When it comes to determining how your website is ranking in Google searches, unless you’re a bonafide white label SEO expert like our team at Digital Marketing Blueprint, it can often seem like somewhat of a mystery. Sure, there are a host of tools out there to help, but they aren’t the only way to determine where your site lies in the search rankings.
That’s why our digital marketing team has created an in-depth guide to help make things a little clearer. Here you’ll find key insight into what things will affect your Google search rankings, as well as how to determine where your site stands on your own, and with the help of different software available.
Why isn’t a Simple Google Search Enough?
Often, there’s a common misconception among many that you can check your website’s Google search rankings by performing a simple search on your own. This isn’t true because Google personalizes its results for each user. Searching for a single keyword to see where your site ranks isn’t a good idea because things will drastically affect the results, like:
- Social Connections
- Your Search History
- Whether or not You’ve Visited a Site Before
- Your Device Type
- Your Physical Location
- Emails You’ve Received in Google
Performing such searches in the Incognito or Private setting in Google will minimize the effect these things have on your results. However, your search will still be affected by your IP address and it will be different depending on the device you’re using (i.e. desktop or mobile). For these reasons, it’s not recommended.
Checking Your Ranking & Performance in Google Search Console
One of the easiest ways to determine your website’s rankings is by using the Google Search Console tool, which is easily available. If you don’t already have it set up, you can do so in several ways:
- By verifying your website through Google Analytics
- Uploading an HTML file
- Adding HTML code to the < Head > tag of the site
- Using the SEOYoast plugin (if you have a WordPress site)
Once you’ve done that, it’s easy to read and analyze your results. You can compare a wide variety of different things by using the Google Search Console, including:
- Date Range: The Google Search Console enables users to analyze up to 16 months’ worth of data, making it easy to get an overall picture of how your site is performing, as well as compare data on a month-to-month basis. You can edit the date-range view by clicking the pencil button.
- Impressions, Clicks, CTR, & Average Position: On the main page, you’ll be provided with several important pieces of data that will give you a general idea of how your site’s doing. The four boxes on the top of a screen can be clicked on and off to appear in the graph below. One of the most important components to look at is your site’s clickthrough rate (CTR).
- Queries: At the bottom of the chart on your Google Search Console, you’ll find some additional information, such as countries, devices, pages, and queries. Clicking on the queries section will then show you all of the searches queries your website is appearing for and how well it ranks.
What to Do with Your Search Console Data
Once you’ve got a good idea of the basic data you’ve found on your Google Search Console, the next step is to perform a thorough analysis of the data to determine what you’re doing right and where you can improve. One of the biggest benefits of the search console tool is that it makes it easy to filter your data in several different ways to provide some key insight into your website’s overall performance.
Filtering Data by Page
If you want to know how a particular page on your website is performing, you can filter it using the “page” filter. This allows you to see data based on URLs containing a specific word, URLs not containing a specific word, and exact URLs.
Filtering Data by Search Type
Filtering data by search type is another way to gain key insight into your site, enabling you to see the various data pertaining to both your website’s pages, as well as any videos and images you also have on your site.
Filtering Data by Date
As mentioned above, filtering the data by date is a great way to determine your site’s overall performance over a specific span of time, allowing you to see if any changes you’ve made over the course of the past several months have obtained the results you expected.
Country
For businesses that don’t operate internationally, the best way to determine how your site’s performing is by filtering the results to see data for that particular country. For global businesses, you can filter your site on a country-by-country basis to see where it’s performing the best.
Device
Filtering your Google Search Console data by the device (mobile, desktop, tablet) will give you a better understanding of what type of devices your visitors are using. This can be particularly important, to ensure that your site is optimized for every device accordingly.
How Do I Obtain Keyword-Specific Data to Analyze?
As mentioned above, using the query filter can be a great way to determine how your site is performing when it comes to certain keywords. Filtering the data properly is important because doing so will let you know:
- How many people clicked on your website after searching for a particular phrase
- What the CTR is for a particular keyword
- How many times your website was shown for a particular query
- Which pages on your site rank for a given keyword
- Your site’s average position for a particular keyword
- If your site is being shown at all for a given keyword
The best way to see this type of data is by picking a specific keyword, applying a query filter, selecting the date range you want, then selecting the pages section in the table below the chart. There you’ll see what pages rank for what keyword, how many clicks and impressions were received, and your average position throughout the time period you selected.
Top Tools for Checking Your Page’s Ranking
Performing all of the steps mentioned above can certainly require a lot of time and patience, which is why there’s a variety of software available that essentially does the same thing without all of the heavy liftings. Some can be great tools when it comes to keyword analysis, providing added insight that can’t be found on the Google Search Console.
Using search tools can come in handy when developing the SEO keyword architecture for your website, as well as when you want to check whether your backlinking and other optimization tactics are having the desired results.
Some of today’s leading software tools for checking your ranking are:
1. Google Rank Checker
Google Rank Checker is an easy tool to use if you’re performing keyword research and trying to determine what keywords will work best for your site and the ones most commonly used in your industry. It’s a free online tool (often a browser extension) that will tell you how a particular keyword is ranking on a particular domain.
2. SEMrush
Often thought of as one of the best rank-checking tools out there, SEMrush offers comprehensive keyword-checking solutions. You can enter your website or a particular URL, and it will display which keywords you’re currently ranking for. However, it goes one step further, allowing you to click on any of the keywords that pop up to determine your site’s keyword competition. SEMrush supports both Google and Bing.
The tool also allows users to receive weekly updates and notifications about ranking changes, alerting users when a particular keyword is performing well or poorly.
3. AccuRanker
One of the things that many find ideal when it comes to AccuRanker is its user-friendly interface, enabling users to monitor keywords in Google, Bing, as well as Yandex. The results are often very accurate and provide users with a search result snapshot preview, delivering a great overview of the results of a particular search.
Additionally, AccuRanker allows you to track ranking results based on country, as well as a particular city, providing more detailed location-based information than many of the other rank checking tools out there.
4. SEOCentro Rank Checker
For those performing deep competitive analysis research, one of the best tools available is SEOCentro’s Rank Checker. This is because not only does it provide an overview of how a particular keyword is ranking on a variety of search engines, it also provides the keyword history as well. This gives users insight into how a certain keyword has performed over the long term, a great tool for determining whether particular keywords are losing steam or not.
5. Ahrefs
One of the biggest benefits of the Ahrefs tracking tool is that rather than having to enter particular keywords to determine how your domain is performing compared to other sites, it automatically gives you the keywords ranking on your site. You can also get those results based on country, and easily track your and your competitors’ keyword rankings.
6. SERPs Keyword Rank Checker
Unlike other tools available, SERP’s Keyword Rank Checker allows users to do more than simply see how a particular keyword is performing. It also makes it easy to filter searches by location and device, in addition to providing search volume data and CPC for each keyword or phrase.
7. SERPWatcher
This is a paid tool that enables users to track multiple keywords for any domain, based on both geolocations as well as the device. It’s easy to use and provides affordable payment plans based on the number of keywords a user wants to track.
Contact us Today for More SEO, PPC, and Digital Marketing Solutions!
Are you trying to boost your website’s rankings? The experienced experts from Digital Marketing Blueprint can help. We act as an extension of your team, providing a wide range of white label digital marketing and content marketing solutions you that can brand as your own. At Digital Marketing Blueprint, it’s our job to create a blueprint for your website’s success by performing competitive research and determining the best digital marketing tactics to generate more leads and sales.
In addition to our SEO services, our team is also equipped to provide lead generation services, like white label PPC, content creation, and copywriting services, video marketing solutions, and more. When you work with Digital Marketing Blueprint, we outfit your company with a clear action plan for success, helping to boost sales and traffic to your website through the use of innovative marketing tactics.
One of the main reasons that many choose our team over competitors is because our dedicated copywriters and content creation team can provide unique content of every kind with a quick turnaround. white label digital marketing agency has experience working across a wide range of markets and industries and can offer unique insight and invaluable advice when needed.
To learn more about how we can help your company rise in the rankings, or learn more about our services, contact us online today.
