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15 Essential Spreadsheet Formula for SEO

Spreadsheets are one of your most powerful tools for SEOs.

From cleaning keyword data to auditing title tags, the right formulas can save hours of your manual work.

Whether you’re working in Google Sheets or Excel, mastering these formulas will help you streamline your workflow, analyze data faster, and uncover valuable insights without tedious manual checks.

Text and String Functions

(Work in both Google Sheets & Excel)

These are especially useful when working with meta titles, descriptions, and keyword lists.

1. Count Characters

Formula: =LEN(A2)
This counts how many characters are in a cell. For example, if you’re optimizing meta titles or descriptions, you can quickly check if they fit within recommended character limits.

Extended formula: =LEN(A:A1) → Counts every character in the specified column. Drag and apply this to multiple cells.

Example: If A2 contains Best SEO Tools 2025, the formula returns 20.

2. Remove Extra Spaces

Formula: =TRIM(A2)
Removes unnecessary spaces—very handy when cleaning up keyword lists.

Example: If A2 contains SEO Basics , the result will be SEO Basics.

3. Convert Text to Lowercase, Uppercase, or Proper Case

  • Lowercase: =LOWER(A2)
  • Uppercase: =UPPER(A2)
  • Proper case (first letter capitalized): =PROPER(A2)

Example: If A2 is seo CHECKLIST, the formulas return:

  • Lowercase → seo checklist
  • Uppercase → SEO CHECKLIST
  • Proper → Seo Checklist

4. Convert Keyword into a URL Slug

Formula: =SUBSTITUTE(A2, " ", "-")

This converts spaces into dashes for clean URL slugs.

Example: If A2 is seo checklist 2025, the result is seo-checklist-2025.

URL Functions

(Google Sheets only. Use Power Query or newer Excel functions like TEXTBEFORE/TEXTAFTER for Excel)

These help you quickly break down and analyze website URLs.

1. Extract Domain Name

Formula: =REGEXEXTRACT(A2, "https?://([^/]+)")

Example: For https://example.com/blog/seo-guide, the formula returns example.com.

2. Extract Path

Formula: =REGEXEXTRACT(A2, "https?://[^/]+/(.*)")

Example: For the same URL, it returns blog/seo-guide.

3. Identify Secure vs Non-Secure URLs

Formula: =IF(REGEXMATCH(A2, "https://"), "HTTPS", "Not Secure")

Example: If A2 is http://example.com, this returns Not Secure. If it’s an HTTPS URL, it returns HTTPS.

This is useful for spotting insecure URLs in bulk.

Keyword and Data Cleaning

SEO often involves handling large keyword datasets. These formulas make it easier.

1. Extract Unique Keywords

Formula: =UNIQUE(A:A)

Example: If column A contains seo tools, seo tools, keyword research, the formula returns seo tools and keyword research (removes duplicates).

2. Split Keyword Groups into Rows

Formula: =ARRAYFORMULA(TRIM(SPLIT(A2, ",")))

Example: If A2 contains seo, marketing, analytics, the result is:

  • seo
  • marketing
  • analytics

On-Page Checks

(Work in both Google Sheets & Excel)

Quickly check if your titles and descriptions meet SEO best practices.

1. Title Length Check

Formula: =IF(LEN(A2)>60, "Too Long", "OK")

Example: If A2 contains Best SEO Tools and Strategies for 2025 and Beyond, the formula returns Too Long.

2. Meta Description Length Check

Formula: =IF(LEN(B2)>160, "Too Long", "OK")

Example: If your meta description exceeds 160 characters, it will be flagged.

Backlink and Internal Linking Checks

(Work in both Google Sheets & Excel)

These formulas help analyze backlinks and linking data at scale.

1. Count Backlinks or References

Formula: =COUNTIF(A:A, A2)

Example: If A2 is example.com and it appears 5 times in column A, the result is 5.

2. Identify Duplicates

Formula: =IF(COUNTIF(A:A, A2)>1, "Duplicate", "Unique")

Example: If a backlink domain appears more than once, it’s marked as Duplicate.

Advanced SEO Automation with IMPORTXML

(Google Sheets only — Excel does not support this natively)

Google Sheets can pull live data from websites. This is extremely powerful for automating SEO audits.

1. Scrape Meta Titles

Formula: =IMPORTXML(A2, "//title")

Example: If A2 contains https://example.com/blog/seo-guide, this fetches the page title.

For multiple URLs in column A:
=IMPORTXML(A1:A, "//title")

2. Scrape H1 Headings

Formula: =IMPORTXML(A2, "//h1")

Example: Fetches the main H1 heading from a page.

That’s it

We’ve covered essential spreadsheet formulas every SEO should know. If you’re just starting out:

  • Use LEN to check title and description lengths.
  • Use UNIQUE to clean keyword lists.
  • Try IMPORTXML to fetch live site data.

As you get comfortable, you can combine these into SEO audit templates that automatically update when new data is added.

The more you practice, the less time you’ll spend on manual checks—and the more time you’ll have to focus on strategy.

Start small. Try these formulas on your keyword lists or site URLs. Within a few days, you’ll see how powerful spreadsheets can be in making SEO easier and faster.

Other things to note,

Most formulas like LEN, TRIM, LOWER, UPPER, SUBSTITUTE, SEARCH, LEFT, RIGHT, CONCATENATE, COUNTIF, UNIQUE work in both Google Sheets and Excel (though UNIQUE only works in Excel 365+).

Google Sheets only: ARRAYFORMULA, IMPORTXML, REGEXEXTRACT.

For Excel, you can use alternatives like TEXTBEFORE, TEXTAFTER, Power Query, or VBA macros to replicate similar results.

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