison data template by OIKIO and you will get a Google sheets template that you can basically activate within a few clicks. And then we offer a 14-day free trial, so you can do that absolutely for free. And then you’ll see how well your content performs, how well it features the search phrases people are looking for.
Kate Toon:
I would highly recommend if you are new to data analysis, or even if you’re just new to Supermetrics, so you do start off with one of the existing templates. It just gets you, you hit the ground running. And then once you played with one of those existing templates for a while, you can then maybe start building out your own, or converting them. I’ll include a link to those particular templates there. Also on the website, there’s lots of other great assets, there’s documentation that explains everything. There is a support portal, and there’s webinars as well to help you. But I’m going to say though, if you’re listening to this by the time this Podcast comes out, if you head to the I Love SEO group, you’ll see a tutorial from me on how to set up your most basic template.
Kate Toon:
My focus, my first one that I’m going to fiddle with, or the first one I have been fiddling with is all around SEO keywords, because that’s my biggest challenge at the moment, putting those reports together. And as you said, the beauty that it just updates itself. And I don’t have to keep on downloading Excel files, and it’s going to be amazing. So I’m really excited. So we’ll get to the nitty gritty. This is a sponsored episode. We’re allowed to talk about these things. How much does it cost? Obviously everyone gets their 14 free trial with using the URL, which was mentioned at the beginning of the episode, in the middle, and at the end, and is also in the show notes. How much does it cost ongoing? And how does the subscription work? Are we tied into it for the rest of our lives? How does it work?
Anna Shutko:
Sure. So just like Kate mentioned, there are many different products, so obviously each of these products has its own pricing. We have data warehousing solutions, which would be on the more expensive side. And then we have GS, Google data studio, Google sheets and all these tools, which are of course cheaper. So we have our data studio connector appliance starting at around $50. So that really depends on the number of accounts you have for data source, and then the number of data sources. So obviously if you have 50, the pricing there is going to be very different from if you have, for example, one data source and then five accounts. And that makes it super easy and logical, because then you don’t have to pay extra. If you’re not using some data sources, you didn’t have to pay for them. You only pay for the data sources you actually are using, and you can pick. It’s really pick and choose. Very customizable plans. And of course, if you need assistance, or if you want anything customizable on top of that, support, anything you wish, feel free to contact our sales, we’re super happy to assist you.
Anna Shutko:
I would say that for the price you pay, you get a lot of value because you can forget about reporting hassles altogether for the rest of your life, guaranteed. Data sources update their APIs very frequently, so there are always new metrics dimensions and all the other things you have to implement. Just to give you a ballpark number, building a data source that pulls data from scratch costs about $10,000 building and maintaining it. So like I said, for the price you pay, you get a lot of value because you don’t have to worry about any updates for any data sources at all. You just connect, pull data, it’s super intuitive, and you can get answers to any of the questions about any advertising or issue you have very quickly. So that’s a bit about the pricing, and then we have regular SaaS pricing. So no surprises there really.
Kate Toon:
So I’m looking at the one that I think would be most suited to me, which is the Google sheets one, which you can have one to eight data sources, one to 20 accounts, one to three users, 3000 queries a day, and daily, weekly, and monthly scheduling. You can also get scheduled emails sent to you with the reports popped in them as well. And then it seems, just to be clear, because it’s an unusual way of pricing and I get why you do it. But, for example, I’ve selected that one, and I set up my selected data sources are going to be Google analytics and SEMrush analytics. And it puts those together, and there’s one user and it gives me a monthly price and then I can get an annual price as well.
Kate Toon:
So the more accounts I add, like if I go in, and I say I also want to add in Facebook ads or Instagram insights. I want to add in everything, Ahrefs, the price is going to go up. So the more things you integrate, the more it costs. Do you think there is a role for Supermetrics for small businesses? Or do you feel that it does lend itself more to agencies? Looking at the one that I put together, it’s about a hundred and something dollars a month, which I guess the point is, that is nothing if you get the insights that you need to make really strategic decisions about your site, rather than just flying blind, which most people are. They go into Google Search Console, they go into Google analytics, they look at the data, they nod a bit, and then they do nothing at all. So I think is there education on the Supermetrics site about how to interpret the results, and take it to the next level as well?
Anna Shutko:
Definitely. We always try to educate marketers about all things, data analytics and show them how they can do it in a very easy and intuitive way. So first of all, there is a whole Podcast that I host called Marketing Analytics Show, which is marketing analytics, and the only thing we talk about there really is marketing analytics. So it’s 30 minutes. Each episode is 30 minutes. And I really prefer getting to the point very quickly. So we have experts on the show who provide very detailed answers on how the data from each data source should be analysed. So if you’re an audio learner, I suggest you check out the Podcast. If you are more of a visual learner, no problem at all. We have a fantastic blog and we show how to analyse data with examples, dashboards, templates. So you can learn a lot from there. And we really cover a variety of topics. So not just Google sheets, not just data studio, but also more of databases, data warehouses, so more advanced content is present there as well.
Anna Shutko:
We have our template gallery and I suggest you check it out because you can also learn a lot from how the templates are built. If you’re struggling you can check what metrics they feature there. And in addition we have lots of useful resources, so go to Supermetrics, check out the resources tab, depending on what you like. We have a pool support portal. If you have more detailed how to question, how to connect a specific data source? How can I get a certain query work?
Kate Toon:
There’s a lot there.
Anna Shutko:
We provide a lot of useful learning to this.
Kate Toon:
I think that one that really stood out to me, which is quite recent is, there’s one called the house performance technical SEO audit, and ramp up your content strategy, intense that with an audit presentation template. So it’s a 16 minute read, and probably would take you probably an hour to run through all the steps that it recommends, once you put it together. That would be a great starting point for anybody listening today. But there’s heaps. There’s ones about using it to set up your Facebook ad campaigns. There’s ones to look at your affiliate marketing. Lots of different stuff there. I think you’re spoiled for choice in terms of resources.
Kate Toon:
And I think that’s the thing as well. Often when you get a new tool, it can be a bit overwhelming. So in the show notes for this episode, I’m going to give you my recommendations for the templates to start with, the blogs to start with. And I’ll also include a little video of me demoing how I you use the product. And believe me, if I can use the product, you can use the products. Because, I’m the least mathsy human I know, and I don’t like data. So if Supermetrics can make me like data, it’s done a good job. We’ve talked about all the different things that it can do. We talked about the subscription. We’ve talked about analysing SEO and SEM, generating templates, really getting key insights. I guess, putting all that aside. Imagine we’ve done all the data. You’re the data queen. You’ve got a whole Podcast about it. If you had a number one tip for listeners hoping to analyse SEO data, and make better marketing decisions, what would be your tip Anna?
Anna Shutko:
My number one tip would be analyse SEO data in context. So think about it in a very strategic way. If you’re building a content strategy, think how SEO could support that. If you want work more on the paid marketing side, you should consider which queries you could get from SEO popular searches to put some dollars behind it to ramp it up from the paid marketing perspective. So always try to focus on, like I said, context, analysing data from many different perspectives. And don’t be afraid of data. Use it as a leading indicator. Don’t let it control you. So don’t be overwhelmed by, all my God, what does this metric tell me? You can form a hypothesis, check it, use the data as your helper. Check it with data and then follow it. If it fails, you will at least know. If it doesn’t, great. You can continue it. So this would be maybe the number one tip I would give. Use some context and don’t be afraid of data.
Kate Toon:
I love that. And I think what you also said there, which was really amazing was form a hypothesis. Go to your data with a problem in mind, or a problem you want to solve. Don’t just go to the data and just look at it. So maybe go to it and really… Well the problem is, I really want to know which products in my shop are performing the best and why? I really want to know which SEM keywords I’m paying for, that I don’t need to be paying for anymore because I’m doing amazingly with SEO, and I don’t want to double pay. Go with the problem, and then the data will give you the solution. And if you just go and randomly look at it, you’re not going to come away with anything. And I think what’s great about those templates is it really does make some key metrics really pop out, and then you go, Oh my God, I never realised, because there’s some pie chart that shows that you’re getting 2% this, and 98% this. You’re like, Oh my God, I never realised that.
Kate Toon:
And so I think that’s the value of it as well. The fact that it’s not just endless spreadsheets with figures in. It is the pie charts and the graphs that actually make that more meaningful for normal humans who get data blindness. I think that’s an actual medical issue, data blindness I’m going to say that it is. And I think there should be a support group for that Anna, and I think you should set it up. Anna, it’s been so good to talk to you. I’m actually excited about having a good old play with this tool. Thank you for your time today. Obviously we’re going to include notes about everything in, all Supermetrics things. If people want to connect with you, are you on Twitter? How can we connect with you?
Anna Shutko:
Sure. I’d say I’m the most active on Twitter at the moment, so @AnnaShutko. There on, you will find me posting lots of content on Podcast content there. So check it out. Check out the Marketing Analytics Show. I’m super happy to hear any feedback about it. And also if you would like to, you can also connect with me on LinkedIn. So Anna Shutko, just send me an invite.
Kate Toon:
Fantastic. I’m going to add links to Anna’s Twitter, LinkedIn, and her Podcast into the show notes. So make sure you check them out. Also, I’ll be linking to those resources and the demo as well. Anna, thank you for your time. It’s been smashing. There you go. Supermetrics, I’m going to be so honest. When people come along to sponsor the show, I really, I get a lot of people offering to sponsor and I pick the people quite carefully. Because, I have to actually believe in the product, and I actually have to be excited about it. And I do think data and SEO, or data and marketing generally is a huge problem. And it stops a lot of us because we don’t feel that we’re mathsy or we don’t feel we can handle Excel. It stops a lot of us dipping our toe into this area that is so important and we just make daft decisions based on nothing.
Kate Toon:
We start optimising this product in our store based on no reason at all, or we go after this particular keyword because we just like the sounds of it without realising that we’re never ever going to rank for it. Or throwing money at Google ads, and not understanding that we already ranked for most of those terms. We don’t really necessarily need to be working on them. But beyond SEO, to be able to put in that Facebook stuff, the Instagram stuff, for those of you who do Facebook ads, I’m not a fan, Mark Zuckerberg does not need my money. But for those of you who do all the full gamut of stuff, I think for digital marketing agencies, this would be amazing, and for smaller businesses, yeah maybe, it’s another thing to pay for. But if you’ve got a couple of key insights in there that really had a good return on investment, I think it could be great.
Kate Toon:
Anyway, I’m excited to go and have a play with it, as I said. All the resources in the Podcast notes, also in the I Love SEO group. That’s the end of this week’s show. If you have questions about how to analyse data, and create the sexiest God damn reports you’ve ever seen with Supermetrics, head to my I Love SEO group on Facebook. And I like to end the show with a shout out to one of my lovely listeners, Morry Morgan. Humour, plus lessons. Love the humorous and casual way Kate discusses SEO while sharing valuable lessons in what can be a very dry topic. It is dry Morry, I agree, but I like to make it moist. That was gross. I don’t know why I said that. Thanks to you for listening. And if you like the show, don’t forget to leave a five-star rating and review on iTunes, Stitcher, Spotify, or wherever you heard the Podcast.
Kate Toon:
Your review will help others find the show and learn more about the lovely world of digital marketing and SEO. And you’ll get a shout out. I’m not going to mention again, the notes are on The Recipe for SEO Success because I think I have said that 15 times, you know what to do, you know where they are. So look, I recommend you have a go. Use that free trial code that we mentioned at the start that my brain has completely forgotten what it is, but go and check it out, or have a play with this tool. I think you’re going to be excited about it. So thanks for listening. Until next time, happy SEOing.
