August 29, 2023

Automating SEO Content Audit: A Comparison of Similar AI and Excel Sheets

Robin Allenson

In a recent chat with a forward-thinking digital marketing agency, we got an insightful peek into the hectic world of content tracking and analysis. Much like others, this agency is wrestling with the age-old challenge of managing and evaluating the SEO content they publish.

In this case, the agency aims to track the performance of its existing articles on the site and its backlinks to determine which can be cleaned up. Typically, this involves using Excel sheets and manually following these steps:

  1. Leveraging Google Search Console: to extract search impressions and click data to analyze content performance
  2. Relying on Ahrefs: to track backlinks and search volumes to ascertain the SEO value and reach of their content
  3. Excel as the Organizer: Painstakingly inputting all this data into Excel sheets to track site articles, followed by a manual review to decide which articles to retain or remove.

But, what if we could make this whole process more efficient?

With Similar AI, you can transform the tedious manual process of analyzing SEO content metrics into an automated, quicker approach.

Upload and Go: Simply upload your data files extracted from Ahrefs, connect your Google Search Console (GSC), and let Similar AI handle the rest. It automates the data crawling and analysis by matching the url column in your uploaded files to the URL of the site’s crawled pages. You then have access to a clear list of pages shown in the datatables to keep or discard in just a few minutes.

Here’s How It Works:

  • Begin by exporting data you need from Ahrefs e.g. the best pages (or other data) by links export, then change the target page column name to url. See the image below to find where you can get backlink data export from Ahrefs to use in Similar AI.
  • Switch to the Setup view on Similar AI. Choose Upload CSV files and upload your page data.
  • Head over to Workbench/Pages. Here, Similar AI matches the url column in your files to the URL of the site’s crawled pages. All your Ahrefs columns, such as $Links to target, will now appear in the Pages datatable as $Link to target.

Note: It is important to note that there can be backlinks to images or other URLs that are not whole pages. These backlinks won’t appear in the datatable as the crawler most likely won’t have crawled these.

  • Variables in Similar AI have a dollar sign prefixed, like $Links to target. You can also edit the type of these columns in Settings>Variables
  • You can use them in rules like $Links to target is empty and $Total traffic <100, then save this as a recipe such as “Delete article”. By doing this, you can effortlessly combine different data sources and filter your content list how you want, in this example, Ahrefs’s backlink data with GSC traffic data.

Note: The platform also allows the use of other uploaded data or additional fields that we provide, such as #ranking keywords. To find them in your datatable, simply click on Columns located at the top left corner of the datatable interface.

  • You can extract specific categories from URLs with ‘Text Operations’, or even calculate Click-Through Rates (CTR) with ‘Numeric Variables’ (visual examples below). It empowers you to effortlessly customize data filters, pulling the exact type of information you require. All the spreadsheet functionalities and formulae you’re accustomed to are available and faster and more intuitive on Similar.ai. Our toolkit is designed to provide the flexibility you need for a comprehensive, yet rapid, content audit.
Calculate CTR or other formulae using ‘Add Numeric Variable’
Extract categories from the URL or other fields using ‘Add Text Operation’

In Conclusion

In essence, Similar.ai is an upgrade of the traditional, manual processes that agencies have been accustomed to. So, if you’re in the market to boost your SEO operational efficiency, Similar AI might just be the answer you’re looking for.