According to research, marketers employ up to 30 distinct applications to accomplish their goals. Because of this situation, marketers frown upon the idea of ramping on yet another complex and difficult-to-learn tool.
Fortunately, we can use APIs to accomplish the same tasks faster and more efficiently.
API technologies provide unprecedented access to important data, and in the shortest time possible. You won’t find any one single marketing platform that provides the range of data we can use via APIs.
This 20-year-old technology is integrated into everyone’s daily online experience. For example, an API is behind the weather forecast you might find on a website where you plan running or biking routes.
For digital marketing, APIs are paramount to acquiring and analyzing the volumes of data we need to do proper search engine optimization (SEO).
What’s an API?
An API (Application Programming Interface) is a set of rules that govern how separate software interacts with one another.
It functions as a software translator, breaking down and interpreting data so that third party platforms can understand it.
Practically all applications collect data. So APIs are crucial to pulling cross-platform insights.
In essence, the API acts as a link between two pieces of software, allowing users to move rapidly from one to the other.
If you’ve ever embedded a YouTube video on a website, for example, you have used an API.
API testing analyzes an application program interface to confirm that it fulfills its expected security, functionality, reliability, and performance.
The Benefits of Using APIs
The better you understand the best practices and benefits of APIs, the more effective you will be at SEO.
Here are some of the benefits you can enjoy with APIs.
User Convenience
Website visitors more demanding than ever with how they look for information and engage with others online.
They don’t like to wait, so you need to give them the information they need as fast as possible.
As a result, companies that develop solutions to meet this demand are more likely to outperform their competitors.
Particularly with regard to website traffic and conversion rates.
The travel industry is a great example of APIs used the right way.
Users may examine every airline’s information for a certain flight path and compare pricing in real time with the greatest travel APIs.
Work Integration
APIs can connect websites to other applications.
This ability can be a huge benefit to your user experience.
For example, if a website is hosted on Squarespace and the platform does not provide a direct connection to an email service platform, an API can allow people to join an email list without leaving the website.
This method is also applicable to ecommerce.
By integrating marketing channels, marketers can provide convenience to their customers on the front end, while reducing work on the back end.
For example, Salesforce and Marketo can be integrated on the backend.
An API can provide a link between these systems, allowing one to update based on changes in the other.
If you’re a marketer who uses data to figure out what to market and how to promote a product, the correct APIs can provide new and useful insights.
APIs for Five Different Applications
APIs can benefit you in many ways.
There are five big applications where they are readily available.
Read on to learn more about all five, as well as the specific APIs you should consider using.
Pay-Per-Click APIs
This is your list if you want to incorporate data from your pay-per-click campaigns.
With APIs, you can establish a central dashboard and make better advertising budget allocation decisions.
Bing Ads API
Advertisers and agencies can use this API to manage their Bing Ads accounts, including campaigns, keyword data, ad groups, and ads.
There is a free version, but it requires authorization.
Facebook Ads API
The Ads API is part of the larger family of Facebook APIs.
This one enables you to programmatically generate and manage ads on Facebook.
You can use the Ads API to create ad management applications that offer unique value and new solutions.
Google Ads API
With this API, developers can create software that connects directly to Adwords.
Using the Google Ads API, you can:
- Simplify ad text, keyword generation, and destination URL generation
- Manage advertisements based on stock, by combining AdWords data with your inventory system
- Create extra tools and programs to aid with account management
There is a free version, but it also requires authorization like Bing.
SEMrush API
The SEMrush API allows users to obtain data from the SEMrush servers for analysis by simply making a request.
The monthly price for this service is $15.
Search Engine Optimization (SEO) APIs
This is a fantastic list that you may use for any Search Engine Optimization API needs.
These include tools that will give you a grade for your website’s SEO, extract your domain’s backlink profile, and access other useful website metrics.
Ahrefs API
AhrefsBot, a spider that crawls 6 billion pages per day, currently indexes 90 billion unique pages with 700 billion unique external and 4,600 billion unique internal links. All of this is accessible via their API.
Bing Web Search API
Bing Web Search API allows developers to change search options on websites/web pages using XML and JSON. It is available for free.
Majestic SEO API
On request, the Majestic SEO API returns backlinks from their database.
The light version is free upon request, although it has limitations in comparison to the Platinum version.
After making a special request to Majestic, the light version is available for consideration.
Raven API
Users can request an API Key from their Raven profiles. Using this key, SEOs can better manage accounts and campaigns.
Raven API is only available to paid Raven accounts.
Mozscape API
The Mozscape API includes intelligent analytics, URL data, and SEO tool creation. It comes with a free version that is rate limited.
APIs and SEO Software
APIs and SEO Software
While there appears to be SEO software for almost anything you could think of, marketers can get frustrated with the constraints imposed by walled products.
Because no single application provides all of the data the team requires in a streamlined manner, APIs enable companies to integrate multiple sales platforms and gain more strategic insights into sales productivity.
You can combine an API with your technical SEO software to get a better idea of how engaged your website visitors are.
Most SEO software focuses heavily on how findable a domain is, and that is certainly the first step toward engaging potential customers.
An additional API can integrate this information and aid in the analysis of the SEO response.
When creating a new SEO tool, an API will provide data right away.
This delivery will aid in determining the utility of the emerging technology and improving client involvement.
APIs for Keyword Research
Keyword research has been greatly simplified with the various powerful tools available these days.
However, the volume of data to be searched (search volume) is growing feverishly in tandem.
Google Analytics helps speed up research and bundle data in an easy-to-understand format (particularly when using the Google Analytics API), but the platform certainly has its limitations.
To get the most out of these research tools, first determine which keywords to track and which websites receive the greatest traffic.
To make this work over time, you may need to run an analysis on a weekly basis. Fortunately, there is a technique to speed up this research and improve SEO efforts by utilizing APIs.
Web Scraping APIs
Web scraping is very similar to the technique described above, except it’s done on a much larger scale and automatically.
The process is contained in an API, which removes much of the manual labor involved in SEO research and implementation.
Web scraping APIs have altered the way marketers conduct SEO research.
These APIs have opened an entirely new universe of possibilities for keyword research by placing the most useful information in the hands of teams who can mine and interpret the data rapidly.
Social Network APIs
To check the health of your social media campaigns, use these APIs.
Graph API for Facebook
The Graph API is the primary tool for developing Facebook apps.
The free version has a time limit.
Moz API
The most influential users on Twitter are found using Social Authority.
The free version also has a time limit.
Gnip / Twitter Enterprise API
This tool provides social media data for analysis and product marketing (content marketing) to some of the world’s largest organizations.
Gnip was purchased by Twitter in 2014 and has now been integrated into their Twitter Enterprise APIs. A free trial version is available.
BrandWatch API
Brandwatch API incorporates the former PeerIndex to make Social Influence Data available to your app or business. There is a free version, however, it has rate limitations.
SharedCount API
The SharedCount API monitors URL shares, likes, and other social media activity. There is a free version, but it limits how much you may use it.
API Learning Tools
If you are interested in learning how to code and set up APIs, here are two resources to consider:
- Codecademy – Codecademy is a handy website for teaching or learning programming languages like Python or Javascript, as well as learning API coding. It’s completely free.
- Kong – Formerly named Mashape, Kong is an API marketplace where you can provide and get access to more than 2000 APIs. Some APIs are available for free.
Other Useful APIs
The following are additional APIs that are useful. We also have open-source API Testing Tools that are beneficial.
The Google Analytics APIs
Users can use the Google Analytics APIs to access the Collection API, Management API, and Data Export API.
It handles Google Analytics profiles and accounts.
This API is free to use, but it does require authorization.
The Google Places API
The Places API is used to search a large database for detailed information about locations (search rankings). It is free, but you must first obtain authorization.
Repustate API
This is a simple tool for forecasting trends and organizing social media data. It is free, but only for a limited time.
How to Use APIs to Enhance Your SEO
Try cross-analysis. You can use it to understand context for data, which in turn will lead to more actionable observations.
Perhaps you might find correlations between on-page components that could be ranking determinants and actual ranks (rank tracking) for your site’s pages. With this information, you can then determine which SEO improvements will have the biggest impact.
To achieve this for every landing page on your website, you’ll need APIs to simplify and automate data collection: on-page data from a crawler for each URL, ranking seo data from Google Search Console or Bing Webmaster Tools, organic traffic data from an analytics solution, and so on.
Scraping software can help you translate internet language (usually HTML, or hypertext markup language) into understandable data.
Organic search refers to a search engine’s non-paid search results. Advertisers can’t buy or alter these results. Organic rankings should always represent the results that the search engine considers the most relevant to the user’s search query.
You’ll need a way to easily analyze data if you don’t have a local spreadsheet package. In that case, try Google Sheets, which is a sophisticated (and free) cloud-based tool for effectively and efficiently organizing data.
Conclusion
API technology’s innovation and growth is great news for marketers. Companies that use APIs can improve both customer experience AND user experience by emphasizing their privacy and safeguarding data shared across applications.
APIs have evolved into strong and important technologies that help businesses such as Amazon save time and money while providing additional layers of convenience and security to their customers.
Disclaimer: The views and opinions stated in this post are that of the author, and Return On Now may or may not agree with any or all of the commentary.
Feature Image provided by the author under his or her own license.
This guest post brought to you courtesy of Return On Now, Professional Austin SEO and PPC Services Company.
Jonathan Aisiki
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- How to Use APIs to Enhance Your SEO - June 14, 2022
