Using Big Data in Small Ways for Huge ROI in SEO

Featured article by Tim Clarke, Research Manager with Clutch

The world has gone Big Data crazy. Everyone’s trying to capitalize on the Big Data trend on every digital front, even search engine optimization (SEO).

We create 2.5 quintillion (a trillion billion) data bytes every day. And, 90 percent of the data in the world was created in just the last few years. Big Data has become so big that we need new avenues of artificial intelligence research, such as machine learning and natural language processing, to begin to sort out the information.

Current Big Data technology, such as Hadoop and Big Data SQL, allows users to process and understand data better.

SEO companies are a case study of how to use Big Data to improve your services.

Zeroing in on Specific Data

Google Analytics allows users to change “views,” or how a user can see data about website traffic. This is one example of a tool that allows users to separate useful from un-useful data.

You customize filters, like combining returning traffic with time on site and conversion into one view to see returning users and their buying cycles.

When it comes to Big Data, the task is fundamentally similar, just several magnitudes trickier. Luckily, there are a few small things you can do to make the most out of Big Data for your SEO efforts.

Get the Right Data Points to the Right People

Once your business scales to traffic and user counts that justify using Big Data technology, you need to decide which data points the decision-makers can see.

Big Data gives you a lot of information. It can change the key performance indicators (KPI) that your company values.

For example, Big Data lets you see thousands of keyword groups, hundreds of competitors, and in-depth user behavior. This factors into and can completely transform your SEO strategy.

Instead of reporting monthly keyword target gains you monitor keyword opportunities based on what your competitors do … or do not do. Or, you can report user patterns across thousands of individual sessions spanning your entire domain.

Create an Informed 360-Degree View of the Customer from a Search Perspective

Big Data allows you to create a 360-degree view of your target customers. If SEO is a big part of your digital strategy, then being found online is a huge top-of-funnel touchpoint for your buying cycle.

One small adjustment you could make is to include a “search perspective” on your buyer personas.

Let’s say you’re an ecommerce outlet, and you have a buyer persona for Sally, a middle-aged working wife who likes to shop online using her tablet before dinner and during weekends. Even before Big Data analysis, you already have specific information on Sally: her age, her preferences, her spending budget, and so on.

You can strengthen this information by going into your Big Data SEO analytics and pulling all the data from everyone matching Sally’s demographic info – female, middle aged, with preferences to specific brands (check pages visited if you have specific brand pages or just your product pages so long as you have the brands tagged), and conversion data to match spending budget. You can then tweak your buyer personas with the additional information.

But since search is a big part of your business model, go beyond that and create a portion in the buyer persona regarding search patterns. What keywords does the Sally persona typically use to get to your domain? What internal search keywords does she use to find her way to conversion? What’s her page depth before leaving or converting?

IBM’s 360-degree customer view, enhanced by Big Data

Create a Better User Experience

While Big Data can help you bolster keyword research, competitor analysis, on-site and off-site optimization, and other technical facets – and you should spend time on these – the bottom-line for search engines is that you give users a great user experience.

Make it a small habit to find patterns in your SEO data that show how you can improve your user experience.

Big Data can inform you how the current overall search experience is driving conversion. Are your keyword targets in specific stages of the customer journey (e.g. general matches for Need Recognition and Information Research to long-tail keywords for Competitor Analysis and Purchase Decision) actually bringing in traffic in the right stages of their buying cycle? Or, are you bringing in the wrong types of traffic for the wrong keywords?

Big Data technology can improve your operation. For example, tools, like predictive analytics, can predict user behavior based on historical patterning. There is no excuse not to at least discuss how these tools can help create better user experiences.

Remember: even small tweaks like these can help you make the most out of Big Data.

Tim Clarke is the Research Manager with Clutch, Clutch identifies leading software and professional services firms that deliver results for their clients. Tim heads the SEO and PPC research at Clutch. You can follow Clutch at @clutch_co