_Updated on November 21, 2019, to include new examples around measuring share of voice and other insights._

Let's face it. Rankings are not a great SEO metric anymore for a myriad of reasons. To name a few:

* Results are too localized and flavored by previous searches * Google is constantly messing with fine-tuning their algorithm * Ranking may get you traffic, but it doesn't guarantee you sales These are widely accepted facts in the search industry, but to paraphrase one of our clients:

"Perception is the reality for a lot of business owners who wonder why the shop across the road shows up #1 for 'widgets,' and they don't."

Even so, search experts know better. Chasing keyword rankings for vanity's sake is a fool's errand, especially when there's profitable traffic to be had elsewhere.

But there are still great uses for ranking data beyond just chasing a single glory phrase. In this post, I'll walk you through four of them and the reports we're using at Portent to address SEO progress through ranking.

1. THE RANKING MAP The age of personalized search has made local ranking factors way more prevalent. Your storefront's proximity to the person searching, the accuracy of your store listings in the search engines, your content's relevance for a given city or neighborhood name, and ratings in the marketplace are a big deal now.

So instead of using ranking data for individual keywords, many ranking tools will allow you to see rank for target keywords in a given location. When you aggregate those numbers across a handful of important keywords for your business, you get a ranking map like this one:

2. THE KEYWORD FUNNEL Another valuable way to use ranking data is by grouping your keywords based on the part of the customer journey a person is in when they search for it.

It's the traditional Awareness > Consideration > Conversion marketing funnel we're all used to, but for search.

Here's an example of how you would assign keywords to each part of the funnel:

Awareness - "widgets" Consideration - "acme widgets vs. other widgets" Conversion - "where to buy acme widgets"

You'd repeat this process for all of the keywords you're targeting and then take your average rank and the total search volume available in each part of the funnel.

This helps you understand what type of content you need most in each keyword theme: Educational content for people just getting to know your brand, comparative content to help them understand the nuances of various products in the marketplace and why they should buy it from you, or promotional content to share your latest deal when your prospect is ready to buy.

3. KEYWORDS BY LANDING PAGE Since web analytics platforms no longer get granular keyword data from search engines, it's important to understand which page is obtaining the ranking for a given keyword and whether or not that's the most appropriate page for somebody searching to land on.

Then you can cross-reference that page's performance (I recommend using the Landing Pages report in Google Analytics for this) for the conversions you care most about and see if perhaps you're not attracting the right audience to that content.

4. SHARE OF VOICE BY KEYWORD GROUP Individual keyword rankings don't always paint the clearest picture of how well you're ingrained in the minds of customers in the marketplace. It also doesn't show you how much ground you're covering compared to key competitors in your industry.

STAT, our rank tracking tool of choice, has its own formula for calculating Share of Voice (SOV) based on typical click-thru rate (CTR) in a given ranking multiplied by the Search Volume available for a keyword or group of keywords.

Measuring the change in SOV over time is a fantastic way to see how broader content and link building efforts are helping you gain ground in the SERPs for phrases you really care about.

TO RECAP Remember, don't fall into the trap of gunning for individual rankings. But there are so many creative ways we can repurpose this data to help us make better decisions as search marketers, that it'd be a shame not to integrate some in your daily workflow.

The post How to Use Keyword Ranking Data: A Four-Step Guide appeared first on Portent.

A search engine results page (SERP) analysis is exactly what it sounds like. Open a browser, search for a keyword, and then look at the results with human eyeballs. There is no SEO tool out there that can perform this analysis as well as you can. As Gianluca Fiorelli (@gfiorelli1) so elegantly tweeted, "Do your job."

SERP analysis for SEO is the only way that makes sense to make recommendations for new content on your website. If we want to create content that is going to be useful for people and will rank well in search results, we need to know what type of content is already ranking on page one and then figure out what it will take to gain that level of visibility.

There are definitely some good tools out there that will help you evaluate content. But remember that search engines, especially Google, are designed for people to use. The best way that I've found to go about a SERP analysis is to look at the search results for your target keywords and:

* Make a note of the different types of SERP features on the page. * Determine the searcher's intent for the keyword, as decided by Google. * Click through, read the content that's ranking, and evaluate the format it's in. Only then can you make the call as to whether there is an opportunity for you to update your content in an effort to rank for the same search query.

So, let's take a look at how I typically run through a SERP analysis for my clients, starting with the results pages themselves.

SERP FEATURES SERP features are generally considered to be everything on a results page that is not one of the ten blue links. But, even those organic results have features of their own like the number of results per page, title length, etc.

Google is always adding new SERP features and testing searcher responses. They are continually trying to figure out, just like we are, if the new features are useful to people and whether or not they are going to get clicks.

STAT Search Analytics keeps an updated list of all the different SERP feature types that they come across in their knowledge base. Rank Ranger also has a great visual guide to Google SERP features. Some of the most common SERP features are:

* Places: map with a three-pack of locations * Knowledge Graph: information on defined entities * Answers: featured snippets in paragraph, list, or table form * People Also Ask: related questions to the original query * News: articles from known news sources * Images: a row, block, or carousel of related images

DETERMINING SEARCHER INTENT SERP features play a huge role in determining searcher intent. By looking at what Google is showing in the search results, we can make a pretty good guess as to what content they have found to be useful for that search query and the millions of other related searches.

So, what are the different kinds of searcher intent? It depends on how detailed you want to be: There are three broad, established types of searcher intent that you may have heard of already:

* NAVIGATIONAL - when you already know what you want to find out and you need a little help getting there (branded search queries). * INFORMATIONAL - when you're trying to find an answer or some additional information about a topic (long-tail, voice queries with direct answers, or featured snippets). * TRANSACTIONAL - when you know what you want to buy and are looking to make a purchase (product names, specific product types, or searches that use "buy" words). Back in 2015, when mobile searches first started outnumbering searches made from desktop, Google published Four Moments Every Marketer Should Know. They call them "micro-moments," and they focus on the searcher intent of smartphone users, categorizing searches into four different "moments":

* I-want-to-know moments * I-want-to-go moments * I-want-to-do moments * I-want-to-buy moments Then, if you want to be even more specific, Kane Jamison and the team at Content Harmony took a more modern approach and dove deep with their recent work on classifying searcher intent. They have allowed for overlapping intents and added a few new types of classifications including:

* Local intent * Visual intent * Video intent * Fresh/News intent * Branded intent * Split intent All of these different searcher intents have a lot to do with the types of SERP features that show up and what kind of content will perform well enough to rank on the first page.

FOCUS ON THE CONTENT Now that we have an idea of what people are searching for and why they're searching for it, we have to find out what kind of content is ranking and what that content is focused on.

Companies like SEMrush and Ahrefs have their own versions of competitive analysis tools that can give you useful things like word count and keyword usage but, nothing can beat your highly trained human brain! So, click through the search results, look at the content, how it's formatted, and then READ IT.

Always start with the top-ranking page, there's obviously something about it that Google deems to be useful and authoritative. But, you should also take the time to look at and read through everything else that made the first page of the SERPs. These are your competitors, and if you want to outrank them, you're going to have to match or exceed their content in both quality and usefulness.

Is the number one ranked content an exhaustive 101 guide or a glossary definition page? Are there comparison tables? Videos and transcripts? How-tos or FAQs? Take notes and be sure to include the types of content that rank best when you create yours.

In addition to format and content type, remember that Google uses the idea of E-A-T (Expertise, Authoritativeness, and Trustworthiness) in their Quality Raters' Guidelines. But please keep in mind that E-A-T is not a ranking factor, it is merely a part of the aspirational guidelines for quality content on the web. If you talk about your "E-A-T score" or call E-A-T a ranking factor, Ian Lurie will find you and kick you in the shins.

RANKING OPPORTUNITY Now, the question you have to ask yourself is, "can I compete with what's already ranking" for your target keywords. If the current ranking pages are from Wikipedia and other 90+ Domain Authority websites, you might have to build up your own topical authority with a content hub strategy and target longer tailed, less competitive keywords first. But, if after reading through what's ranking on page one and you feel like you have the expertise and resources to provide something better, then this is your chance.

OPTIMIZE EXISTING CONTENT Take inventory of your content to see if there is any existing work that you can refresh or combine, and then optimize it based on your keyword and competition research. Here are some ways you can quickly update your existing content:

* Tweak the format to fit the searcher intent of your target keywords. * Find other related pages that you control and add some internal links to your target page using smart anchor text. CREATE NEW CONTENT If there isn't anything on the existing website that can crack into the top ten, it's time to create something that can. Pull together the notes you took on what's ranking for your target keyword, bring your list of content features and formatting. Then, do the research! Google wants to rank content that is useful, authoritative, and trustworthy, and that's not something that is easily faked or half-assed.

IN CONCLUSION Connecting your analysis of the SERPs and your website's content is not a one-and-done task. The searcher intent behind a query and the SERP features displayed in search results _WILL _change over time. So, keep an eye on your rankings (and those of your competitors) and revisit your content from time-to-time, updating whenever necessary.

Most importantly, write for the user! If you are creating something just for the sake of SEO, it will never be as successful as content that is designed to answer a question or solve a problem.

The post How to Analyze SERPs for SEO & Content Creation appeared first on Portent.

_Updated on November 14, 2019, to include new examples and insights._

If you haven't started blogging, get together with your team, and determine whether you should start. As Travis McKnight points out in his article, Studies Suggest Your Business Needs a Blog, businesses with _quality _blogs have better digital marketing results than their counterparts who don't.

However, just because you have a blog, doesn't mean you'll see the kind of results that Travis is talking about.

Does any of the following sound like you?

* You consistently publish content but haven't made any changes to your blog's structure in the last few years * The only known reason that you have a blog is that "we _should _have one, I mean our competitors do…" * You've checked the analytics on your blog, and your bounce rate is high and your time on site and pages per session are low * You don't have an editorial calendar for your blog; you get to it when you can * There isn't a sole person who is responsible for your blog content, and you haven't taught the people involved how to do keyword research before ideating If you answered "yes" to any of these, I've got a painful truth to share:

Your blog might be ineffective. And it might be time to consider whether a content hub is a better fit instead.

WHAT IS A CONTENT HUB? A content hub is a set of interlinked, related content that all link back to a central hub page. For example, if you're a bicycle shop that sells bicycle helmets, you could create a bicycle helmet content hub, as seen below:

In this example, the bicycle helmets page serves as the center of the hub, and the other pages all link back to it.

WHY ARE CONTENT HUBS EFFECTIVE? If you want to improve topical visibility and are experiencing difficulty with rankings and optimization, creating a content hub can help. Caleb Cosper explains why, in his article, Content Hub Strategy for SEO, "Content hubs work by driving link authority and topical relevance from the spoke pages into the hub page. By concentrating internal linking onto one page, you improve that page's ability to rank."

In our example above, we could turn an already existing landing page for bicycle helmets into a hub by linking to it from all the videos, infographics, product landing pages, blog posts (if you end up deciding that a blog is right for you!).

Additionally, content hubs are an excellent way to surface content that might otherwise be buried in your site. If bicycle helmets are one of the main items that you sell, you may even consider placing a link to the hub in the navigation of your website. Doing so will send signals to Google that you're an authority on the topic because you'll have a link to "bicycle helmets" on every single page of your site.

Search engines look at link text, the number of links, and the position of links on the page. Then, they'll crawl your site and say, "This helmets page is really important." If your site has this navigation, and your competitors still have plain old "products" and "services" up top, guess who wins? You!

When it comes to determining if something is descriptive enough, we like to use the blank sheet of paper test: if you wrote the item down on a piece of paper and showed it to someone on the street, would they immediately understand what it means?

TYPES OF CONTENT HUBS There are two main types of content hubs:

A NAVIGATIONAL HUB uses the universal site navigation to link to the hub page from every single page on the site. You'll want to use these hubs when:

* You've got a super-competitive term; and/or * Clearer navigation might be a competitive differentiator; and/or * Your product or service is easily confused with a different product or service. For example, "bikes" can mean bicycles or motorcycles. Changing the top nav will clarify things; and/or * You have a relatively small number of products or services. You never want more than six options in the primary top nav A TRUE HUB consists of relevant pages of content that link back to the main hub page. Under the umbrella of true hubs, there are two other types: in-context and mini-hubs.

You can create IN-CONTEXT HUBS by linking inline. Add a few links here and there and poof, you have an in-context hub. No heavy content lift necessary. Content hubs don't have to be complicated or time-intensive!

You can create mini-hubs by linking a set of pages using a menu, but not by changing the navigation. Our site speed guide is a sort of mini-hub:

I say "sort of" because, in this document, every page links to every other page. That means there's no one hub page. Instead, every page is a hub page.

That's OK. Not all hubs can be perfect. What we really did is create a bunch of little hubs. If we'd built these pages all linking back to a single central page speed page, that would've created a true mini-hub.

IF YOU WANT TO LEARN MORE ABOUT THE DIFFERENT TYPES OF CONTENT HUBS, YOU SHOULD REALLY CHECK OUT CALEB'S POST THAT I LINKED TO ABOVE!

SO, WHEN SHOULD YOU CONSIDER CREATING CONTENT HUBS? To decide whether you should begin building content hubs, you should start by determining _why _you think your blog isn't performing.

For example, let's say you decide that a blog is the best place to house your content, but you don't have the resources to keep up with publishing. Depending on the type of content hub you create, you may cease efforts on your blog, only to find yourself unable to create and maintain your content hubs.

If a lack of time and resources are your main roadblock to creating content, we recommend starting with as simple a hub as possible.

If you have the time and resources to create content, but people aren't engaging with your blog posts or navigating to your blog at all, you should consider creating more in-depth content hubs. Note: Just because you're finding a new way to house a large amount of content, that doesn't mean it should be a complicated experience for your users.

Content hubs should focus on the customers' needs and interests by answering their questions in a way that is easy to find (via interlinking), visually appealing, and informative. Additionally, hubs are modular, allowing you to plug various components into the layout for a cleaner aesthetic and better usability, giving the users a clear pathway through your content.

One example of a company which has opted for a content hub over a traditional blog is Home Depot. With their DIY Projects and Ideas hub, any DIY fan can use this resource to find topics and tips from the pros to make their renovation shine.

Instead of scrolling through pages of blog posts, a person can easily click on the category of project they're trying to complete, and quickly get access to videos, step-by-step instructions, related guides, links to products needed to complete the project, and links to their social media sites.

For example, a quick click on "Bathroom Ideas and Projects" takes a user to a page with links to subcategories, project and inspiration guides, and more.

Their hub is easy to navigate, allowing people to stay on the site and get the information that they need. Their efforts are also paying off from an SEO perspective: this page ranks for a handful of keywords including, "DIY projects for home" and "DIY projects and ideas."

Imagine if Home Depot had decided to go with a traditional blog and users had to scroll through pages of content to find what they wanted--it definitely wouldn't work as well, and their content wouldn't be as hyper-targeted for the DIY crowd.

IN OTHER WORDS A content hub is about creating the best possible user-experience, specific to your audience. Always begin with keyword and competitive research to determine what content, in which format is going to be the most valuable to your users. And remember, if your metrics indicate that your blog isn't providing your users with the information and experience that they're looking for, then it might be time to consider a content hub.

The post Upgrade Your Blog to a Content Hub for Better UX appeared first on Portent.

When it comes to digital marketing, too many people consider "search" to be one big bucket. Search engine optimization (SEO) and pay-per-click (PPC) marketing both have to do with search engine results pages (SERPs), so they can be grouped together and treated the same. Right? Seems rational.

But, here's the thing: that assumption is a huge mistake.

Both SEO and PPC impact search results users see, but they are two very different strategies and should be treated differently as such. I want to take a few minutes to discuss the differences between these two tactics, how they affect each other, and how they can work together effectively. And, since we're talking about search specifically, we will focus only on paid search ads when referring to PPC to draw more succinct comparisons.

THE MAIN DIFFERENCES BETWEEN SEO AND PPC Besides the basic definitions of each of these tactics - SEO impacting organic listings on a SERP and PPC generating paid listings - there are four key differences as to why these two need to be treated separately.

1. IMPACT ON THE MARKETING FUNNEL

SEO takes into account the entire marketing funnel. If your site has quality content which serves as a good introduction to new users at the top of the funnel, you address these pages to get them to rank more often for relevant search queries. Likewise, you also address hub pages and/or category pages that impact mid-funnel users, and pages which are designed to get low-funnel users to convert.

On the other hand, PPC is primarily concerned with low-funnel users who are more ready to convert and generate value. If you're going to spend money on getting users to click through to your site, you don't want to waste that investment on search queries or users that are less likely to buy from you. Ensuring PPC is done profitably means taking advantage of the bottom of the funnel.

2. LANDING PAGE ENVIRONMENTS SEO strategies typically encapsulate (nearly) an entire website. Tactics can impact a website's architecture and influence content on hundreds or thousands of pages. Each page, its components, and its relationship with other pages have the potential to impact organic search visibility and rankings. Therefore, they are factors that an SEO strategist needs to take into consideration. The screenshot below shows Portent's organic landing page for PPC Management Services.

PPC strategies, on the other hand, focus on more confined landing page environments and typically utilize less on-site content. If the goal of a paid search strategist is to get users to click through an ad and convert, it makes sense to narrow a user's path to generating a conversion by removing distractions, obstacles, and opportunities to navigate away from the conversion funnel. In contrast to the organic landing page shown above, the image below shows a custom landing page created for a PPC campaign promoting our Technical SEO Ebook. It includes specific content, fewer distractions, and a clear CTA to download the PDF.

3. THE IMPORTANCE OF LINKS To an extent, organic rankings and impressions depend on the strength of a website's backlink profile. The number of domains linking to a particular page and the authority of these domains have a huge impact on SEO.

Links and backlink profiles have no impact on PPC. Advertisers can control which landing page URL is used for any given ad regardless of how "strong" it is organically. In fact, a common tactic for many PPC accounts is to use landing pages hosted on a sub-domain or a separate part of the main website, which is not indexed and not crawled by search engines. That way, these pages can be lighter on content to narrow the user's focus and not compete with other pages on the main domain, which have more robust information.

4. APPEARANCE ON THE SERP SEO strategists can execute tactical changes like adjusting title tags to influence what's shown on an organic listing. However, there's some degree to which an SEO strategist can't control exactly what's displayed on a SERP (e.g., sitelinks).

While Google or Bing may test different SERP layouts and how much of a text ad is displayed (e.g., one or both description lines), a PPC strategist has more direct control over what exactly is shown on a SERP when an ad generates an impression. Even when it comes to additional extensions which show alongside a text ad, advertisers dictate what content is used or eligible to be shown.

HOW SEO AND PPC AFFECT EACH OTHER Now that you understand some of the main ways SEO and PPC differ from one another, let's discuss how they can have an impact on each other. After all, since both areas affect search results, there is bound to be a natural effect between the two.

Regarding one's business strategy, a user is more likely to click through to your site if there are multiple opportunities to do so on a SERP. This is a logical result of taking up more space on a SERP with more than one listing. When both an organic and a paid listing show up in response to one user's search query, your business has greater potential to benefit from that action. So, from a business sense, this is a good thing. However, traffic and conversion metrics may be impacted differently when looking at either SEO or PPC results in a vacuum.

Over the past year, Google has made paid listings more prominent at the top of SERPs across all device types. This has resulted in greater paid search impression volume and click volume (as well as increased revenue for Google). And because organic listings have been pushed down lower on SERPs, traffic volume from organic search has diminished in some cases.

By focusing on these trends independently from one another, you might conclude that "SEO is doing poorly" when, in fact, it might be just fine. This isn't to say this search marketing trend is good or bad; it is simply important you understand this trend may cause PPC and SEO metrics to affect one another.

Furthermore, an SEO strategist also looks for opportunities to improve on-site usage metrics like site speed, average time on page, and bounce rate. Improving these metrics is known to improve organic search rankings, but it also benefits paid search campaigns as well. Google takes these things into account when assigning quality scores (e.g., landing page experience), which can, in turn, improve impression and click volume at static cost levels. This goes to show that SEO tactics can have an impact on PPC performance as well.

HOW SEO AND PPC CAN WORK EFFECTIVELY TOGETHER You understand how SEO and PPC are different from one another and what effects they can have on each other. Now, here comes the most important question you can ask: HOW CAN THEY WORK TOGETHER IN ONE COHERENT DIGITAL MARKETING STRATEGY?

Any website will typically have a set of category or hub pages. These are used to organize pages and content in a logical and user-friendly manner. Some of these pages will likely perform better or be more visible than others in organic search listings. Identifying which of these category pages perform well can inform your PPC strategy as to what search campaigns you should include in your paid search strategy.

Furthermore, the organic strength and on-site success of pages within any given hub or category can also be used to build retargeting audiences that PPC advertisers can use within their search campaigns. You can bid higher on only those users who are still searching for relevant terms in hopes you'll generate an ad impression at the top of the SERP, get them to click through, and convert.

The organic strength for certain search terms might also influence which paid search campaigns get more budget. For example, if an expensive and competitive campaign is struggling to produce results in your PPC account but SEO traffic from these terms is strong, a PPC strategist could divert dollars to other campaigns, which might provide better conversion metrics. In the end, SEO and PPC strategies work together to produce more potential overall conversions to the business as a whole.

Lastly, paid search accounts have access to search query reports which can inform your SEO keyword strategy. These PPC reports show what users are actually searching for and how strong click-through rates are for these particular terms. This can help drive your entire on-site content strategy, allowing you to create or update pages that speak to the most relevant and prominent search query trends.

WHAT YOU CAN DO NEXT Are you still treating SEO and PPC as if they're the same thing? Just because "they're both search" doesn't mean they work toward the same ends. Look at your key performance indicators for each of these areas and measure them based on what each should be achieving. Make sure you have a sound strategy for each that is both tailored toward its corresponding purpose and compatible with the other.

The post SEO and PPC Differ, But They Should Work Together appeared first on Portent.

Several years ago, the Portent SEO team developed a very useful Chrome Extension called the SEO Page Review. It was created by a very technically-minded SEO specialist and now Portent alum, Ken Colborn. Because it has been almost five years since its conception, I felt it was time for a refresh.

WHAT IS PORTENT'S SEO PAGE REVIEW? Portent's SEO Page Review is a _free_ Google Chrome extension available in the chrome web store. The lightweight extension reviews a website page for a number of on-page SEO factors and provides at-a-glance details and warnings around best practices for optimization.

WHAT DOES IT ANALYZE? Our extension analyzes the source HTML of the page and provides details on the following SEO elements:

* Meta title, description, and keywords * Meta robots tag * Canonical tag * Images on page, including a warning for images without ALT text * Headings, with a warning if there is no H1 defined * Facebook OpenGraph tags * Twitter tags * HREFLANG * On-page links * All other meta tags defined * HTTP Headers

WHAT'S NEW WITH THE REFRESH? The refresh is relatively minor but addresses branding updates with our new logo, icon, fonts, and colors. Code cleanup and minor refactoring improve the already lightweight performance. We also added HTTP Headers analysis, as seen in the screenshot above.

FUTURE UPDATES We're currently brainstorming new features and improved warnings and recommendations, but here are some more substantial items on our road map:

ON LOAD ANALYSIS AND ISSUE NOTIFICATION. Currently, the extension only executes its analysis when prompted, by clicking on the icon. We plan on implementing on-load functionality so users can be notified of potential issues before interacting.

ACCESSIBILITY ANALYSIS. Accessibility concerns and the need for best practices continue to be pushed to the forefront of web applications. Portent plans on implementing on-page analysis of accessibility issues.

In addition to these, will continue to make ongoing improvements to the SEO Page Review extension for all you marketers out there. Cheers!

The post Portent's SEO Page Review Chrome Extension Gets a Refresh appeared first on Portent.

_A guide to blending data sources in Google Data Studio and tips I've learned along the way to resolve common issues._

As a Google Data Studio (GDS) user, you've most likely already delved into the data blending feature. You've surely relished in its powerful capabilities to combine and calculate metrics across data sources with a simple Join Key--and therefore, you've undoubtedly encountered its caveats and downfalls, as a product that's still ever-changing.

In this blog post, we'll introduce you to exactly how data blending works in Google Data Studio, note the considerations that limit our blending abilities, and share some tactics we've successfully implemented to resolve data blending issues.

INTRODUCTION TO DATA BLENDING IN GOOGLE DATA STUDIO Data blending is a feature that was released in Google Data Studio in 2018 that allows you to combine metrics from multiple sources. It can be used to create any type of visualization offered in Google Data Studio for a complete view of performance across different sources.

You're able to blend data sources to combine metrics, like revenue and transactions, across multiple properties by dimensions like campaigns, keywords, and device types.

GDS also recently came out with the ability to very easily create a Data Blend in a report by simply clicking multiple scorecards or tables at once, right-clicking, and selecting 'Blend Data.' This method creates the Data Blend for you with the selected metrics and sets the first data source you selected as your left-most source.

WHY USE DATA BLENDING IN GOOGLE DATA STUDIO? For me, this is undeniably the most useful feature of Google Data Studio. Most often than not, I've run into clients who have multiple Google Analytics properties or Google Ads accounts, are running Paid Social ads in multiple social platforms, or offer their service or product within a website and across applications. Clients and analysts should be looking at combined performance metrics for efforts that have the same goals or budgets, regardless of how the data collection is disjointed.

Blending data in Google Data Studio allows you to combine metrics that are reported on in different platforms that should be viewed as a total (ex. app conversions in Firebase and website conversions in Google Analytics). You're able to provide performance for an overall budget that's spread across more than one source or medium (ex. Facebook Ads and LinkedIn Ads). Ultimately, data blending allows for holistic reporting on performance.

Before data blending in Google Data Studio, we were forced to blend these metrics through other applications first before connecting it to Google Data Studio. Often, these third-party applications also cost extra to connect and blend the data for you. Worst of all--analysts had to take extra steps to view combined metrics across accounts, properties, and platforms to make optimization decisions.

WHEN TO USE DATA BLENDING IN GOOGLE DATA STUDIO Data blending should be used in any situation when you need to view combined data for analysis or reporting purposes. I've shared some example use cases for data blending in Google Data Studio below, just in case this sounds overly general or possibly doesn't seem like it will ever apply to you--which it will.

* You're running Google Ads across multiple accounts with the same overall budget. * You're running Bing Ads and Google Ads and need to report on combined Paid Search performance. * You need to report on Bing Ads Ads cost metrics by campaign but report on goal completions out of Google Analytics. * You want to report on Paid Social campaign metrics and goal completions out of Google Analytics. * You're running Paid Social ads across multiple platforms from the same Paid Social budget. * You manage multiple subdomains or sister sites for the same account. WHAT CAN YOU BLEND IN GOOGLE DATA STUDIO? _Conceptually_, you're able to blend just about anything in Google Data Studio as long as the data source is in an available GDS connector, and there's at least one dimension in common (i.e., a Join Key) among your data sources. Your data can live in a Google Sheet, SQL database, or even be a simple file upload to connect to GDS, and custom fields can be added to create matching Join Keys.

Unfortunately, it's not as possible as we'd imagine to blend _any _data with data blending in Google Data Studio with these liberties. There are limitations outside of the two main requirements (data source available in Google Data Studio and Join Key) to return accurate metrics in your reports.

CAVEATS OF DATA BLENDING There are two fairly significant caveats to keep in mind when planning your blended GDS reports.

THE LEFT OUTER JOIN As mentioned, there must be at least one dimension in common between your data sources--it can even be something as simple as the date, but the date will then be the only dimension you can use to combine metrics accurately.

To correctly calculate metrics across something like the campaign, the campaign must be the Join Key. However, Google Data Studio's data blending feature only allows for blending through a Left Outer Join operation. This means the resulting values will only include metrics and rows that appear in the left-most data source in the blend.

In the example below, we have two sample data sources set up as two separate Google Ads accounts with the date set as the Join Key, pulling in campaigns as dimensions and impressions as the metric.

By the Left Outer Join operation, only the campaigns and impressions highlighted in green in the table below will be included in any blended calculations by campaign in Google Data Studio.

However, this setup will work (with the campaign dimensions removed) to calculate combined impressions in a scorecard format.

LIMIT OF FIVE DATA SOURCES I know five data sources sound like plenty, but there are many situations when you need more than that to blend together. I've run into it quite a few times, and the only solutions have been to either forgo some metrics or to combine data sources into one through Google Sheets or by importing data from one platform to the other.

Some examples where I've run into problems because of this limitation:

* Combining Bing Ads Cost data (Data Source 1) with Google Analytics conversions (Data Source 2) across more than two accounts or properties. * Combining Google Analytics metrics across more than five different properties. * Combining Assisted Conversions data with Google Analytics last-click conversions across more than two accounts or properties. COMMON DATA BLENDING ISSUES AND HOW TO RESOLVE THEM Often, the issues I run into in Google Data Studio are easily resolved with a simple workaround. It seems GDS is still ironing out logistical kinks for functionalities that should work seamlessly on their own. The following solutions and hacks have sufficed in resolving my blending issues so far.

DATA RETURNING "NULL" VALUES GDS will return "null" (-) values when any row of a dimension has no value associated with it. In the example below, Leads returns null values and is missing conversions from the second data source in the data blend due to the Left Outer Join operation.

The 'Leads' column is missing a conversion because the First Interaction Assisted Conversion (which is from the second data source) occurred for a keyword that did not return any values under the first data source. This results in inaccurate reporting! You can see that the total number of Leads under the 'Leads' column does not add up to what GDS is reporting as the 'Grand total.'

This issue can be resolved by creating custom metrics in the table that tells GDS to either return the max metric for that field or return a 0 (instead of null). Use the formula below to create this metric:

NARY_MAX([FIELD],0)

Replace [FIELD] with the metric and use the SUM([FIELD]) calculation if you need an aggregated metric. This is the formula used in the above example:

NARY_MAX(SUM(Goal Completions),0)+NARY_MAX(SUM(First Interaction Assisted Conversions),0))

Returning 0s instead of nulls allows GDS to combine the metrics and return a value, even if there are no values for one of your combined metrics. It's a silly workaround, but it's what makes sense with GDS's current configuration.

Another solution I've seen for this is creating a custom metric using a CASE WHEN formula, telling GDS to either return 0 when the value returns null or to return the field:

CASE WHEN [FIELD] IS NULL THEN 0 ELSE [FIELD] END

DATA RETURNING INCORRECTLY CALCULATED METRICS I HIGHLY RECOMMEND ALWAYS VIEWING YOUR COMBINED METRICS BY THE JOIN KEY IN A TABLE FORMAT BEFORE PUTTING IT INTO A SCORECARD. Viewing it in a table allows you to check that the correct metrics are being pulled in from each source before combining them.

When you've noticed that your report is calculating metrics incorrectly, comb through the following checkpoints:

* MAKE SURE THE NAMING IS THE SAME FOR YOUR JOIN KEYS. I've tried using Device Category as a Join Key between Bing Ads and Google Analytics before realizing that the naming conventions are different. Bing Ads uses _Computer_, _Tablet_, and _Smartphone _instead of _Desktop_, _Tablet_, and _Mobile_, which are used in Google Analytics. Use a CASE WHEN formula to return the same dimension names in one data source to match the other. For example, you can create this custom field in your Google Ads data source: * MAKE SURE THE FORMATTING IS THE SAME FOR YOUR JOIN KEYS. This is specific to dimensions like Date. Although the Date dimension may be called the same and look the same in their platforms, they may be formatted differently in GDS. Pull your data into a table with the date set as the dimension and check the formatting of your dates. You may find that one is YYYYMMDD, while the other is MMDDYYYY. If reporting on a monthly basis, you should attempt changing the 'Show As' under each date in every data source to 'Year Month.' DATA WON'T BLEND WITH A LEFT OUTER JOIN There will be situations when you simply won't be able to blend the data because the necessary dimension values are not available in one data source. When this is the case, I've found there are really only one of two options:

* TRY MOVING AROUND THE ORDER OF YOUR DATA SOURCES. Remember, it's a Left Outer Join, so whichever data source houses all values of the dimension that's used as the Join Key should be in the left-most position. Sometimes, you may not know beforehand which it is so try moving the order around to see which configuration results in the correctly calculated metrics. * IMPORT THE DATA INTO ONE OF THE DATA SOURCES. This method has been most useful for me when attempting to combine Bing Ads cost data from the Bing Ads platform with Google Analytics data. Supermetrics offers an Uploader that allows you to automatically import cost data from Bing Ads, Facebook Ads, Yahoo Gemini, or a file into Google Analytics. You set it up once, and it continues to upload cost data from the chosen account and even backfills it. You can also do this manually within Google Analytics by navigating to Admin > Property > Data Import * COMBINE THE SOURCES INTO A GOOGLE SHEET FIRST. If possible, use an add-on that connects to your data sources in Google Sheets and combine the data there before connecting the Google Sheet to your GDS report. This is not an ideal solution, but it's a good last resort, especially if you're using the Supermetrics or Google Analytics add-ons in Google Sheets. These add-ons allow you to set the data to refresh automatically so your GDS reports can still be up-to-date (although not as updated as it would be when directly connected to a source). THAT'S A WRAP! Hopefully, some of these tips and tricks will come in handy when you need to blend your own data sources in your GDS reports. And remember, GDS is _always _updating--meaning, new issues will likely arise, but some existing issues will be resolved, potentially negating the need for some of these workarounds.

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