Automating SEO Reporting With Google Data Studio - Digitalzone 2018

Efficient AF:
Automating SEO Reporting
With Google Data Studio
Sam Marsden, SEO & Content Manager, DeepCrawl
2018
@sam_marsden
Efficient AF:
Automating SEO Reporting
With Google Data Studio
Sam Marsden, SEO & Content Manager, DeepCrawl
Digitalzone 2018
@sam_marsden Digitalzone

About me...
2
SEO & Content Manager at DeepCrawl

What’s on the agenda?
1. What’s the need for report automation?
2. Why Data Studio?
3. Time-saving dashboard goodness

What’s the need
for report automation?

It’s 2018!!!

Competition for SERPs
and clients is fierce

Speed up or lose out

Or sit tight and wait for the AI
apocalypse

Focus on streamlining workflows

What do you spend
your time on?

What are your regular to-do’s?

Identify the unnecessary
manual parts of those tasks

Little tasks soon add up

Automation tools are here to help...

Let’s talk about
Google Data Studio

Launched in 2016.

Lots of possibilities to
connect data sources

Interest in Data Studio is on the up…

Lots of interest but low adoption…
Big response to
poll but majority
have never tried
out Data Studio
despite being
freely accessible

Adopters are singing GDS’ praises

Change is difficult, even when it
directly benefits our future selves

Lessons from our feature development
Remove barriers and minimise the how’s

Data Studio has very few barriers
Free for the most part
Simple to set up
Many possibilities to connect data sets

For example…

“How is traffic looking for the month?”

Me: “Let me check…”

Before:
Analytics > Audience > Overview >
Sessions > Select date >
(Total sessions/no. days)*days in month >
compare to previous months >
send projected sessions and comparison.

Exact same run time as Up
Source: Walt Disney Pictures

Content Performance dashboard

Tools
Top level KPIs
Data controls

Trends over time Page level insights
All in one place!

Now: “Check my
dashboard!”

The finer points of
GDS…

Combine and visualise data sources
What does Data Studio consist of?
Google, partner & custom connectors
For quick insights and experimentation

Supermetrics is your saviour

Data blending – Mixing sources
https://www.lunametrics.com/blog/2018/07/11/will-it-blend-google-data-studio-rolls-out-data-blending/
Data source #1 Data source #2
Join key

Calculated fields – Transform data in GDS

Automated SEO reporting
1. Indexing issues & crawl errors
2. Multi-domain keyword cannibalisation
3. Brand visibility
4. Automated monthly reporting

Crawl insights in
Data Studio

Launched in 2016.
Zapier is God!
Automating workflows
with triggers and actions

Open source approach makes it
easy to integrate with other platforms.

Data warehouses
Need data warehouses
that combine &
showcase
best-in-class data

DeepCrawl data in Data Studio

Let’s put DeepCrawl
into dashboards

XML Sitemap Dashboard
Bringing together DeepCrawl & GSC

XML Sitemap - Indexability reporting

What are the benefits?
Conveniently monitor GSC & DC insights

Track indexability over time
Easily flag indexing issues

Track indexed pages over time

And ultimately, save time

Brand Visibility
Dashboard

What’s in the dashboard?
Holistic view
of brand
performance

Brand Visibility – Search Console

Brand Visibility – Google My Business

Brand Visibility – Google Ads

Brand visibility – Social Sources
Brand Visibility - GSC

Multi-domain
keyword cannibalisation

Multi-domain businesses struggle
to keep on top of cannibalisation

The uses
Identify duplication of effort across domains
Filter down by device, country & query sets
Track cannibalisation issues over time

The setup

Keyword Cannibalisation dashboard

The controls
1. Pick your queries 2. Pick your countries 3. Pick your dates

Cross domain keyword data!!!

Streamline monthly
reporting

Speed up regular reporting
with automated workflows.
For example…

Calendar triggers a crawl in DeepCrawl

Crawl sends Slack and Sheets update
Sends slack
notification
Updates
Sheets with
crawl metrics

Sheets updates Data Studio

Export PDF & send to clients
Send to
client or
management

Report automation workflow

Tips for success
in Data Studio

Key steps for getting started
1. Get access to the data & tools you need (including
Zapier & Supermetrics)
2. Spend time bringing in data sources in GDS or other
data viz platforms.
3. Build out the dashboards that are the most useful
(templates can help).
4. Share and collaborate!

Set up all sources and start experimenting

But don’t lose
your shit!

Keep organised with labelling and
clear naming conventions

Prioritise based on the issues you face
and the time you can save

And free yourself up to move faster.

Useful resources:
• Calculated Metrics WBF – Dana Di Tomaso
• Sheets as a Data Source – Benjamin Estes
• GDS Beginners Tutorial - Benjamin Estes
• Actionable GSC Dashboard – Aleyda Solis
• Data Studio Template Gallery – Google
• How to Blend Data – Jon Meck
• DeepCrawl Zapier Guides – DeepCrawl

Guide to setting up these
dashboards:
bit.ly/seo-automation

Questions?
Send me a tweet
@sam_marsden

THANK YOU
Sam Marsden
SEO & Content Manager
@sam_marsden
Digitalzone

Five things you can
automate now

1. Sync posts straight to Pocket
SEO post sent to internal slack channel
Only continue if message includes a URL
Auto-sync to Pocket on mobile & desktop

2. Auto notify about new posts
New post published on WordPress
Automatically notify
internal slack channel

3. Trigger crawls from wherever
Trigger a crawl from Google Calendar
Crawl kicks off in DeepCrawl

4. Completed crawl notifications
Crawl completed in DeepCrawl
Automated slack notification
with top level stats

5. Run tracking with Strava & Sheets
New activity recorded in Strava
Add as record in Sheets
Automatically update dashboard

Automating SEO Reporting With Google Data Studio - Digitalzone 2018

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