As SEO and digital marketing professionals, we are constantly surrounded by data – and lots of it. 

Though sometimes overwhelming, the more data you have, the easier it is to make educated business decisions rather than running with what you think is the best route for your website and its success.

When it comes to SEO, there is so much information related to keyword data that it can make your brain hurt, however not using it will only prove detrimental to your bottom line.

If you want to use all the highly valuable information that your business gathers, you must understand the relationship between big data and SEO, and how it can be used to improve your strategies.

But first…

What is Big Data?

Generally speaking, big data is a collection of massive sets of figures, facts, and information that can be used to improve decision-making and business operations on a variety of levels. Google is the largest data company in the world, however businesses of all types and sizes have their own versions of this valuable information at their fingertips… or at least at the fingertips of tools they can access like AuthorityLabs.

Companies can analyze big data to identify trends and patterns with their industry to understand customer behaviors and how they relate to their products and services.

Here are some ways in-house SEOs can benefit from enormous volumes of data to drive results for companies of any size.

Better Understand Your Market

How well do you know your demographics? How would you define the average customer profile of your company? Rather than counting on surface level data or worse, guessing, use the big data sets available to you to generate a comprehensive illustration of your market demographics. 

With big data analytics, you can produce precise messaging to an audience that you know is looking for your products and services. Why waste time on consumers that have no interest, need, or time for you?

The more you know about your buyers, the easier it will be to communicate with them and provide them with the products and services that they want.

Read and Understand Big Keyword Data

There are MILLIONS of search terms floating around the world wide web. Millions. Rather than just focusing on a select grouping of terms that you think are most applicable to your business, look at the bigger picture.

Your target consumers use thousands of keyword variations to reach you and your industry competitors. Words that you may not have even thought of, and words that you may not have deemed worth your time. However, the bigger the data set, the bigger the picture.

Tools like AuthorityLabs can help you read big keyword data and create a unique SEO strategy based off of that information. For example, you may consider your Domain Authority against that of your biggest competitor and realize that your efforts are best focused on several low volume keywords rather than a couple of high volume (and highly competitive) keywords.

Ranking for those less competitive terms that you previously neglected can help bring in that untouched audience. 

Content is data, too. Contrast to popular belief, data is not just a bunch of confusing numbers. Big data can be lists upon lists of keywords that can be implemented into your SEO strategy for bigger results.

Save Money, Make Money

The whole point of big data is that you don’t have to go through the tedious and often catastrophic guesswork. Yes, we are back to guessing, and no, you don’t have to do it. We are more advanced than that these days.

When analysts gather data about what is garnering interest and what is getting little to no attention, such as how many clicks something is (or isn’t) generating, businesses are able to optimize their content and thus, save money.

Whether you are collecting leads, pushing sales, or simply seeking website traffic, you can use big data to refine your marketing campaigns for optimal efficiency.

For example, SEOs focusing on paid advertising using Google Adwords can use the massive insight offered by the tool to tailor their ads to a very, very specific person. Using 4 months of historical ad data, a camping gear company might find that their ideal consumer is the married, 35 to 40-year-old man living in Milwaukee, with two children, a wife, and a puppy he adopted in the last 6 months. He is an avid athlete and outdoor enthusiast and reads Runner’s World at least twice a month.

This consumer is such a great target for the camping gear company that he only cost them $0.10 to click to their website and sign up for their newsletter in exchange for a 15% off coupon on his first purchase. Since he signed up with the intent of receiving the discount, chances are he pretty far into the buying cycle and is in the market for some equipment for his next camping trip.

That’s just $0.10 for a highly valuable subscriber and potential buyer. Now, compare this with the 50 to 55-year-old woman living in Sedona with ten cats, and a deep love for Krispy Kreme donuts and Netflix. She cost the same company $10.75 for what turned out to be an accidental click… because she bounced almost immediately. Safe to say she isn’t the right audience, and she ain’t cheap.

Yes, you can go that deep, and yes, this goes hand-in-hand with knowing your market, too.

Big data allows SEOs to understand consumer behavior, age, gender, location, interests, and more, which can help avoid failure, wasted money, and lost time. Stop playing the guessing game and get it right sooner rather than later. Your budget will thank you.

Refine Marketing Focus

SEO is not just about tapping into new opportunities and optimizing for those “goal” terms. It’s also about being practical and analyzing what is in front of you to determine how to improve upon what is already working and maximize your search traffic potential.

Big data can help you boost your website’s performance with the optimization of your website’s existing search terms. It can tell you exactly which keywords, products and services are achieving the most traffic and conversions, and thus, what you should dedicate your attention to. 

Using AuthorityLabs, identify the keywords that your business is already ranking for and use them to strengthen your strategy and ultimately your performance.

Rather than bending over backwards to rank for your “wishful thinking” terms, start with what is already within your reach. Compile a list of every term that has ever earned you a click and implement the top performers into your website content.

If you are an SEO looking to improve your strategies, consider taking a peek at your company’s big data to see how you can use it to maximize leads and conversions.