How to Keep an Eye on Keyword Rankings Without a Ranking Tool
More than ever, following the keyword’s rankings is a pivotal part of any functional online marketing strategy in the contemporary digital world. Getting a handle on this activity is just as crucial as it gives you the deep essential knowledge, making you more competent in navigating your business. Though this method is less specific, a conscientious keyword-checking strategy can undoubtedly offer valuable advantages, allowing one to remain one step ahead of the competitors to effectively work on the Web ranking.
Keyword rankings are used for overarching SEO and content marketing strategies. Through this strategy, you can learn how search engines perceive your site exactly, and what is even more important is that you can see the view of your target audience. This information lets you recognize the weaknesses that arise and take the right steps to vary your digital marketing strategy.
Manual Tracking: Accomplishing This Through Search Engine Results Pages (SERPs)
The easiest way of monitoring keyword rankings without a specialized tool is to visit your target keywords on search engine results pages (SERPs) with your own eyes. While this approach could be considered basic, by far, it can yield a lot of information and knowledge that can ultimately help your digital marketing strategy.
You can get invaluable information about how well your organic search performs by consistently using keywords that you want to rank in your searches and then, monitoring the SERP closely. Analyze your website’s position within the search results, always evaluating any swings or shifts in position within the search results. Also, pay attention to the competition, analyzing the keywords and on-page optimization strategies used by your competitor’s top-ranking content. Having this data in hand can give you a decisive edge to pick up the loopholes and improve the SEO practices that will allow you to beat other competitors.
Enhance Your Understanding of Keywords by Leveraging the Google Search Console
A great alternative to paid keyword monitor tools is Google Search Console (GSC). This free Google tool helps website owners get a good grip on their online appearance. Through GSC, you can explore performance reports, which provide essential information about keywords, such as impressions, clicks, and the average position of your website.
GSC provides a complete picture of your website’s SEO visibility. The report will show you which key phrases you perform well on, thus allowing you to track the changes in the performance that may arise. This information is especially useful in measuring the impact of your content and optimization efforts in general. The data you obtain may show the problem or what should be corrected.
Studying Website Analytics to Optimize Keyword Performance
One of the other effective methods of monitoring your keyword performance without needing a separate ranking tool is utilizing website analytics tools such as Google Analytics. By evaluating these platforms’ data and insights, you will understand how your site ranks organically for the primary keywords and how those terms drive visitors to your site and favorably affect your digital marketing efficacy.
With website analytics, the key indicator to look at is the traffic brought in by the keywords above. Extracting your top-performing keyword lists and getting to know the search queries that are popular among your audience and can increase the engagement level with your content will not be difficult for you anymore. This user data can guide you in the direction of your content strategy, allowing you to develop more relevant and valuable content for your prospects so that it aligns with their needs and interests.
Competitor Research: View the Rival Rankings While Playing
Tracking your competitor’s keywords through their systems or tools can help you understand a wide landscape of the digital space, even without a particular ranking tool. By carefully monitoring tough competitors, you can learn more about ranking factors that contribute to their performance and find loopholes to compete more effectively in search results.
Though the process is straightforward, start by writing down your key competitors and regularly searching for their target keywords on the search engine results pages. Carry out the analysis of their organic search positions, content and optimization strategies, and any shifts or variations in their rankings during different periods. These insights will be useful for you to better grasp the competitive landscape and find areas where you can stand out online.
Maintaining a Keyword Tracking Spreadsheet
Tracking your keyword rankings using keyword rank trackers is imperative. To achieve this goal, it is a must to create a well-maintained tracking sheet. This keyword centralized repository representing your website’s keyword performance, including the data on the long-term search engine visibility, can be seen as a single source of truth for all your SEO organization tools.
Start by building a list of keywords you wish to focus on, including short-tail variety and long-tail variations. Regularly reviewing this list will be needed to keep it up to date with your evolving digital marketing management and search environment.
Effective Keyword Monitoring Without Specialized Tools
The digital world usually witnesses the tracking of keyword rankings as a pivotal factor that enables every good marketer to have a successful online campaign. Even though better-known rating tools often extract detailed data, maintaining a functional monitoring process for keywords without relying on high-profile software is still possible.
In addition, monitoring these keywords will ultimately enable you to stay on top of your data, centralize it, and thus reveal trends, patterns, and fluctuations to you over time. This systematic top-down strategy can create an applied effect that will assist in creating the SEO strategy, On-page improvement, and all the marketing efforts the brand needs.
This mix of keyword monitoring will help achieve our digital marketing success. By crossbreeding a multipronged strategy and using various tools and methods mentioned in this article, you become the leading firm, get a great online presence, and achieve successful business results.
Bill Yeager, Co-Owner of High Point SEO & Marketing in CT
