So, you’ve just created a new website, or perhaps you’ve put a lot of time into creating a ton of blog posts, but how do you track its keyword rankings progress?
Aside from obvious web analytics tracking services, such as Google Analytics and Google search console, you can track keywords to see what’s working and what needs more attention.
Not only can you track keywords, but you can also find new keywords to help you rank for more topics and, of course, rank better overall in the search engines.
To track keywords, you should use a keyword tool such as Ahrefs, Semrush, or Moz. You can also use Google Search Console.
The remainder of this blog post will explain how to track keywords, what filters to use for certain tools, and more.
Why should you track keywords?
Monitoring what keywords you rank for is a great way to see if your content is working.
Even if your new blog post doesn’t bring in massive traffic, ranking for keywords can help improve the domain authority of your website.
For example, ranking for multiple related keywords allows you to become an authority in a given niche. The more authoritative you are, the easier it is to rank for all similar posts (on the same topic).
Tracking your keywords allows you to see what blog posts (and other pages) are beginning to rank, bringing in traffic, or even creating conversions to bottom of the funnel pages.
How do you track keyword rankings?
The easiest way to track keywords is by using a tool such as Ahrefs, Semrush, or Moz. The choice is up to you, but we’re a big fan of Ahrefs.
Ahrefs allows you to track a project (a domain) – this monitors your keywords. For example, you can receive regular reports of new and lost keywords and other well-performing blog posts or pages.
You can set up recurring emails, or you can monitor these yourself.
Once you’ve entered your website domain, click the “organic keywords” option in the left-hand toolbar.
This view provides an in-depth view of all the keywords you rank for, showing key metrics such as traffic received from a given keyword, your current position in the SERP (search engine ranking position), and how difficult it is to rank.
You can also view the “top pages” section, also found on the left-hand toolbar. This tool allows you to see top-performing pages (and relevant keywords). You should use both options to gain a better understanding of how your content is performing.
If you’re using an alternate tool, then the steps are fairly similar – just slightly different for each keyword research service.
Use Google search console to track keywords
Alongside paid tools such as Ahrefs and Semrush, you can also use Google search console to track keywords.
Click the “performance” tab and view the “queries” below. You can filter these by clicks, impressions, and the current SERP; although more accurate than paid tools (as Google search console receives actual data from your website), it is a lot more difficult to use and for the average website owner, perhaps not worth it.
With that being said, you can filter to see what keywords are currently ranking and more importantly, analyze whether you’ve recently lost rankings for any keywords.
If you’ve lost rankings, then you can dedicate more resources and allocate focus to recovering these keywords and crucial page rankings.
Improve the SERP for your website today
Knowing how to track keyword performance is key to understanding what content is working and what isn’t.
But more importantly, tracking keywords provides you with a much-needed insight into your website. The more you understand, the easier it is to bring in more organic traffic.
And we all know that typically, the more high-quality traffic you bring in, the more leads and sales you’ll make.
But if tracking keywords isn’t enough for you, or you’re looking to rank for certain keywords, then we recommend checking out our domain keyword authority package.
This service is designed to improve your domain authority score, also helping you rank for certain keywords. The result? More traffic, increased authority, and a much easier time ranking new keywords.
