Among the several fundamentals of SEO, keywords are arguably the most important. Search engines like Google and Bing keep improving their search algorithms to serve the searchers’ intent better. Still, keywords or phrases used by the searchers remain an essential link between users and well-optimized websites. This is why most search engine optimization efforts are focused on optimizing content, web pages, and social media posts for keywords.
An essential aspect of a sound keyword strategy is tracking keywords to know how well your strategy performs.
Why Do You Need to Track Keywords?
Any tangible growth in performance must be measurable. Monitoring ranking is the only way to ensure that the SEO strategy you are implementing is working. The digital landscape is fast-paced, and you need to refine your SEO campaigns often to keep up.
We will discuss tracking keyword ranking in detail; before that, you must understand how keyword targeting has changed in 2022.
You cannot rely on targeting a small set of keywords. If you have an online business that needs to generate sales, get more subscriptions, or reach more people, you must monitor your website’s performance for a large selection of keywords.
Discovering the keywords that best define your business
Search engines have come a long way from being keyword centric. Today, the searcher’s intent matters, and you must discover the keywords that can consistently yield results for your business. While relying on keyword research tools like Google Keyword Planner is a good starting point, there is a limit to what can be achieved with such free tools. To truly identify the diamonds in the dust, i.e., the keywords that can actually make a difference for your business, you require a much more robust research tool like the Ranklogs Keyword Explorer. Another critical factor to monitor is the trending keywords. It would help if you kept an eye on such keywords as they are easier to target.
When done right, keyword research can be an unmatched advantage for your search optimization efforts. After you have discovered the right keywords, you can track your website’s performance for those keywords either by manually creating an Excel sheet or using a Rank Tracker.
Different ways to track the ranking of a particular keyword
The success of your SEO efforts depends mainly on how you track keyword rankings. The more efficient you track the keyword rankings, the better you can manage your SEO campaigns. A website’s keyword rankings can be measured in two ways:
Track Keyword Rankings Manually
Here you have to manually search for each target keyword in the search engine of your choice, like Google, and see where your site appears. This approach might work for you if you have very few target keywords. But to track SEO rankings when you are targeting hundreds of keywords, manual approach will be outright unmanageable.
If you manually track keywords rankings, you will be investing much time doing tedious work like adding keywords, searching for different locations, browse through SERPs to find the website. A better alternative is to use Google Search Console and Analytics for keyword rank tracking. However, the information you get from these tools is limited. First, there is no way to target particular keywords in the Search Console of Analytics platforms. Both automatically find keywords that you are ranking for in Google.
Also, with Google Search Console, you cannot track keyword ranking for other search engines. The keyword data you get is also limited due to privacy restrictions. Furthermore, there is no way to generate reports or set notifications when rankings change. You can use a Rank Tracking tool to overcome all these restrictions and get freedom from tracking rankings manually.
Use Keyword Rank Tracking Tool
You can use rank trackers to check your website rankings for specific keywords effortlessly. Advanced tools like the Ranklogs Rank Tracker can automate the whole process of keyword rank tracking.
How to Track Keyword Ranking with Ranklogs?
Ranklogs Rank Tracker is a premium tool that offers you complete control over keyword rank tracking. We have designed it to be more than just a rank tracker and provide comprehensive insights to guide your SEO efforts.
Here’s how you set up your website for a keyword tracking on Ranklogs Rank Tracker:
Step #1: Set up a Project in Ranklogs
After you sign in on Ranklogs, select “Add a Project.”
ou create a project on the main page by adding the website URL and name, and selecting the target location, language, search engine, and device.
Ranklogs Rank Tracker allows tracking keyword rankings for six search engines – Bing, Google, Google Maps, Yahoo, Baidu, and Naver. For the location, you can pick a country-wide location or go local by searching for a particular city.
Step 2# Setup Keywords for Position Tracking
Mainly keywords can be added for tracking in four ways:
- Manually add keywords for tracking
- Bulk Import Keywords with CSV file
- Add keywords from Ranklogs Keyword Explorer
- Import keywords from Google Search Console
Ranklogs Rank Tracker is intelligent enough to auto-discover keywords relevant to your website that you can directly import for tracking. Ranklogs provides keyword suggestions at the bottom that you can add to the project by clicking the “+” icon.
Once you have set up the keywords, select “Next.”
Step 3# Setup Competitors
Ranklogs Rank Tracker allows parallel competitor tracking for the given keywords. Simply add a competitor domain or pick one from the suggestions below.
Click “Next” to continue.
Step 4# Setup Site Auditor
Ranklogs Site Auditor evaluates your website for all technical and on-page SEO issues to identify errors that might be affecting your organic rankings.
You can set up a Site Auditor with a few clicks. If, for some reason, you do not want to crawl the entire website, then you can set the number of web pages to crawl. You can choose to add a sitemap manually if it is not publicly accessible. Load resources option lets you decide whether Ranklogs Site Auditor must load images, CSS classes, scripts, broken items & pages by resources, and all other on-page parameters for testing. You can also add sub-domains to Site Auditor.
Set Crawl Frequency and proceed.
Step 4# Activate Backlink Analyzer
If you want to analyze the backlink for your website’s home page, you can activate the Ranklogs Backlink Analyzer.
Step 5# Integrate Project with Google Search Console
If you want, you can import your project’s Google Search Console data by integrating it with Ranklogs.
Step 6# Set Notifications
You can set up notification alerts for your project. Ranklogs Rank Tracker can immediately inform you about any keyword rank tracking data change.
Select “Finish” to finalize the project setup.
Once your project data is available, you can view your keyword rankings by selecting the project from the Dashboard or Rank Tracker.
Understanding Ranklogs Rank Tracker Dashboard
The Rank Tracker project dashboard has two sections – the top header and keyword table.
Top Header
Here you will find a glimpse of the essential project data:
- Rank Metrix: It is a unique score of your website’s overall SERP performance calculated by combining the performance data of individual URLs.
- Traffic and & Average Rank: These graphs map the average rank of the website and the traffic for one month.
- Keyword Position Change: Visual representation of the number of keywords with change in ranking.
- Ranking Distribution in Google: The graph shows the distribution of all the web pages within Google SERP for the selected keywords.
- Top Gainers & Losers: As the term suggests, keywords with the most boost and decline in rankings are listed here.
Keyword Table
This is the section where ranking data for each keyword is displayed. You get a detailed view of keyword ranking. Displayed fields include-present ranking, best and worst ranking, keyword difficulty data, search volume, keyword score for the page, and many more.
Keyword Score is an exclusive feature of Ranklogs Rank Tracker that evaluates the web page for the added keyword per SEO standards. It provides instant SEO recommendations to boost the on-page value of the web page.
Final Thoughts
You must know how to track keyword ranking to ensure that all your SEO efforts are strategized for positive impact. While manual keyword ranking tracking is an option, it can get tedious if you have more than a few keywords to track.
SEO experts advise that businesses regularly monitor their keyword ranking performance; at least once a month. When you track how the website ranking changes over time, you can take actions that can offer proven SEO results.
Ranklogs Rank Tracker can make it infinitely easier for you to track SEO ranking. Whether you are a blogger, an agency, or an enterprise, Ranklogs is designed to accommodate your SEO needs without being expensive.