Ryan says: “My additional insight is: never neglect the basics.

Mastering the basics right now has never been more important, but these basics are changing and understanding data is now the most important basic.”

Now, the most important basic is understanding data.

How does that actually work in practice? Why is that the most important basic?

“Because, right now, we are in quite a weird period where data is just everywhere. We have all these tool sets. We have all these things coming from our AccuRankers and all our ranking software. All our tool sets are just throwing up so many different types of data, and we can get buried within it.

Because we're getting so buried within this data, we need to start realising what this data is actually trying to tell us. There are things that I've seen, and there are things that I've done in the past, where data can tell us so many different things, but understanding it is the most important thing.

Right now, you could have the best title tags, the best meta descriptions, the best content structure, and a website that is rendering JavaScript perfectly, but if you're not understanding the data behind what's going on with these websites, then it's always going to be difficult to get the best recommendation possible to make these key recommendations.”

I guess one of the challenges is that there's so much data. Data's all over the place.

How do you go about prioritising the data that you need to be looking at?

“Well, it depends on what you're actually trying to find.

What you need to try and understand as well is that there are so many different types of things we're trying to find the problems for. Sometimes we're looking at complex problems. As SEOs, we love the complex; we love the mystery. We love solving the big, classy tickets, but the whole thing around making sure we get those basic tickets done is getting that data perfect.

Look at exactly what the data we are looking at. Whether it's a crawler or it's from any other types of tool sets that are out there, it's looking at the data and finding those exact patterns to give you the best recommendation possible.”

In terms of looking at the data, what software, if any, do you tend to use in order to actually speed up what you're trying to do and drill into finding the most important story that you're telling from the data?

“Well, obviously, you've got your classic Excel sheet and all that kind of software, which is extremely important too – having a good skill set with that. Obviously, we can have a look at the usage of AI these days, but that can sometimes get an important part of you understanding how that data is generated.

Having a solid skill set with your Excels and things like Google Sheets, it’s extremely important to find that – but probably the most important thing to do is to use your eyes.

I would always say, look at what the data is showing. Look at patterns between the data as well. But also, when you are looking at the examples of what that data is showing, what else is appearing within other parts of a browser? What is DevTools showing? What is the rendered HTML showing? What is all that showing compared to what your data is showing?”

How has this changed the way that SEO basics are done?

Are you saying that data and analysing data are more important than getting key elements on your webpage right, getting your internal links right, getting your heading tags right, and things like that?

“This is where it comes hand in hand, really. There have been many times when I've worked on some accounts/audits and, when auditing, you sometimes just get a nice big data set, and you think that's it. Now, it's about finding patterns within those datasets, which could give you better recommendations, tell you where the internal link problems are coming from, or tell you where the problems with your content structure are, because it can give you better answers.

Sometimes you get the number that tells you where your internal links are coming from, but when you go deeper and deeper into the data, you can see where the problems might be coming from.

As an example, one thing I have seen is that you might get loads of internal links happening, or you might get loads of internal redirects or redirect chains coming from them. It's about finding, within that pattern, where exactly it's coming from.

There have been some times where you might say, ‘Right, I need to send all this data off to the client,’ to make sure you get it signed off – or you send it over to your developers or your project managers, whomever really, to say, ‘Right, I’ve found all this problematic data, I’ve found all these problematic issues. I need you to solve them. I've given you all the data which I can give.’

But it's about finding that right pattern to try and save time, save resources and save money, more importantly. One of the things which I have seen is when there are loads of 302s occurring, on-site, but it's only because of one link. However, because our tool sets and other things are coming up as well, you're showing up with, ‘It could be in the millions!’ You might say, ‘Oh, I've got millions of internal redirects,’ but it's actually just one link. It's about finding that pattern and finding that value behind it.”

How does an SEO know what the most important thing to focus on is?

You've highlighted so many things already in this discussion, and not all of them are necessarily going to have a significant impact on the bottom line – or at least some of them are going to have bigger/more significant impacts.

How do you define that impact and define what to focus on first?

“Obviously, I'm talking around the basic side of things, and looking at things from a data point of view, but in terms of impacts, I think this is where the basics come into play. This is where the basics are changes where you have your tool sets and you have everything in front of you, telling you what the problem is.

Sometimes, within the data, it might tell you something completely different – and I think this is where understanding can take you from an exec into a manager, and into that kind of position. It’s how you learn that soft skill, and understanding those hard skills as well, where you do understand the prioritisation.

It also comes down to the number of issues you might have on the site and the amount of data that is pointing to those issues. If your data is telling you one story behind it – for example, it could be saying things like, ‘I can't find your content,’ or your tool sets are showing you can't find your content, and your data is showing that as well – but on the site itself, it's showing where the content is. Then, obviously, what's going on there? There's a bigger issue at play.

Looking at the data is one thing, and then looking at the website is another, and it's showcasing what the better things are from X, Y, and Z, if you get what I mean.”

When you're talking about diving into your data, are you just talking about diving into GA4, or are you using your own proprietary data, maybe CRM data, or data from competitors that you're finding out there?

“I think this is where the most important thing is coming from as well, which is that the more data you have, the better – but how you're sifting through that data is extremely key to understanding what you actually are looking for.

For example, for a client of mine, I want to understand how we can break into the US. What data is going to be best for that, and how am I going to make the best recommendation based on that? So, I'll probably want to look at things on a state level, where their best sales are coming from, using GA4 and using their CRM data. It all depends on what the objective of using that data is.

There are many different ways in which we can use that. For example, like I mentioned, if I'm trying to break into the US for a client of mine, I want to understand what their best-performing products are, where most of their visits are coming from, from the US, but also where most of their sales come from. In the US, it's very different from the UK, where I work. You'd also look at things from a state level – and similar things would probably go into the UK as well.

Where are my most important customers coming from? Where can I really push towards that? It all depends on what your objective is more than anything.”

Where does this fit into SEO management and SEO strategy? Should an intense data focus be done once a month, just to benchmark how things are performing and what the core focus should be?

“I'd say this isn’t always on activation, really. When you are looking at data, then it should always be part of working with your clients. It should always be part of the strategy. It should always be: What is the data telling us?

Being data-driven right now is extremely important – especially these days, with so much going on. I would also suggest that it's always part of the technical auditing as well. Technical auditing is a big part of data, but gone are the days when we were just throwing huge amounts of data at our clients or our developers. Now, we need to put the science behind the data – the method behind the madness, really – to tell them how we got to this level.

There are loads of parts of using this level of data in many different verticals in SEO. One of them is definitely tech and strategy to help build that, to help build the overarching strategy, which could fit into other areas as well.

For example, if the data is telling us one thing in terms of the SEO strategy, then you might need to improve the content production, or you might need to look at potentially building some kind of a backlink profile for key pages.”

So, you're prepared to amend your SEO activities, perhaps your content publishing activities, based upon what a piece of data has uncovered and amend what you're doing at the drop of a hat, to a certain degree.

“Absolutely. If it's something that is telling us we need to start pushing a specific product a bit more, start pushing a bit more visibility for a type of product category, then yes, that's something I'd definitely say. We know that this product has seen a drop in clicks or impressions. With that kind of drop in clicks and impressions, for such a key product, it's telling us that we might need to do something more with this page.

There might be something happening to this page, which we might need to go into in a bit more detail. Is there something technically problematic with this page? Is the content not quite right? Is there something else we can do to help boost this overall value?

That's where all the key verticals are coming into play: the technical side of things, the content side of things, and the backlink side of things. All of that's coming into play when you are looking at this data-driven approach.”

In terms of SEO metrics, what are the key metrics that you look at nowadays to indicate a positive SEO performance?

“When I'm looking at the key performance, we look at traffic. Everyone says, ‘Traffic is vanity, but revenue is sanity.’ That’s the classic one, because revenue is an important thing. It is usually traffic, revenue, clicks, and impressions.

But we also look at what the keyword ranking movements have been for those pages. Those are the key things that tell us what's actually happening/what the data is telling us for this page.

You want either a loss or gain in revenue or a loss or gain in traffic.”

It almost sounds like an analytics role. Is it not the case that, if you're working in a large organisation, then it should be someone in analytics doing the activities that you're talking about here?

“This is where SEO comes to play, because if we're looking at where the traffic has dropped, the clicks have dropped, and the revenue has dropped, that's where an SEO needs to put their expertise and knowledge. This is where it comes down to the basics side. There's always an analytical side of things to SEO.

Really, that's what we are. We're SEOs. We love data. We love being nerds with data. We love finding the impossible possible.

I think this is where it comes into play, where we always have that analytical head as part of our strategies – and it's important to have that as part of our strategies moving forward.”

How does this interplay with other marketing channels? Obviously, looking at all this data, you're also going to get some idea of the success that other marketing channels have had.

What kind of conversations do SEOs need to be having with other marketing channels, and how has this changed over the last few years?

“This is where it's quite interesting because I've had experiences with this where it might be affecting your Performance Max. This is where chatting with your paid media channels, chatting with your affiliate channels, and making sure that everyone's all aligned is quite important.

If everyone's worked with PMax, you will know that, sometimes, the keywords that they rank, which they aim for, are all just automatic. It can sometimes cause chaos for your organic listings, especially at a brand level.

Where you look with that is, okay, where are we actually performing well, from an organic perspective? Where are we not performing well? Try and be nice to your paid media teams and not be the enemy. We're all here to work together in this situation, ensuring that, say, we are performing in the top three for these keywords.

Is it possible you could put these negative keywords within your Performance Max channel and see what we can do to, one, make sure that we're keeping that in a good place here and, two, even potentially just lessen this?

But it also works vice versa. For example, if we have keywords that have seen a bit of a drop in terms of revenue, traffic, and positions as well, they can say, ‘Look, we really need you guys to push this into PMax, or you might need to push this in terms of your merchant channels as well.’

It’s that kind of thing where it does work both ways, and that clear communication is extremely key between the paid media channels and the SEO channels.”

Ryan, what's the key takeaway from the tip you shared today?

“The key takeaway is, please look into your data. Please make sure that you're looking at your patterns and make sure that you're using the website as well as your data to find those key recommendations.”

When it comes to the patterns that you talk about, what are some examples of patterns that you've found that have impacted the way that you've recommended that SEO is done?

“This will be looking at how a URL is structured. That's a pattern. For example, if you see more than one URL appear within your search results or in your crawls and things like that, and that's appearing more than once in terms of a redirect or an internal redirect, that can give you a bit of an idea of where the problem is occurring.

Is it happening on one URL or is it happening on many URLs? That's the kind of pattern that I would look at. Also, looking at whether content is appearing more than once, twice, and so on and so forth. That's another pattern.

It's about finding what those URL patterns are, as part of your tool sets and in your data, to try and find where the problems could be occurring.”

How do you sell the value of doing that, internally, to stakeholders who don't really understand the value of technical SEO?

It's all very well and good to focus on things like building links and trying to raise conventional rankings, but if you're focusing on the health of a site – maybe reducing the number of pages or ensuring that there's a limited number of URLs for each unique page – it doesn't necessarily have any direct ROI? Or does it?

“It can, and I think this is one of the things where a part of when you're building your recommendations is extremely key. What can you put on this part of the value? How much of a priority is it going to have? How much of an impact is it going to have?

This is what going deeper into the data can do. The deeper and deeper you go into it, the better the recommendation, the better value you're going to give for the recommendation, and the better impact you'll probably have.

Sometimes you might misrepresent the value of a ticket, just because the data might not be as strong, but sometimes, because you might go deeper and deeper, when you find a solution, that might be less complex because you found one small part of it, and it also might make a bigger impact because you're spending less time and less money from a development team to solve it.”

Ryan White is Head of SEO Strategy at Bring Digital, and you can find him over at BringDigital.co.uk.