Consolidating Data from Various Local Search and SEO Tools

[Laustin1878]

I'm fairly certain the jury will almost "always" be out on the latest and greatest, bestest tools to use for [local] SEO. The more recent issue I've encountered is consolidating this information into one report, in a timely manor. Currently, it's taking far too long to pull data from several sources, one being GA, as well as rank tracking reports, etc. I find myself spending more time extracting then analyzing the data. I have to be doing something wrong.

Does anyone have a viable solution? What are you using to automatically extract Google Analytics data? Are you automating the process of extracting data from several sources to include in your reports or manually doing it? Or, are you just using a white label reporting tool from one of your reports and using the other tools for analysis only?

 

[CodyBaird]

You're asking the right questions. The day is coming when API will be common enough for all software to communicate/share freely and easily. But for now, the options are scarce; with many freebies like gekoboard that don't allow much manipulation of data and have limited number of feeds (ie don't work for me) or more robust solutions like Domo, created by Utahs Josh James previous founder of Omniture, that are being built for enterprise not SMB imo.

Personally we are walking down the path of building an in house solution which offers yet a third can of worms.

 

[Linda Buquet]

You're asking the right questions.

Ditto Code on that Luke!

I've seen some marketing dashboards that integrate several tools all in one place for unified reporting. But can't remember any names and not sure how well they are suited to local.

And I think some of the big enterprise local services do all that, but they are more for big chains and expensive, I would think.

BrightLocal has lots of the right tools. And I've been BETA testing Places Scout and it has many as well. But none tie into G analytics and not sure there is any tool out there that does it all.

But I'll Tweet this post and see if we can get more feedback for you.

 

[raisaroo]

Have you considered using Microsoft's Power BI? It is basically excel on steroids and it is pulling in data from GA, Salesforce and about 20 other data sets. It will soon be pulling in Local SEO data from SweetIQ (I am associated with SweetIQ).
This would allow you to get your rank tracking reports, GMB stats, and all other local data integrated with your GA numbers and potentially your CRM numbers.
We use it internally for our CRM, marketing automation and Google Analytics.

 

[Laustin1878]

I have not heard of Power BI nor have I heard of Sweet IQ. I will look into it though. Thanks for pointing them out.

I've tried working with excel files to automatically extract the data from GA and have not had much luck. I'm clearly missing some piece of the puzzle...lol

Cody, I have often considered having someone create a custom script or code to pull some data. I never know where to start unfortunately.

As I mentioned in my original post, I find myself spending so much time trying to extract the data that it takes away from other things I could be doing. Then, I still have to format it and make it look pretty in a report which also takes a little bit of time. There just aren't enough hours in the day anymore.....

 

[CodyBaird]

Scripts can work depending on the place you're pulling data. APIs are better but there is often an associated cost. I've found the biggest challenge is deciding what data matters and then displaying it in a meaningful way that isn't worse than what you already have. It's a gnarly puzzle that I haven't been able to put together...yet. it's coming and I will share it when worthy. Well some if it. Winky face.