Interpreting search data: macro to micro

Aspen Digital has been collecting the top 10 organic search results for almost 100 years every day, covering nearly 160.000 keywords across a wide range of online markets. We track the (historical) ranking data and SERPs for each keyword and also record the average monthly search volume per keyword.

This bulk search engine data can be approached from a wide range of different perspectives, depending on which subset of data you focus on. In this blog, we explore several different interpretations of the data, starting with macro insights and ending at micro level.

The more often a website ranks in the top 20 for a keyword and the better its average position per keyword, the further the website moves towards the topright of the SOV. A larger bubble indicates a greater total search volume associated with the website.

Example: clothing industry before and after an update

Another Google Core Update took place recently. It began rolling out on 22 August and was completed around 8 September. Google itself is often fairly sparing with information about the content of such an update, leaving the discovery of the impact of the Google update to website owners and SEO marketing specialists themselves. A SOV can easily reveal market-wide shifts, for example after such an algorithm update.

When we compare points in time before the update (2023-08-13) and after the update (2023-09-11), we see the following changes in the clothing industry:

It appears that broad-based providers, such as Bol.com, Beslist.nl and Amazon.nl, have lost their advantage compared with webshops with a more specific range. However, the 2 major fashion giants, Zalando.nl and Wehkamp.nl, also lost considerable visibility after the update.

Zooming in: shifts within a market segment

Do we see the same pattern for a more specific subset of the market, such as shoes? We can also filter all data relating to the theme of ‘shoes’ from the Aspen database to gain insights into this segment within fashion.

Before the Core Update, the landscape within the top 20 for the footwear segment looked like this, with Bol.com, Zalando.nl and Omoda.nl as market leaders:

A little under a month later, after the update, we see the same players, but with a major change in their relative position:

The pattern we were already beginning to see across the clothing industry as a whole is even clearer in the footwear segment. In this niche, we see a sharp divide between websites with a broad focus, the decliners, and websites specialising in shoes, the risers:

Further zoomed in: themes within the website

So far, we have used the data broadly to gain insights into the online market, but we can also use it at website level to determine where the greatest opportunities lie. As an example, we take Omoda.nl, a website that has grown in visibility in both the footwear segment and the clothing industry as a whole since the latest Google update.

We can divide Omoda.nl’s range into different categories, each with corresponding keywords. An overview of the organic visibility within the website at category level then looks as follows:

Brands and women’s collections account for the greatest total search volume, and the website also performs best for these categories. Although the shop originally specialised in shoes, the shoes category is currently an underperformer in terms of findability: Omoda.nl currently ranks in the top 20 for only 35% of the shoe-related keywords. currently

Exploring the theme in greater depth

We can delve as deeply into the website as we want with our dataset, as long as enough keywords remain for each sub-theme to create an accurate picture. This allows us, for example, to zoom in further on the women’s category.

In the previous theme SOV, we saw that the keywords relevant to the women’s collection rank in the top 20 for 70% within the rest outside it. In the following sub-theme SOV, we can see which subcategories within the women’s collection have the greatest potential for improvement:

As well as the website performs for the various types of women’s boots, it performs poorly for women’s accessories and jumpsuits, while both sub-themes are associated with considerable total search volume.

Sub-themes from a different perspective

We can also highlight the data relating to the sub-theme jumpsuits from a different angle for additional information. For example, when we look at the 84 search terms related to jumpsuits from Omoda within the market, we can see how Omoda.nl compares with its competitors for this subject.

Looking at the market distribution teaches us that Omoda.nl is part of the middle group and has a relatively small market share for jumpsuits. Webshops such as Zalando.nl, Wehkamp.nl, H&M and Bol.com perform considerably better. For Omoda, it may be worth looking at what these competitors do differently and drawing inspiration from it.

For this keyword, there is internal competition between different product pages featuring glitter jumpsuits from Omoda, because there is not yet a suitable overarching category page.

Combining URLs and keyword themes

For a more complete picture of performance per URL or theme, we can also combine the charts for individual keywords into a single plot. This makes it easy to spot trends resulting from, for example, a website change or Google update, or to measure the effects of an external link placement.

Earlier, we saw that Zalando.nl had to give up a considerable share of its market share in the fashion industry after the August Google Core Update. This is reflected not only at macro level, but also at micro level.

The Google Update Effect Measurement below combines the progression of several important keywords relating to jumpsuits for the website’s ranking URL, Zalando.nl/dameskleding-broeken-overalls-jumpsuits. The data shows that the previous 3 Google updates had hardly affected this website, but clearly reflects the negative impact of the August Core Update:

Turning data into insights

Turn search data into new opportunities by approaching the information in different ways. Aspen Digital can help you with collecting and interpreting relevant data for your industry, focus themes and website. We add new keywords to our extensive tracking every day and have immediate insight into hundreds of different markets. Curious to know which opportunities we could spot for you? Feel free to get in touch without obligation!