Nick Wilsdon, Search Product Owner, Vodafone Nick walks through the endless possibilities when it comes to SEO reporting via Google's Data Studio. This talk covers how to automate your SEO reporting by pulling data from multiple sources.

1. Dashboard Strategy
Presented by Nick
Wilsdon
24th April 2019

2. Insert Confidentiality Level in slide footer 2 24 September 2019
Why should you listen to me?
Search Product Owner
Vodafone Group
Manages SEO programme
deployment across 22
international markets to 516m
mobile customers

3. 3

4. 5 Challenges we faced

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1. Needed a single report for multiple stake-holders

6. Malta Spain Germany Netherlands
Greece Hungary Turkey Ireland
UK Italy Romania Czech Republic
India
Qatar
Egypt
South Africa
Australia
New Zealand
Ghana
Europe Asia Africa Oceania
Portugal Kenya
2. Needed to standardise SEO reporting across multiple OpCos

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3. Need to be data-driven and automated

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4. Lack of internal, specialist resource to deploy

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5. Budget needs to be spent creatively and efficiently

10. So what did we do?

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Why we decided on Google Data Studio
Common data sets
could be added,
such as Google
Search Console
(GSC) and Google
Sheets
DS comes with
many pre-made
connectors to pipe
data into reports.
No coding
required
Focus on shared
data components,
that could be used
across the platform
and between
teams
Reports are easy
to build, this
approach would
not require initial
specialist resource
Plus the platform
is free!

12. Visualisation
Data
Data Pipelining

13. Your first data set -
Google Search Console
(GSC)

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Why GSC first?
Accessible and universal
Poor native UI
Justifies using new domain properties

15. 24 September 201915*Data from Deepcrawl.com domain
Sam Marsden – http://bit.ly/next-level-gds

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Sam Marsden – http://bit.ly/next-level-gds
*Data from Deepcrawl.com domain

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Sam Marsden – http://bit.ly/next-level-gds
*Data from Deepcrawl.com domain

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Sam Marsden – http://bit.ly/next-level-gds
*Data from Deepcrawl.com domain

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Add and blending more data sources

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22. Reporting structure and
strategy

23. Clear reporting sections across each GDS report
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Contro
l
Action
Performanc
e
Planning

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Traffic
Orders
Revenue
CPA
Ambition for reporting KPIs

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26. How do current KPIs fit into our reporting structure?
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Contro
l
Action
Performanc
e
Planning

27. Performance
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Examples:
• Traffic
• Orders
• Activations
• Revenue
• Sales
• CPA (SEO CPA)
• Call centre deflection savings
• Conversion rate (CVR)
• Rankings (reluctantly!)
What should go in these sections
Lag metrics that track performance
against targets to:
• Shown against time, so we can
correlate positive SEO activity to
commercial lead metrics
• Aligned to commercial objectives
• Only contain metrics that are not
subject to interpretation by SEO
specialists
These sections should be for senior
stakeholders to support internal
reporting

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Performance - sample
Performance

29. Planning
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Examples:
• SEO Forecasting
• SEO Development queue
• Key upcoming events
(migrations/launches)
• Team holidays
• Google Trends
• CPSV data
What should go in these sections
Planning shows how the team is thinking
ahead and matching resources and
activity to meet the challenges within the
program
• Forecast work
• Planned activity
These sections should be for team
leaders

30. Control
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Examples:
• 3rd party visibility graphs
• Google Search Console Data
• Little Warden Alerts
• GSC alerts (new API 🤞)
• SEO tool alerts
What should go in these
sections
Metrics that require technical
SEO governance to allow the
team to be more effective
• Process confirmations
• Technical checks
• Automated metrics
These sections should be for
technical practitioners only

31. Action
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• Various data mash-ups that
provide insight to SEO teams
and allow them to perform their
job more effectively
What should go in these sections
This section is a repository for actionable
data to address specific SEO challenges
• Charts containing data that can be
downloaded and worked on
• Lead metrics that are measuring
progress on resolving these outputs,
i.e. reducing number of thin content
pages over time
These sections should be for
technical practitioners only

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Sam Marsden – http://bit.ly/next-level-gds
*Data from Deepcrawl.com domain

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Action – sample report

34. Using CrUX API to assess page speed against
competitors
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Icon shows the
intention and
audience for
each report.
Action reports
are for technical
practitioners
COMPETITOR AVODAFONE SITE
http://bit.ly/
crux-report

35. And remember, all DS charts can be downloaded to
excel/csv
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36. Taking Google DS
to the next level
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37. Visualisation
Data
Data Pipelining

38. Data Storage
Visualisation
Data
Data Pipelining

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Why do we need to use data storage?
Bringing data into our data storage layer allows us
to develop a more advanced solution. Some use
cases included:
• Solving data storage restrictions of original
sources, i.e. 16 months of viewable data from
GSC
• Allowing advanced data aggregation from
multiple sources, beyond limits of DS blending
• Improving report performance and reliability
• Supporting custom attribution models and
funnels, outside the scope of individual platforms
or data sources
Data Storage
Visualisation
Data

40. How did we deliver on
our 5 challenges?
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1. Needed a single report for multiple stake-holders

42. Malta Spain Germany Netherlands
Greece Hungary Turkey Ireland
UK Italy Romania Czech Republic
India
Qatar
Egypt
South Africa
Australia
New Zealand
Ghana
Europe Asia Africa Oceania
Portugal Kenya
2. Needed to standardise SEO reporting across multiple OpCos

43. 24 September 201943
3. Need to be data-driven and automated

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4. Lack of internal, specialist resource to deploy

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5. Budget needs to be spent creatively and efficiently

46. Extra tip: Measuring usage and adoption
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47. Where do we go next?
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Data ecosystem between group and
opco’s

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Data pipelining and portability between teams

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We’ve only just begun

51. Thank You
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