How I learned R?

This was my process to learn R: my step by step process & where I've been to arrive here nowadays. With my best use of R for SEO purposes at the end of the article!

Since R is not the only language available out there, I recommend you this post about HTML

The story behind the learning

Honestly I began to check R because it was used in France for some really good SEO stuff! I went to a conf called SEO Campus (Now SEO Camp) in Lille (my hometown in France). And also, I must say I was kind of fed up with Excel!

Back then -- early 2014 I would say -- they were some addons for Microsoft Excel ... but that was still dealing with lot of data directly from a software; and Google Spreadsheet was not as developed as it is nowadays -- writting this in 2022 -- so Spreadsheet with its nice formula and database connection or SQL like formual was not even in the picture.

Python: what is that? R seems to be a better fit!

No hard feeling for Python, especially since I am mostly using it nowadays and R not so much in fact -- but that's a story for another time!

No real war between Python and R for me nowadays, "How to learn Python", might be of some interest to you

So I thought that R was a best fit for my needs at the moment -- and I was not wrong at all -- and following that I began to read a lot of things about R and how to use it. After that I took "The R Programming Environment" from Coursera ==> honestly that was awesome, I was under the impression that a new world was opening to me!

DataSEOLabs - Data SEO Level 1

Since I was getting to understand how to better use R to simplify my day-to-day, I aked my boss to go to a "real" course. It was a little bit hard, because R & SEO courses were quickly full!

But I had the chance to go to the first DataSEOLabs course -- Data SEO Level 1 at the time, they will create a Level 2 later -- and got certified.

Thank you Vincent & Remi!

But still why R?

"Why R?" is a realy good question! Ans the short answer is: easy to begin with, realted to statistical background I had through my marketing and statistical background & because it was sort of trendy/accessible at the time.

And yes, I regret nothing, understand R help me for so many things: creating a Shinny app, opening discussion with other people, chattting with "strangers" on Slack channels or Twitter, understanding lots of concepts, opened me doors to Data Science, opened me doors to SQL and Python also.

My favorite use of R for SEO

For SEO purposes, my favorite use of R is to make some request to the Google Search Console and Google Analytics API: I found it way easier than in any other language (Python included)