Big data is a technology that will revolutionize our lives, and the fields in which its impact is already visible are marketing and sales. Still, many people, including some marketers, don’t seem to fully grasp this concept and its implications. Researchers at the University of California, Berkeley, reported that 1.5 billion of gigabytes of information were produced only in 1999. That amount doubled over the course of only three years, which means that our world is practically overloaded with information.
Moreover, SINTEF, an independent Scandinavian research organization, has revealed that as much as 90% of all the data in the world has been generated within the past two years. This is big data, and it harbors enormous potential for all your marketing, as well as SEO efforts.
Go big or go home
David Ogilvy had something other in mind when he came up with this slogan, but he would most certainly agree that all marketers should tap into big data. If we bear in mind that our cell phones, tablets, PCs, cars, TVs, or even sports wearables are potential sources of all kinds of information that could be collected and analyzed, it’s clear that marketing and sales could greatly benefit from this big data analytics.
According to IBM, 2.5 quintillion bytes of data are created every day. Still, only 20% of all that data is structured, meaning that it can be accessed and analyzed by means of regular tools, while a whopping 80% is unstructured. Such data that can’t be organized actually consists of social media posts, images, videos, and other types of content. By using appropriate tools, you can analyze this gold mine of valuable information, and catapult your SEO rankings. The cornerstone of every efficient SEO strategy should be identifying a target audience and understanding what they’re interested in, as well as what their issues and concerns are.
Once you obtain this information, you can start developing strategies to help your audience find you through organic search.
Who’s your audience?
Big data can not only help marketers identify their audience, but it’s also very precise in identifying customer behavior, such as why they buy, when they buy, why they leave, as well as provide you with guidelines on how to retain them. If we integrate social media into this equation, we can get an extremely powerful tool for identifying a target audience and provide them with what they need.
One of the most prominent examples of the use of big data is the Facebook algorithm, which aggregates tons of information that users of this social network share every second, and targets ads with almost surgical precision. As SEO heavily relies on prospects’ motivations and pain points in order to create the best marketing strategy, it’s clear how big data comes into play. Understanding your audience and their needs is crucial for unleashing your full SEO potential.
Know thy enemy
As you know, identifying your audience is essential for many reasons. If you know who your competitors are, you can gain a competitive advantage. Another benefit is the ability to see whom they are targeting and how.
Basically, by spying on your competitors you can be one step ahead of them. Google search is one of the easiest tools for doing this. Type in your main keyword that describes your company and services, and analyze both organic and paid search results. Top 10 search results will display your fiercest competitors. You can also use one of the numerous tools that will allow you to track and analyze your competitors’ traffic, backlinks, demographic information and customer behavior, or content topics.
What’s the magic word?
Identifying relevant keywords is key to an effective SEO strategy. Long-tail keywords can significantly contribute to your SEO efforts, and that’s why you should concentrate on them. It’s true that they won’t drive much traffic to your website, but the upside of this is that you’ll be able to generate lots of qualified leads, that is, prospects who are genuinely interested in your product or service.
SMBs can profit from such a practice because they should increase the quality not the quantity of leads if they want to boost their conversion rates, and this undoubtedly proves the importance of SEO for small business. Companies that use big data analytics have reported that their average increase in profits is about 6%, according to McKinsey. Again, your competition plays a significant role, as you can use a tool that will help you to find out what their most relevant keywords are.
With big data, you’ll be able to obtain some very precise and in-depth information about your prospects, and unearth some hidden patterns in their behavior that you can incorporate into your SEO strategy.
