What is Rank Tracking

So you've probably briefly looked into SEO (Search Engine Optimisation), what it is, how it can impact your business and all of the other wonderful things that come along with marketing your business online.

And within that research you've seen the term 'rankings' thrown around a lot and 'rank tracking' and it's halted you in your tracks because you don't know what it is.

Well, as an SEO expert for the past near decade, I'm going to answer that all important question: 'what is rank tracking?'

What Is Rank Tracking

Rank tracking is the process of understanding all of the positions your keywords appear in Google SERP's (Search Engine Result Pages).

When I say position, I mean where you appear on the search result page.

If you appear at the top, your position/rank is number 1

If you appear at the bottom of page 1 on Google, your position/rank is number 10.

By tracking all of your rankings, it can give you an insight into how well your website is optimised for SEO.

Why Should You Care

Whilst I am an advocate of not obsessing about your ranking positions as they change on the daily, they do play an important part in indicating how well your optimisation is working.

If you are appearing in higher positions (which equal lower numbers, remember 1 is where we want to be) then that gives an indication that your website's ability to rank well is really good.

If you know that you rank really well for the keywords you are targeting, but your organic traffic is remaining stagnant, then you know you need to target bigger keywords.

By understanding the health of your rankings, it can give you a huge insight into what your next steps should be.

You Said They Change Daily?

Google's extremely sophisticated algorithm means that they are always trying and testing new websites in new positions to see what resonates with the user.

Google's primary function is to help people find what they are looking for.

The result in position 1, in Google's eyes, is the most relevant result for the what the user is looking for.

In order to stay ahead of other search engines, Google will rotate positions across page 1 to see which results 'answer' the users queries best. That is how you move up the ranking (in a really basic nutshell).

Benefits to Rank Tracking

By tracking your ranks and understanding where you appear for certain keywords, it enables you to understand where you are underperforming and which keywords you need to focus on optimising for.

You will also be able to understand whether your current set of keywords are aligned with your business goals and whether they are bringing in the right type of traffic.

Also, by rank tracking, you'll be able to see which keywords are most likely performing the best for you and therefore, should be the ones you look to continually optimise for.

I say most likely, because Google is now extremely secretive about their organic data.

Now You Know What Rank Tracking Is

Hopefully now, you should have a basic understanding of what rank tracking is and why you should care about it.

If you still have more questions, or are in need of someone to help you with rank trackings, feel free to get in touch!