In this day and age, most brands choose the digital route to reach their target audiences where they spend most of their time: Online. While offline marketing can work fine, consumers lean more toward online channels to connect with brands. Digital marketing bridges the gap between online users and brands, offering businesses digital or online channels to establish communication with their existing and potential customers. Digital marketing utilizes channels like search engines, social media, email, and websites, which brands leverage to create awareness about them.
As digital marketing offers a larger audience base than traditional offline marketing, it is a more viable means to promote products and services. It’s both a cost-effective and measurable way to run ad campaigns and track their performance, especially SEO campaigns. SEO is a digital marketing strategy that offers a level playing field by allowing businesses to create websites and other content with relevant keywords that help them rank high in search engines to attract website traffic. But how could a brand ascertain if its SEO strategy is delivering its marketing goals? With rank tracking.
Why Rank Tracking Matters
If you thought SEO was about creating content optimized for search engines and making it live on your website, you’re probably missing the whole point of it. The goal is to track your rankings.
Knowing how your website ranks on search engines can either make or break your brand. If tracked regularly, your search rankings can help you understand where your company stands vis-a-vis your competitors, giving you valuable insights to use for addressing any gaps in your SEO strategies.
- Why rank tracking is critical for online visibility
Tracking search rankings regularly helps you stay on top of your website’s performance. It helps ensure whether your website appears in the top results or not. If it doesn’t appear prominently on the first page, you will know and can take the necessary steps to improve the situation. High rankings increase visibility and web traffic, leading to higher click-through rates. - How rank tracking affects website traffic and conversion rates
Search rankings say a lot about your brand. If your website ranks higher than your competitors’ websites, it is likely to attract more organic traffic and generate leads that could potentially convert into your customers. Higher rankings are correlated with trust and authority, so users immediately click on your website when they find it ranking prominently on search results pages.
Choosing the Right Rank Tracking Tool
Rank tracking tools are designed to help you maximize your SEO efforts. They have capabilities that let you view crucial metrics related to your rankings and gain insights into how those rankings influence the incoming traffic to your website. Rank tracking tools reduce the manual labor and take the guesswork out of your monitoring method. All you will have to do is input data and let the tool crunch the numbers before it sends you real-time data.
With the right tool, you can accurately gauge your website’s performance. But how will you know which tool is right for your business?
- Factors to consider when choosing a rank tracking tool
When investing in a rank tracking tool for your business, it is important to consider the following factors to make sure you get the biggest bang for your buck:Compatibility with Multiple Search Engines
While Google is the widely used search engine, which may even be your primary search engine, an ideal rank tracker will be compatible with multiple search engines like Bing, Yahoo, and Baidu and generate rankings reports just like it would for Google.Location Support
Rank trackers generally generate rankings data by location. It can be based on your city, state/province, or even country. While your chosen rank tracker must use your current location by default, it should also offer the option to manually define your location.Frequency of Rank Checking
Some rank trackers will only check rankings weekly or monthly. Make sure your tool offers daily tracking to fully optimize your rank tracking efforts.Device Support
Broadly speaking, users access search engines using computers, laptops, and mobile searches. Your rank tracker should be able to check rankings and fetch data for all three devices.Number of Results Checked
Your rank tracking tool should be able to process about thirty to 100 search results without fail.Historial Data Support
Does your rank tracker support retrieving historical ranking data for domains you’ve recently added? It should. On adding new domains, your tool must search through their data to identify and pull up historical rankings for them.Competition Tracking
Your rank tracking tool should let you keep track of your competitors in order to maintain your own higher rankings.Reports and Alerts
While tracking rankings daily helps you study patterns and detect any significant rank drops, checking reports daily isn’t necessary. Schedule weekly/bi-weekly report generation and set alerts for when the rankings go alarmingly low.Sharable Link for Reports
If you often have to share ranking reports with different departments or your clients, a sharable link will be a necessary feature for your rank tracker.API Integration
Being able to integrate your rank tracker with your existing ERP system can help you pull ranking reports, deliverables, communication, and invoices into one centralized platform. - Overview of RankWatch tool available for rank tracking
Whew, that was a long list of factors!Did we just get you wondering which tool will offer all these features and meet your diverse business needs?The answer is: RankWatch.
RankWatch is a sophisticated SEO management platform that provides a comprehensive view of all your digital marketing campaigns and actionable data on rankings, backlinks, and SERP competitors. By utilizing this data, you can improve your digital marketing campaigns and witness an incremental increase in your website traffic.
RankWatch is a full-stack SEO solution that empowers marketing teams with its many advanced capabilities to collect precise and real-time rankings data in a time-critical manner. This data helps teams evaluate where their companies stand in terms of search results rankings and decide on the action steps to tackle low rankings. With a 100% white label user interface, the tool lets you create and share white label reports with your company logo and URL for a truly professional look!
Whether you want to check search rankings, do competitor analysis, run a site audit, or explore new keywords for your web pages, RankWatch has got you covered!
How to Get Started with Rank Tracking
Are you aware of your current search rankings? Until now, rank tracking was probably the least of your concerns because who wants to put effort into a tedious task like that, right? We know manual rank tracking can be time-consuming and tiring, but RankWatch will change that for good. All you have to do is set it up and automate the process. Add its white label console to your company server and use its customizations to align its functionality with your business needs.
We don’t believe in holding our cards close to our chest, so we’ll give you the exact steps to start your rank tracking today with RankWatcher.
- Setting up rank tracking using the Rankwatch tool
Getting started with RankWatcher is pretty straightforward. Since the tool is used by both early-career and seasoned marketers, its functionality is divided into ‘Basic’ and ‘Advanced. You can choose from 13 search engines to track your rankings based on a specific location. You can also select multiple locations for a single search engine in order to access rankings data for all those search engines simultaneously. Just follow the steps given below to start tracking your rankings.
Step1: Login
On the tool’s login page, you will see two options. You can either log in with an existing Gmail ID or create an account for the platform. To log in with a Gmail ID, click on ‘Sign in to rankwatch.com with Google.’ A page with all logged-in Gmail accounts will pop up. Select the ID you want to use and complete the login.
Step2: Add your domain
On logging in, you will see the landing page as pictured below. Here, you need to input the domain of the website you want to get rankings data for. A domain is the unique address that a website uses to identify itself. In simple terms, it is the URL address of a website found at the top of a webpage.
Step3: Add target location and keywords
On submitting the domain, a snapshot of the website will appear. You’ll see the ‘Next’ tab at the bottom right of the screen. Click on it and you will be redirected to the below page. Here, you have to add the location and select the search engine for which you want to run the search. Input the keywords that you want to check rankings for.
Step4: Start tracking
Once you input the location, select the search engine, and add keywords, finish the submission by clicking on ‘Add Keywords.’ On the next page, you will see the below analytics. This is a comprehensive view of your search engine rankings.
Congratulations! Your tool is now successfully set up to track your search engine rankings.
Unveiling Competitor Insights:
Tracking your search engine rankings is essential, but tracking competitor rankings is non-negotiable. Your rankings will not mean much unless you know how your competitors rank. Monitoring your competitors’ search engine rankings uncovers crucial insights that help you understand where you need to improve.
By tracking your competitors’ rankings, you can learn how to take advantage of their weak spots and outperform them. But you must know which searches to optimize for and which keywords to target. RankWatch’s intelligent competitor analysis is built to help you stay ahead of your competitors in search rankings. It enables you to identify your toughest competition, the ads run by them, and the keywords they are ranked higher for. RankWatch gives you cutting-edge insights into your top organic competitors based on your keywords, as well as into paid competitors driving traffic to their websites through paid ads like Google Ads.
- The importance of analyzing competitor rankings
Analyzing competitor rankings helps identify gaps in your own SEO strategy. If you want your website to rank higher in SERPs than your competitors, you need to find out what it is that they’re doing and you’re not. You can then use their SEO strong points to your advantage. As it is, the digital business landscape is fraught with fierce competition, thus, staying updated about your competition in the market, be it offline or online, is necessary.When considering SEO trends, businesses tend to focus only on keyword mapping, link building, and content optimization, oblivious to the fact that without tracking competitor rankings, these efforts are futile. In-depth competitor rankings analysis can reveal who your key market competitors are and what their market position is like. It will also help you determine which websites your competitors are building backlinks to. Once you know, you can also start adding connections from those websites and create your link profile. Consider using a keyword gap analysis, too, to find out what terms you’re missing in your content that your competitors are minting money from.
How to use rank tracking tools for competitor analysis
Different rank tracking tools have different functionality and complexity levels. While most tools will allow you to enter any website’s URL along with the keywords you want to check search page rankings for, there are some niche tools that are used for detailed data and report generation. Such tools may have more features and may not be very straightforward to use.Rank tracking tools and platforms also draw data on competitors. This data offers useful insights into how your competitors are performing in SERP rankings and actionable steps to outperform them. Rank trackers generate automated reports that give you in-depth data on how your website is performing as compared to your competitors. They look into your competitors’ organic and paid traffic to understand what keyword and backlinking strategies they’re using. Rank trackers are also capable of tracking paid advertisements run by competitors to understand which search engines are used and which ads gained the most traction.
Leveraging competitor insights to improve your own SEO strategy
Once you are aware of your competitors’ search page rankings and know they’re ranking higher than you, it’s time to learn from their weak and strong points. When competitors outperform you, it can only be for this one reason: They have a strong SEO strategy that includes the right keyword selection, high-authority backlinks, and regular rank tracking. Ensure that you incorporate competitor analysis into your rank tracking efforts and check the following:Search volume of keywords
Ranking Keywords
Average Rank
Traffic
Anchor Text
Index Pages
Speed
Backlinks
Referring DomainsUsing this approach can help you achieve higher search rankings than your competitors and stay one step ahead of them by knowing exactly when and what to tweak in your own SEO strategy.
Actionable Strategies for Improvement:
Your search rankings are less than ideal? Fret not, we have come up with a list of actionable steps that you can implement to increase your rankings and outperform your biggest competitors. Search rankings drive more than just website traffic. They drive conversions for your business, improving your bottom line. Hence, search rankings are actually the most crucial metric for the success of your SEO campaign.
- Identifying opportunities for improvement based on rank-tracking results
Knowing what your competitors are doing to stay ahead of you in search rankings and incorporating elements of their strategy into your own can easily get you higher rankings. Industry trends are yet another factor that influences your search rankings. Unless you know what the current trending topics are, the content you produce for your website may not be good or ‘competitive’ enough. But, as we said, knowing what moves to make and tools to use can help improve your search rankings. Let’s dive into some of the actionable steps that you can take:Use long-tail keyword: When you use long-tail keywords, you are able to capture more specific user queries or at least come close to them.
Optimize title tags for emotional appeal: By using a little bit of emotion in your title tags, you can successfully drive CTRs. Most users who search for a particular query and land on a page that hits them emotionally are likely to spend time on that website and explore its offerings.
Use power words: Power words have the ability to draw users in and make headlines impactful, creating a magic effect on your SEO rankings. These are used in the same way as emotional title tags with the intention of increasing CTRs. Some examples of power words include insane, effective, case study, fast, proven, bestselling, science-backed, and definitive guide. Make sure to use these and improve your CTR rates.
Use numbers and statistics in titles: Adding numbers and stats to your titles shows users that your content is well-researched and capable of offering valuable insights. Using percentages from research or a certain number indicates relevant reading, and it can have a positive impact on your CTR.
Optimize description tags: Doing the description tag right is important, too. Using powerful words that capture a certain emotion, highlighting the benefits of your offerings, sprinkling a few relevant keywords and phrases from the current AdWords content, as well as strategically placing your primary keyword close to the beginning of your description can help bump your CTR effectively.
- Developing a plan to target weak areas
As an SEO-focused marketing professional, adding SWOT analysis to your arsenal can be pretty beneficial. This classic marketing tool can be easily used to amplify your SEO efforts by creating or enhancing your SEO strategy based on a thorough analysis. SWOT analysis arms you with valuable information regarding your market position based on your strengths and weaknesses. It can guide you to identify and exploit opportunities to build on your strong points while addressing any weak areas and tackling threats from your competitors. Your SEO SWOT should inform your digital marketing strategy to help you plan your approach to securing a higher position in search rankings and stay ahead of the curve.Checking your visibility metrics can reveal some or all of these weaknesses:
Lack of a keyword strategy
Low visibility in local listings
Low visibility in organic listings
Poor mobile experience
Slow load times
Inadequate technical SEO
Poor quality backlinks
Low-quality contentWe suggest using SEO audits from time to time to identify any weak areas and building strategies to address these issues. For instance, if your audit reveals poor placement or low quality of backlinks, you can have the content creator on the team look into these and implement corrective measures.
- Ongoing strategies for improving and maintaining rankings
Implementing the above-suggested strategies to improve your search rankings is a process that takes time and effort. You should not stop after the first time you implement them. If you want to maintain your improved rankings, consistency is key. Regularly tracking your rankings and ensuring any significant drops are addressed immediately with actionable strategies are essential. SWOT tool will make performance analysis easy, so use the method each time you sit down to review the reports and discuss the outcomes with your team.Remember, if you take a proactive approach to checking your search rankings using tools like RankWatch and maintaining them with regular and timely updates to your website content, the likelihood of your rank dropping will be low.
Staying Ahead of Algorithm Updates
In the competitive landscape of search engine rankings, staying ahead of competitors demands understanding and navigating search engine algorithm updates. Algorithm updates are aimed at improving the quality and relevance of search results, with a view to providing users with the most up-to-date and accurate information possible. Hence, staying on top of algorithm updates is necessary to maintain your competitive digital presence.
Every algorithm update refines a search engine’s ability to understand user intent and deliver the most relevant content. As a website owner or digital marketer, not keeping pace with algorithm updates can impact your website’s visibility in search results. For instance, if you fail to update your website content in alignment with an algorithm update, your organic traffic and overall online visibility could decrease, resulting in a rank drop. To navigate algorithm updates successfully, staying informed about the changes and adjusting your SEO strategy accordingly can be useful.
- Monitor Keyword Rankings Regularly
Keywords are the most commonly searched terms by people and help your content pop up easily in search results when they are targeted by users. Hence, monitoring keywords regularly helps you jump to higher rankings and stay relevant. With the right keyword tracker tool, you can streamline tracking your keyword performance and measure the impact of your SEO strategy. - Use Historical Data
The search data from older dates, known as historical data, can influence your search results today. Historical data offers insights into how search engines evolve their functionality (algorithms) over time and can help marketers understand the impact of algorithm updates on website rankings. By analyzing historical data, you can identify patterns that have impacted your website’s rankings until now and use this understanding to predict the impact of future updates and formulate effective counteractive strategies. - Analyze Competitors
Doing competitor analysis when a search engine rolls out an algorithm update can prove instrumental in fine-tuning your SEO strategy. For instance, if you notice an upturn in your competitors’ rankings, chances are they updated their website content in alignment with the latest algorithm update(s). Tracking competitor rankings during algorithm updates can help you perform a risk assessment by identifying changes others have made and benchmarking your performance against theirs. - Set Alerts
Setting up rank tracking system alerts or search engine alerts like Google alerts with a phrase like “Google algorithm updates” can help stay on top of all algorithm updates and implement changes on time. You can receive these alerts via email, too, so even if you miss the search engine alerts, you can still be apprised of any algorithm updates.
Conclusion: Optimize Your SEO Strategies With Confidence
Staying competitive in digital marketing takes dedication and strategic planning. You cannot design successful digital strategies without tracking your search rankings and measuring your digital success. SEO is a core aspect of any successful digital strategy, and it can only be done effectively when you know where your brand stands in terms of search engine rankings.
Monitoring search engine rankings is a key metric for assessing SEO effectiveness. The higher your website appears on SERPs, the better for your digital presence. Rank tracking helps you uncover this, along with valuable insights into competitor performance and algorithm updates. Using a rank tracking platform like RankWatch, you can consistently improve and maintain high search rankings and beat the competition any day.
