It may not look like one of the fancy, paid SEO tools you used to log on to, but Excel remains one of the most versatile and powerful tools in an SEO pro’s toolbox.
You can use Excel to track and analyze key metrics such as rating, site traffic, and backlinks.
Use it to create and update meta tags, track and analyze competitors’ SEO strategies and performance, generate automated reports, and take care of the many data tasks you’ll face every day.
Combine your knowledge of Excel with Python, Tableau, R, and other tools, and there’s nothing you can’t do.
If you haven’t worked with data before, you’ll find that Excel has a bit of a learning curve, but you can use it right from the start. It is flexible enough to scale and grow as your site grows.
Why Excel for SEO Tasks?
While many paid tools can help you do the same tasks, Excel is a great option to enhance, combine or replace these tools.
- It’s affordable and comes with a bunch of tools you already use.
- There are plenty of resources and courses to help you learn.
- It easily handles large amounts of data.
- Sort and de-duplicate – a feature that is often missing when you need it.
- Create and manage databases using simple formulas.
- Data ports easily to other tools and is available for other tasks.
- Pivot tables and smart charts.
1. Combine multiple data sources
You will often find yourself having to combine data from multiple sources.
This is intuitive and fast in Tableau, Python, or R, but you can do the same thing in Excel with force query.
There are a few steps to this process, but it’s not as complicated as you might think – even if you’re new to working with data or Excel.
Power Query contains automated, streamlined tasks that require a lot of time and skill.
And it’s probably the best Excel feature for business and SEO professionals.
Sounds a little daunting? Don’t worry. There are many YouTube courses and tutorials to get you started.
What it’s good for:
- Construction reports.
- Analytics and sales data.
- Combine data sources to identify opportunities and gain insights.
2. Data cleaning
You waste a lot of your time just preparing data for analysis. It doesn’t have to be like that.
Big lists are often bigger than they need to be. However, manually finding and removing all the duplicates can be quite a pain.
Excel can instantly do that for you. Simply go to the Data tab and click on Remove Duplicates.
Unwanted spaces and blank lines tend to clutter many tasks, formulas, and statistics.
Excel will remove them for you by simply going to Edit > Find > Go To. Select Special, Blanks, and tell Excel how it should handle it.
Convert Text to Columns can be a lifesaver, especially if you receive data where addresses or names are all in the same cell or you need to extract domains from email addresses.
go to Data > Text to Columns. Then decide what to use for the delimiters (comma or space) and preview the results. When you’re ready, click Next, choose a destination, and click Finish.
When do you use it:
- data analysis.
- Data processing.
- Processing and cleaning of lead databases.
- Work with any data.
3. Power Excel with additional tools
Some of the more complex tasks, such as crawling, require a bit of coding knowledge.
If you don’t have that in your skill set, there are tools you can download, combine with others, and add on.
Screenshot from SEOTools, January 2023.SEOTools It offers SEO tools, integrations, connectors, spiders, and many other tools that make it easy to customize your Excel and create custom projects.
SEOG Brings the power of Moz, Grepwords, and Majestic to Excel.
Analysis Toolkit It is for serious data analysis. This add-on enhances and automates in-depth statistics, making it ideal for forecasting, trend, regression analysis, and more complex data analysis tasks you might otherwise perform in R or Python.
When do you use it:
- reporting.
- Regular data analysis.
- presentations.
- Integration and coordination with other teams.
4. Charts and graphs
Data is useless if you can’t understand it.
In fact, data visualization and storytelling are probably the most important skills you can have. This is where tools like Power Query and PivotTables come in.
Pivot tables, which are built into Excel, are the other valuable tools you have for this.
However, instead of just creating a straight pivot table and related chart, save yourself some steps by first creating a master “template” that you can duplicate as needed and modify to suit your needs.
Screenshot from Excel, January 2023.However, in many cases you will need to deal with dates or pieces of data. For that, you’ll want to bring in joiners and schedules.
- To slice data: Select pivot table and go to PivotTable Tools > Analyze > Filter > Insert Slicer. Then, you just need to enter how you want to segment the content (for example, by product or topic).
- To make use of the schedules: Click the Pivot Table Tools option, and go to Analyze > Filter > Insert Timeline. Once there, you can choose what you’d like to use, style it, add captions, and more.
If you haven’t used Excel PivotTables before, Short tutorial It will get you on your way to data analysis in no time.
Still want more? Make your reports, social media, and updates even better by stepping up your data visualization game with add-ons like People chart.
When do you use it:
- reporting.
- Daily updates.
- Surface data analysis.
- Team collaboration and integration.
5. Automate common tasks with macros
SEO, especially agency SEO, is full of repetitive tasks like weekly reports that take up a lot of your time. Excel Macros is the answer. And it’s really easy to use.
Under the View tab, click Macros and Record Macro.
Screenshot from Excel, January 2023.Fill in the details.
The macro is now being recorded. So, you just need to follow the steps that you would like to get it started automatically. And when you’re done, go back to the tape and stop recording.
When you’re ready to run the automation, go to the macro button in the ribbon, click Show Macros, and select the desired macro from the list.
If you have some macros that you use more than others, you can add them to the Quick Access Toolbar.
When do you use it:
- Sort.
- mathematical calculations.
- Reformat the data.
- Prepare new site documents or new pages for reports.
6. Easy import of feeds and data into Excel
If you use Google Alerts or post frequently, automatically importing your feeds into Excel can save a lot of time.
To get started, you only need to get the RSS feed address. (Or create an alert for Google Alerts and deliver it as an RSS feed.)
Screenshot from Google Sheets, January 2023.Next, go to Google Sheets and use the IMPORTFEED function to bring the updates directly into a spreadsheet.
Alternatively, you can add the information to separate columns.
Screenshot from Google Sheets, January 2023.From here, you can regularly download and import data into Excel, combine it with other relevant data, or integrate it into your own custom dashboards.
If you need something more automatic, use it Google Apps Programming Or one of the add-ons available to automate the process.
Want more data behind your reports? You can scrape and import Google search results into Excel as well.
7. Backlink analysis
To analyze backlinks using Excel, collect backlink data using tools like Ahrefs, Majestic, or Google Search Console.
Then, import it into Excel and use it to analyze your backlinks in several ways:
- Who is associated with you: Use Excel’s sort and filter tools to filter data and use the IF function: IF(logic, true_value,[false_value]) to sort and identify domains associated with you.
- What do people associate with: Sort and filter to see the anchor text used most often for your backlinks (using frequency/number).
- When people connect with you: Organize the data by date to see how old your links are and when most of your backlinks were acquired.
Find trends or patterns in backlinks using pivot tables, clusters, charts and graphs by combining backlink and sales or conversion data.
Highlight specific data based on certain conditions using conditional formatting. This makes it easy to spot backlinks from high authority websites or backlinks with specific anchor text.
summary
Many people ignore Excel either because they think it is too basic to use much. Or it seems too scary or daunting to learn.
But those of us who use it understand its power and the limitless possibilities it offers.
We hope these tips help you craft better strategies, find new opportunities, and tell your story with better reports and dashboards.
Featured Image: Paolo Bobetta/Search Engine Magazine
