The SpreadsheetDaddy Index

At SpreadsheetDaddy, we live and breathe spreadsheets.

That’s why we decided to do something that’s never been done before.

We analyzed 5,820,565 organic search keywords to create the SpreadsheetDaddy Index showing the top 10 tasks in Microsoft Excel and Google Sheets that users struggle with (see the table below).

Key Takeaways – The Editor’s Picks

 
  1. VLOOKUP is the most searched function both in Microsoft Excel and Google Sheets, ranking #1 in the United States, the UK, Canada, Australia, and New Zealand.
  2. Microsoft Excel has a much larger user base in comparison to Google Sheets (5,335,855 vs. 484,710 keywords across all the countries analyzed).
  3. Gantt charts are the most searched chart type for both Excel and Google Sheets users.
  4. Tasks such as merging cells, highlighting duplicates, freezing rows, and applying conditional formatting consistently rank in the top 10 across the boardI

Our Data & Methodology

We’ve aggregated 5,820,565 keywords searched in Google across five countries with the help of Ahrefs, a professional keyword research tool. Here’s a quick overview of our dataset:

CountryKeyword Analyzed (Microsoft Excel)Keyword Analyzed (Google Sheets)
The United States4,037,510356,593
The United Kingdom532,17343,500
Canada387,87742,076
Australia299,69731,359
New Zealand78,59811,182

As for our methodology, we processed all the keywords in the Ahrefs database containing either “Excel” or “Google Sheets.”

Once there, the monthly search volume data was extrapolated for a 12-months period.

We took into account that different keyword variations have their own monthly search volume— “merge cells excel” and “how to merge cells in excel” are technically different keywords. Ahrefs has a separate metric called Traffic Potential to take that factor into account, and we factored that in to prevent data from being skewed.

Top 10 Tasks That Most People Don’t Know How to Do in Excel & Google Sheets

Here are the top 10 tasks users struggle with when using Microsoft Excel and Google Sheets (separated by country):