What Is Keyword Ranking In SEO And How To Track It

Edgars Kebbe

Updated October 25, 2022

Many websites fail to improve their search engine rankings because they ignore keeping track of the website’s keyword rankings.

You must know what keywords your site ranks for and where it ranks in searches. This way, you can measure if your SEO efforts have a good result and do adjustments to your SEO strategy.

Likewise, you should keep track of your competitor’s keyword ranking position to know which keywords you can use and what strategies they apply that give them good results. 

Do you know what are the keyword ranking positions of your website? No more talk. 

Read on and find out how to get to the top of Google!

What Is Keyword Ranking?

When you hear about keyword ranking, you should know that this refers to the position a web page has within the search results for a particular keyword in search engines.

Thus, every time a person performs a search for a keyword, they will get a list of pages as a result. The ranking URL of a website is these web pages that appear for that keyword position search.

Also, it is essential to know that a web page can rank for multiple relevant keywords and search terms.

In addition, it is necessary to keep in mind that Google search results change depending on what search engines consider relevant for that specific keyword. On the other hand, you will often see paid search ads in the top and footer of search results. Suppose you are doing a local keyword search. In that case, you will see in the results listing a Google Maps reference or result below the Google sponsored ads.

The organic results listing for the keyword starts after the sponsored ads and the Google Maps ad.

Tip:

Keep in mind that in every keyword search result you do on Google from a desktop or mobile computer, there will always be ten organic web ads, which comprise the keyword ranking positions.

What Is Keyword Rank Tracking?

Keyword ranking tracking is the continuous checking that a website occupies in the SERPs to validate its performance over time.

This strategy is helpful to refine your SEO strategy and know if the techniques you are applying have good results, not to mention that you can do it to spy on your competition and see what actions they are doing and are helpful at the SEO level.

What Is The Importance Of SEO Keyword Rankings?

An important concept to consider in your SEO strategy is tracking the positions of your keywords, as this will allow you to verify whether your current SEO keyword strategy is effective.

Use keyword rank tracking tools to know if you are on the right track

For example, suppose you recently published 20 new landing pages on your website.

In this case, tracking the positions will allow you to check how those landing pages have improved in keyword rankings over time.

Likewise, keyword rankings help you detect why organic traffic from Google may suddenly go up or down.

So, suppose your organic traffic went up a percentage in the last month. In that case, it can be challenging to figure out why if you use Google Analytics. In this case, thanks to keyword rank tracking, you will be able to see the keywords where your website is moving up in the SERPs. It will allow you to explain why your traffic is increasing.

Once you know where you rank in the SERPs, you can start testing SEO techniques to increase your rankings and traffic. Remember that the higher your website appears in Google’s search results pages, the more organic traffic it will get.

Keep in mind that recent search engine statistics collected by backlinko on keyword ranking positions reveal that:

  • Google’s #1 result gets about 32% of all organic clicks.
  • The top 5 organic results in the SERP account for 67.6% of all clicks.

So, to capture this traffic, you need to improve your SEO keyword ranking.

However, it’s not about getting generic traffic that doesn’t convert or generate high bounce rates. You need traffic from people interested in your products or services to improve your CTR and CRO exponentially.

Are you ready to rank at the top of Google and take off web traffic?

Top practices for tracking keyword rankings in Google SERP

The main ways to keep track of your website’s keyword rankings in Google are as follows:

1. Checking your rankings manually:

It means typing the keywords in Google one by one. To see where your site appears.

So, if you want to check your rankings manually, make sure you are using a private browser session (known as incognito mode) and searching from the exact location of your target audience.

Tip:

I suggest using VPN software and changing your location to get more accurate keyword ranking positions for specific countries or locations.

2. Using a ranking tracking tool:

Different tools allow you to check where your site ranks for specific keywords. Furthermore, these tools enable continuous tracking of how your rankings have changed over time.

When you search on Google, you get an overview of how your site ranks for a given audience since Google returns search results based on browsing history, cookies, location, among other factors.

Due to the importance of knowing the positions that your online projects occupy in Google search results, various tools facilitate checking the positioning of your web pages.

Among the tools, you can use SE Ranking, Acuranker, Semrush, Ahrefs, etc.

Likewise, here are some easy-to-plug-in suggestions for the best rank tracking tools as a solution on how to track keyword positions.

14 Best Rank Tracking Tools of 2023 (Tested & Reviewed)

Learn more

So, if you want to ensure your ranking in the SERPs, you should employ SEO tools that track the rankings of keywords of your interest.

Also, you should check the parameters that your SEO tool uses to know what you need to improve or what to focus on if you want to climb positions at Google’s top. 

In case you didn’t know, Google provides a tool called Google Search Console, which is helpful for monitoring keyword ranking positions.

Likewise, it is good for you to do keyword research about what people use when they want to reach a site in your niche. It helps you to measure the traffic coming from Google, evaluate related keywords that your buyer persona also uses, and know which are the most popular search terms.

Tip:

The Google Search Console allows you to get a Performance report, in which you can find out which URLs on your website receive the most traffic.

What can influence the keyword rankings of my website?

Major search engines such as Google rank results by keyword according to complex parameters. Search engine optimization seeks to elucidate these variables to optimize the website for better search engine results page.

Although Google does not publish which are the parameters with which it configures its algorithm, it has been discovered that the factors that bring the best results in terms of positioning and ranking in search engines are the following:

  • Total number of backlinks on the website.
  • Website architecture and order of internal and external links.
  • Internal linking structure.
  • High-quality content.
  • How keywords are used in web metadata such as meta titles, meta descriptions, slug, etc.
  • Structure or order of keywords in the web page content.
  • SEO-friendly structure of the URL.
  • Authority assigned to the web page.
  • Performance of the web page.
  • Time users spend on the website and bounce rate.

Tip:

Google shows you personalized results based on numerous factors such as your previous search history, location, or device from which you perform the search, etc. Another factor that Google considers is the code, so you should optimize the web code to get better results.

Conclusion

As you can see, thanks to keyword ranking tracking, you can know where you rank in the search engines. You can spy on your competitors to get tips that will allow you to improve your SEO strategy.

This way, you will be able to climb faster in search engine rankings to get more and better traffic, which translates into more sales.

What are you waiting for to keep track keyword rankings?

Frequently Asked Questions

How do I find my keyword ranking?

If you want to find ranking keywords for your website or your competitor’s site, you must open your keyword ranking tool. Then, type the URL of your website and choose the country where your audience is located. Once you do the analysis, you will get the list of keywords for which your website ranks. Another option is to do it manually using the Google Search Console performance report to find out what words your website ranks for and search for each keyword in Google.

Why are keyword rankings important?

SEO keyword rankings are an excellent tool to determine how your website and competitors perform. This way, you can know when to adjust your SEO plan, considering which techniques are working and which are not.

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1 thought on “What Is Keyword Ranking In SEO And How To Track It”

  1. Keyword ranking is a really crucial piece of a business’ overall SEO strategy. I love the factors you mentioned that can influence keyword rankings. The bonus tip about the code used on the website is valuable as well. I’ll use this list to focus on each factor and hopefully see improvement for my website.

    It’s definitely useful too to see how competitors in my industry are ranking for their chosen keywords.

    Reply

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