www.analyticsseo.com@analyticsseo
Big Marketing Data™ &
Software for Professional Marketers
How Big Data is changing SEO

www.analyticsseo.com@analyticsseo
How Big Data is changing SEO
David Bain
Head of Growth
AnalyticsSEO
@DavidBain
Frank Kelly
Data Scientist
AnalyticsSEO
@norhustla
Alexander de
Albuquerque
Product Manager
AnalyticsSEO

www.analyticsseo.com@analyticsseo
3 of the big questions asked by SEOs
1. Who are the competitors?
2. How big is the opportunity?
3. What should I focus on first?

www.analyticsseo.com@analyticsseo
How Big Data is changing SEO
1. Who are the
competitors?

www.analyticsseo.com@analyticsseo
1. Who are the competitors?
Traditional SEO:
Select a few competitors based upon top identified keywords

www.analyticsseo.com@analyticsseo
1. Who are the competitors?
Traditional SEO challenge:
We’re unlikely to discover additional, indirectly related terms

www.analyticsseo.com@analyticsseo
1. Who are the competitors?
“There are known knowns.
These are things we know that
we know.
There are known unknowns.
That is to say, there are things
that we know we don't know.
But there are also unknown
unknowns. There are things we
don't know we don't know.”
Donald Rumsfeld
“There are also unknown unknowns”…

www.analyticsseo.com@analyticsseo
Ask yourself this:
1. Do you really know the size of your
market?
2. Do you really know who you are
competing with?
3. Can you realistically expect to
compete?
1. Who are the competitors?

www.analyticsseo.com@analyticsseo
How Big Data is changing SEO
Do we really know
who our
competitors are?

www.analyticsseo.com@analyticsseo
Snowandrock.com’s competing sites
Competitor landscape (competing hosts)
com.debenhams.www 10119
com.johnlewis.www 9816
com.topman.www 8869
com.tkmaxx.www 8453
com.marksandspencer.www 7160
com.sportsdirect.www 6795
uk.co.next.www 6342
com.cotswoldoutdoor.www 5923
uk.co.matalan.www 5870
com.asos.www 5713
uk.co.ebay.www 5659
com.riverisland.www 5114
uk.co.gooutdoors.www 5002
uk.co.blacks.www 4088
uk.co.amazon.www 3586
uk.co.houseoffraser.www 3218
uk.co.very.www 3044
uk.co.gap.www 2879
com.asda.direct 2821
com.newlook.www 2463
uk.co.burton.www 2462
uk.co.millets.www 2392
com.ellis-brigham.www 2336
com.mountainwarehouse.www 2307
Real online competition
Traditional retail competition

www.analyticsseo.com@analyticsseo
What are the competition doing differently?
RD
P
P
P
KW
KW
KW
KW
KW
CP
CP
KW
KW
KW
The competition!
KW
KW
CP
CDYou
Opportunity!
CD = Competing domains
CP = Competitor’s pages
RD = Ranking domain
P = Your page
KW = Keyword

www.analyticsseo.com@analyticsseo
Competing domains for BrightonSEO.com
Top 20 domains by total opportunity keyword traffic volume
• brightondome.org
• itunes.apple.com
• en.wikipedia.org
• searchengineland.com
• moz.com
• www.screamingfrog.co.uk
• www.glassdoor.co.uk
• www.ticketmaster.co.uk
• www.atgtickets.com
• www.cim.co.uk
• www.clickzlive.com
• sesconference.com
• www.hobo-web.co.uk
• www.reed.co.uk
• www.gumtree.com
• searchmarketingexpo.com
• white.net
• econsultancy.com
• www.prweek.com
• www.jellyfish.co.uk

www.analyticsseo.com@analyticsseo
Competing domains for BrightonSEO.com
Top 20 domains by average traffic volume per opportunity keyword
• itunes.apple.com
• brightondome.org
• www.prweek.com
• www.ticketmaster.co.uk
• sesconference.com
• www.indeed.co.uk
• www.glassdoor.co.uk
• www.atgtickets.com
• www.clickzlive.com
• www.hobo-web.co.uk
• www.gumtree.com
• searchmarketingexpo.com
• www.rospa.com
• www.reed.co.uk
• www.prospects.ac.uk
• www.webcredible.com
• builtvisible.com
• white.net
• www.jellyfish.co.uk
• www.michaelpage.co.uk

www.analyticsseo.com@analyticsseo
Common keywords for BrightonSEO.com
What are the common keywords that
BrightonSEO.com shares with its competitors
that the site IS ranking for?
• “SEO”
• “SEO jobs”
• “SEO training”
• “SEO courses”
• “UK SEO”
• “SEO conference”
• “SEO workshop”
• “SEO training course”

www.analyticsseo.com@analyticsseo
Opportunity keywords for BrightonSEO.com
What are the keywords that BrightonSEO’s
competitors rank for and BrightonSEO.com doesn’t?
• “What is SEO”
• “SES”
• “Website SEO”
• “Search engine optimisation”
• “SEO marketing”
• “SMX”
• “Marketing course”
• “SEO guide”
• “How to SEO”
• “Marketing events”
• “Learn SEO”

www.analyticsseo.com@analyticsseo
Example
www.yEd.org
Host – Blue
Page – Green
Keyword – Brown
Starting point:
www.seocampus.org

www.analyticsseo.com@analyticsseo
Scaled results

www.analyticsseo.com@analyticsseo
How Big Data is changing SEO
2. How big is the
opportunity?

www.analyticsseo.com@analyticsseo
2. How big is the opportunity?
Traditional SEO:
The size of the opportunity is defined by the quality of the keyword research

www.analyticsseo.com@analyticsseo
2. How big is the opportunity?
Traditional SEO:
Target keyword volume can be increased using ‘related searches’:
This can be increased further using Google Autocomplete:

www.analyticsseo.com@analyticsseo
2. How big is the opportunity?
Traditional SEO:
Carrying out ‘thorough’ keyword research
Keywords you know Keyword you can find out Keywords that you don't know that you don't know

www.analyticsseo.com@analyticsseo
The Big SEO Data unfair advantage
• Look at the whole market of keywords
• Is the market growing or declining?
• See opportunity keywords your
competitors rank for that you don’t
• See the overlap between the biggest
opportunities and the weakest
competition
• Catch new competitors as soon as they
appear
• Find possible partners

www.analyticsseo.com@analyticsseo
How Big Data is changing SEO
3. What should I
focus on first?

www.analyticsseo.com@analyticsseo
3. What should I focus on first?
Traditional SEO:
Focus on tracked keywords with reasonable search volume, just below the fold

www.analyticsseo.com@analyticsseo
3. What should I focus on first?
Traditional SEO:
We apply a standard click-though rate model to Google AdWords search volume
http://www.advancedwebranking.com/ctrstudy/

www.analyticsseo.com@analyticsseo
With Big SEO Data you can…
Use an intelligent, adaptive CTR model.

www.analyticsseo.com@analyticsseo
With Big SEO Data you can…
LONG-TERM ROI
LOW/NO ROI
QUICK ROI
MAINTAIN ROI
HIGH
LOWHIGH
LOW
ORGANICGROWTHPOTENTIAL
RELATIVE STRENGTH
Determine target keywords by forecasted click-through rate & ROI, not search volume.

www.analyticsseo.com@analyticsseo
How Big Data is changing SEO
What are your
BIG SEO Data
provider options?

www.analyticsseo.com@analyticsseo
Where do you get access to Big SEO Data™?
Option A: Collect it yourself (Costs £100K to £1m+)
• Define what you want to get and from where
• Hire several software developers
• Build your own website crawler and toolset
• Build your own proxy network (or lease)
• Get a host who’ll provide unlimited bandwidth!
Social Media
Websites & Links
Search engines
Domains
Keywords
Search Volumes
Competition Levels
Keyword CPC
Social profiles
Social Shares
Blog feeds
Content
Proprietary Database

www.analyticsseo.com@analyticsseo
Be a Big SEO Data™ beta tester
Option B: Be one of our Big SEO Data™ beta testers…
Apply if:
• You’re not currently an AnalyticsSEO customer
• You’ll participate in a monthly feedback call
We’re looking for a
fresh perspective.
We’re offering 2
months free access
to our platform.

www.analyticsseo.com@analyticsseo
How Big Data is changing SEO
The challenges of
big data storage
and accessibility…

www.analyticsseo.com@analyticsseo
The Right Technology
OK, so you’ve got a lot of data coming in –
now what? You’ll need to store it somewhere
– there are plenty of options:
• Relational Databases
• MySQL, Maria DB, PostgreSQL
• NoSQL Databases
• Column oriented: Cassandra, Hbase (Hadoop)
• Document store: MongoDB, Couchbase
• Key value: DynamoDB, Redis
• Graph Databases: Neo4J

www.analyticsseo.com@analyticsseo
An old friend…The Venn Diagram
A B
A
BC
A
B
C
D
A
B
C
D
E
F
G
H
I
J
K
L
M
NO
P
R
S
T
UV
W
Y
X
Z
You need a method for comparing A against everyone, then B against everyone and so on….
B

www.analyticsseo.com@analyticsseo
Even Venn diagrams have their limitations!
A
B
C
D A B
A
BC
A
B
C
D
E
F
G
H
I
J
K
L
M
NO
P
R
S
T
UV
W
Y
X
Z
BA B
A
BC
A
B
C
D
E
F
G
H
I
J
K
L
M
NO
P
R
S
T
UV
W
Y
X
Z
A B
A
BC
A
B
C
D
E
F
G
H
I
J
K
L
M
N
P
R
UV
W
Y
X
Z
A B
A
BC
A
B
C
D
E
G
H
I
J
K
L M
N
O
S
UV
Y
B
A
BC
A
B
C
E
F
G
H
I
J
K
M
N
P
R
UV
W
Y
X
Z
A B
A
BC
A
B
C
D
E
F
G
H
I
J
K
L
M
P
R
UV
Y Z

www.analyticsseo.com@analyticsseo
A little bit of (non-technical) info on Graph Databases
• Build a Graph Database (or
multiple graphs) containing
your data as Nodes, Edges
and Attributes
• Great for describing and
handling ‘web data’
• Allows you to interrogate
the relationships between
the entities in a more
natural way
• You can then ‘traverse’ the
graph up and down, in and
out, analysing relationships http://neo4j.com

www.analyticsseo.com@analyticsseo
Traversing the graph database
RD
P
P
P
KW
KW
KW
KW
KW
CP
CP
KW
KW
KW
The competition!
KW
KW
CP
CDYou
Opportunity!
CD = Competing domains
CP = Competitor’s pages
RD = Ranking domain
P = Your page
KW = Keyword

www.analyticsseo.com@analyticsseo
Organic clustering

www.analyticsseo.com@analyticsseo
Graph Data for Social Network Analysis

www.analyticsseo.com@analyticsseo
How Big Data is changing SEO
David Bain
Head of Growth
AnalyticsSEO
@DavidBain
Frank Kelly
Data Scientist
AnalyticsSEO
@norhustla
Alexander de
Albuquerque
Product Manager
AnalyticsSEO