In this article, I'll be covering keyword ranking analysis. Keyword ranking analysis is essential for a strong content strategy, but can be hard to understand.
In this article I'll show you the importance of improving search engine optimization (SEO) through ranking analysis, in addition to a step-by-step guide on how to analyze a keyword ranking for search engines like Google, Yahoo, or Bing.
I will also be including a list of the top keyword ranking analysis tools you can use to track, monitor, and measure your website’s performance in search engines. The purpose of this is to help you find the best tool for your needs so you can analyze your keyword rankings and improve you SEO content strategy.
Keyword ranking analysis is the process of monitoring how a website ranks for a set of search terms. Analyzing keyword rankings in search engines helps to track SEO performance and formulate a content strategy for a website.
Keyword Ranking Analysis is crucial to discover how your website is performing in search engine result page (SERP) rankings. It is also important to understand how your website is performing in comparison to your competitors. This can also help inform our keyword research strategy so we know which keywords we can and should target in the future to cover our niche in further depth to improve our SEO.
If we didn't analyze our keyword rankings, we would never know how good or bas our SEO and content publishing strategies are working to improve our websites performance in search engines. Without it, you’re essentially doing work without data and feedback to inform if the decisions you are making are good ones or not for your organic search engine marketing.
The first step for keyword analysis is selecting keywords or search terms you want to monitor your websites ranking for. A website can rank for hundreds to thousands of different keywords, so you need to know which keywords you want to track to focus your analysis and SEO efforts.
After you have some target search terms chosen, the next step is to find out where your website ranks for that term in search engines like Google, Yahoo, or Bing.
You could perform this process manually by searching for the keyword and then searching through the search results pages to find out your website’s ranking position, but I highly recommend using one of the search engine ranking tools listed below, which will do this automatically and more accurately.
Examples of Search Engine Ranking Tools: Ahrefs, SEMrush, SE Ranking & Google Search Console
These tools will automatically track your websites ranking for these search terms, and will track any changes to your ranking. This will save you from having to perform step 2 repeatedly each day to analyze the keyword position. Plus, with a rank checking tool, you can track multiple keywords at once automatically.
After setting up your rank tracking tool, to automatically track your websites keyword rankings in SERP results. You will want to monitor the keyword rankings over time to see how your website is performing.
This will help you see if your position is increasing or decreasing over time, and if your SEO efforts are working or not.
Many established website owners and SEO professionals will check their keyword rankings on a daily basis to spot any radical shifts in SERP positions. But if you have a newer website, then it’s perfectly acceptable to look at this data on a weekly (or even monthly) basis because your SEO strategies will often take longer to cause a ranking change in the SERPs.
Regardless of how often you check your keyword rankings, this data will help you see if your SEO efforts are paying off and help guide your SEO and content strategy. Over time you may see your website is performing better for a specific set of keywords over another topic, and you can then focus on publishing more content related to this topic to cash in on this SEO opportunity.
If you are unsure where to start you can check out our guide on how to find rankable keywords for a new site to help you find the best keywords to target for a newer website.
After analyzing some keyword rankings for the primary search terms you want a page to rank for on Google, Yahoo, or Bing. You can expand your analysis by adding additional keywords to track for that URL.
Since pages can rank for hundreds to thousands of different keywords, even ones you aren't targeting directly with your on and off-page SEO strategy. It's good to uncover those related keywords your URLs are ranking for, so you can add them to your keyword tracking list and gain more organic traffic.
If you want to discover topical groups of keywords that can be targeted with a single page, you can use a keyword grouping tool like one from our list of the best keyword grouping tools to discover semantically related keywords, and collections of keywords that single articles/webpages are ranking for in the top SERP results.
You can find related keywords and see all the keywords a specific URL of your website is ranking for using Google Search Console. Google automatically reports all of the keywords and their impressions and click traffic to each URL on your website in Search Console. This allows you to quickly inspect any web page to find out what other search terms may be worth pursuing and tracking with your keyword analysis software.
Here's how find related keywords in Google Search Console:
The final step is to decide if you want to continue tracking particular keywords or not for your website. If you find a keyword or set of keywords does not bring very much attention or traffic to your website; even if you are ranking highly, it may be good to focus your efforts elsewhere.
Doing good keyword research can help reduce the chances of targeting low-traffic search terms. A low volume easy keyword will bring some traffic, but ranking #7 for a high volume keyword may bring your website more traffic than even ranking #1 for a low volume keyword keyword.
But if you do find that a URL is not getting much traffic, then it may not be worth your time to track the associated keywords anymore. It would be better to remove those search terms from your analysis tool to free up extra space to add new keywords to monitor for another web page.
Basically all keyword analysis tools have a limit on the number of keywords they’ll allow you to track at once based on the subscription plan you choose. So it can become a balancing act as to which keywords you should keep analyzing as you fill up that quota.
An ideal ranking score is between 1 and 10 because your website will be ranking on the first page of the search results. But a ranking above 20 or 30 for very high volume keywords can even bring some traffic. Most web traffic flows to the first 3 organic results. As your URL moves up higher in the ranking positions, your keyword ranking score will improve which can lead to more clicks on your listing in the SERPs.
Following these steps consistently will help you discover which keywords your are driving traffic and your website is performing the best for, and you should focus your efforts on. As well as inform your SEO and content strategy with the data you collect.
Google Search Console is the most accurate keyword analysis tool for Google rankings because the data comes directly from Google. It’s also completely free. You can find out which keywords each URL on your website is ranking for in the SERPs as well as how those positions have changed over time.
Ahrefs has a free rank checking tool you can try as part of their SEO analysis software. If you like it, then you can upgrade to a paid account to track the search engine rankings of your website over time. You can also analyze your competitor’s keyword rankings to find out how well they’re performing in SERPs.
SEMrush also has a rank checking tool alongside 50+ other SEO tools. With a week free trial available, and multiple subscription plans to choose from, an all-in-one solution for SEO, content creation, market research, advertising, and social media management, you can find the right plan for your business.
SE Ranking is designed for all types of website publishers, including bloggers, small business owners, agencies, and even enterprises. With this tool, you can analyze the SEO keyword performance of your website and your top competitors. SE Ranking provides visibility ratings and scores to help you monitor your performance in SERPs.
SERPWatcher is a ranking analysis tool that’s bundled with 4 other powerful SEO apps. You can try SERPWatcher for free as well. This software allows you to monitor daily desktop and mobile rankings as well as get estimated visits for each keyword based on the ranking position.
Moz rank tracker and analysis tool gives you instant ranking reports for your website’s keywords. You can also use it to monitor the keywords your competitors are ranking for, discover new keywords you might want to track, and switch between search engines to receive the ranking data you’re most interested in (e.g. Google, Yahoo, and Bing).