How to Create Pivot Tables in Excel: A Step-by-Step Tutorial

Key Takeaways

hey everybody tori here welcome back to the channel today we're going to talk about six ways to create excel pivot tables what they are and why they're an integral part of taking your business from here to here knowing how to organize data and how best to use pivot tables can be very very confusing but don't worry we'll make it super easy so that you can know how to get the best out of using excel to better follow along we highly recommend downloading the 10 free excel templates pack right now by clicking the link down in the description whether excel is new for you or you know excel in and out these templates will help you organize and present your data okay so pivot tables we know them we love them and if you don't know them allow me to reintroduce you a pivot table collects a large amount of data and helps you look for trends the reason they're called pivot tables is because you can pivot the data super easily so you can look at it from a different angle or look for a different trend pivot tables are used for tons of different reasons from comparing sales numbers of different products to filling in empty cells with default data no matter the situation pivot tables have your back so how do you make one of these well let's get right into our first step step one is to enter all data into a range of rows and columns this is a foundation that you can build your pivot table on how you organize these rows and columns should help you see the data that you're entering for example if i wanted to see how my blog posts were doing i might enter all the titles in one row the urls in another and the clicks in the lab moving into step number two sort all your data by attribute excel is great not just for seeing your data but for organizing and manipulating it click on the data tab and hit the sort icon underneath from here you can sort any column you want in any order for example i could select my clicks category and then hit ok you can order from highest to lowest or lowest to highest okay so before we get into our third step i can sense some of you being like tori you are just doing a great bang-up job explaining this right now but i would love to dive even deeper into excel well lucky for you we happen to be offering a free course that does just that our excel for marketers academy course will go into great detail on how to use excel to your advantage you'll get a chance to explore how to work with analyze and visualize data in a slick new way if interested check the link down below our software is the worst have you heard of hubspot see most crms are a cobble together mess but hubspot is easy to adopt and actually looks gorgeous i think i love our new crm our software is the best hubspot grow better all right back to the steps we're getting into step number three highlight yourselves now we can get into the pivot table by highlighting the cells you want to collect once highlighted these cells can be manipulated to display your data you can either hit insert table and select pivot table after highlighting the cells you want to look at or select pivot table and manually put in the cells you want to see you'll then get to choose to either start the pivot table in a new worksheet or keep it all in the one that you're already looking at you can also take a look at the recommended pivot table next to the pivot table icon for suggestions on preset organizations of rows and columns next up is step number four drag and drop time after you've created the pivot table from step number three you'll have a blank pivot table now you need to drag and drop a field one of the values you gave when you created the spreadsheet into the row labels area this helps the pivot table know how to organize the data for example if i wanted to look at my blog page views by title i drag the title field name down into the rows that moves us into step number five setting a values area now that you have your rows you'll need values to set them by so if i wanted to see all my blog posts by title the rows are set by titles and i would just drag the view count into the value section this will let the pivot table know what value to assign each of the rows from the original sheet and finally step number six fine-tune your calculations values are calculated automatically into pivot tables but if you're interested in the average minimum or maximum you can view that easily to change how these values are calculated on a mac click on the i next to a value select what kind of calculation you want and hit ok the pivot table should then update with a brand new value on a pc same idea different steps click the small triangle and select value field setting to make whatever adjustment you want you can save at any time and use this data for all of your marketing needs hey you made it that's six steps to creating pivot tables when you have time play around with all that pivot tables have to offer and you should be using this new info to spring your business to the next level again don't forget to click the links in the description to get your excel templates and sign up for an academy course until next time i'm tori adios to filling out from comparing sales numbers white you are not you're not going to stop my shine like oh perfect timing