With ad rates rising and the obstacles to starting a website almost non-existent, SEO is more vital than ever. However, in the ultra-competitive world of SEO, you must be attentive. You should also adopt the philosophy of “working smarter, not harder.”
For example, you might build virtual mountains of material until your budget is depleted, but your efforts would be futile if no one sees it.
You can’t track what you don’t measure, as the phrase goes. And there’s no way to enhance it if you’re not measuring it.
It is not a plan to throw spaghetti at the wall and see what sticks. Similarly, expecting that your most recent blog entries rank is not a strategy. To be successful in the SEO game, you must understand how to track your SEO rankings.
How to Track SEO Rankings?
Before we get into the tools and strategies for tracking SEO rankings, we should do some planning. Otherwise, you’ll find yourself inundated with data and having no idea what to do with it.
We’ll lead you through the procedure step by step so that you may be structured and methodical from the start.
a. Set Clear Goals
Even seasoned SEO practitioners might become bogged down in this initial stage. It’s pretty uncommon for an SEO to inquire of their customer, “What keywords do you want to rank for?“
“Isn’t it your job to tell me that?” the client may ask, staring back blankly.
Some knowledgeable customers and SEO teams have already determined their top priority keywords, but if you haven’t done so yet, there are various options.
You may begin by determining the keywords you presently rank for. “If you don’t know where you’ve come from, you don’t know where you’re going,” Maya Angelou famously said.
Another strategy is to examine how your rivals are faring.Both are recommended.
You’ll need a genuine keyword rank tracker to acquire next-level information.
Here’s how you can utilize Google Rank Check to gain competitive information.
b. Identify Key Metrics
There’s a lot of chatter about metrics in the SEO field, but the key to success is concentrating on the data that matter. It’s easy to become overwhelmed with weeds and lose sight of the forest for the trees.
Though every firm is unique, the most relevant KPIs are typically:
c. Organic Search Volume
Utilize Google Analytics to determine how much of your traffic comes from organic search vs other channels such as direct, advertising, referral, and so on.
Navigate to Acquisition -> Overview -> All Traffic -> Channels in Google Analytics.
You may then go down to observe how your organic search traffic is performing. This is where most organizations fall short of using Google Analytics.
As you can see in this example, over 95% of the traffic does not specify a keyword, hence this tool will not provide you with a clear image of which keywords are driving traffic. You could combine this with Google Search Console to gain insights into this data.
d. Conversion Rates
Make sure you have conversion tracking enabled in Google Analytics to see which pages are generating the most income. Make sure to filter for organic search results rather than sponsored, referral, or direct traffic.
Depending on your company model, you may also wish to include conversion actions like email signups, phone calls, and form submissions in your calculations.
e. Click Through Rate (CTR)
Google Search Console provides useful information on the click-through rate for various search queries. If your titles and meta descriptions are correctly crafted, there are certain basic rules you may expect for a strong click-through rate.
Check the SERP if you notice a poor click-through rate despite a high rank. It might be due to a variety of reasons, including:
- Top video results taken up
- Inadequate title tag and meta description
- Ads dominate the top results.
- A highlighted snippet has taken over the top results.
- “People also ask” tops the list of results.
f. Bounce Rate
These indicators are relative, but they can help you determine how beneficial a page is for your target audience. For example, if you have a pillar blog article with a 90% bounce rate and a duration page of 10 seconds, there might be a problem with the content. Is it directing to a 404 page? Is the material out of date, and does the website take an eternity to load?
On the other side, if people are spending a lot of time on your website, it is a clear indication that your users are getting value from it.
g. Page Load Speed
Examine your site’s load times, since this is an often-overlooked component in search rankings. A slow-loading site not only hurts your Google algorithm performance, but it also leads to a greater bounce rate because visitors have better things to do than wait for your website to load. The higher your bounce rate, the worse your rating in search engines.
h. Choose Your Tools
We’ve already mentioned two free tools to help you get started: Google Analytics and Google Search Console. Though both can be beneficial, they have severe restrictions, which we’ve briefly reviewed.
Aside from what we’ve already discussed, Google Analytics and Google Search Console have the following flaws:
- Obtaining and exporting data is a time-consuming and laborious operation.
- You can only access Google data.
- You are unable to track your competitors.
- There is no data on keyword volume.
- Although Google provides a keyword planner, it only provides ranges of data, and even that data is frequently wrong.
You have a lot of alternatives when it comes to selecting a paid tool. Google Rank Check also provides a feature that nearly no one can match. The correctness is 100% provable. You may check the actual third-party confirmed results for any keyword ranking you’re watching.
h. Measuring Performance
Once you’ve identified your top hundred, thousand, or million keywords, you can begin measuring their success.
Depending on your objectives and the competition of your niche, you may wish to run reports daily, weekly, or monthly.
One of the unique features of Google Rank Check is the ability to execute almost endless refreshes to obtain real-time data.
Creating and disseminating data is maybe the most crucial aspect of tracking your SEO results. You can explain and exhibit your achievements with complete confidence if you can distribute and communicate knowledge in an easy-to-understand fashion. If you fall short, you’ll know exactly where to improve.
i. Optimize
A keyword rank tracker may provide a wealth of information. Your technique may vary depending on what you see, but here are a few things to check for while you track SEO rankings.
- Keep an eye out for changes in performance. If you’re rising the ranks, look at who else is dominating the results and see how you can outperform them. If you’ve slid into the SERP, look at who has surpassed you and what they may have done to get a higher position.
- Keep a close eye on your competition. You may add a list of rivals and relevant keywords to track in most keyword rank trackers. Keyword.com will even recommend competitors who have good ranks. Alternatively, enter the domain of a rival you’re keeping an eye on.
- Look for fresh opportunities. When you create a new project on a keyword rank tracker, you will be asked to input your target keywords. As you go through this process, the tools will suggest relevant terms that you should keep an eye on. You can quickly add these to your list and start tracking them without having to make any effort.
By monitoring these keywords, you’ll be able to see their search traffic as well as any rivals who are also targeting these phrases.
Concluding Thoughts
Before keyword rank trackers, tracking SEO rankings was a laborious process that required a lot of guessing. There are plenty of tools accessible now, but the challenge is understanding how to effectively use them.
No matter how powerful your tool is, you must still undertake the hard work of defining your goals and recognizing the relevant chances. Google Rank Check bridges the gap by assisting businesses of all sizes, from sole proprietor ships to Fortune 500 corporations, in tracking their SEO rankings with 100% accuracy and on-demand updates.