January 3, 2022 •DJ Team
One of the primary jobs of an SEO professional is to monitor, track, and analyze their site's search engine rankings for their target keywords.
It allows them to determine their site's current standing in search rankings and evaluate whether their SEO keyword strategy is working.
This is where a keyword rank checker comes in handy.
Not sure what a keyword rank checker is? No problem.
In this article, we'll give you a detailed introduction to SEO keyword research and keyword rank checker tools, how they work, and why you should use them in your SEO strategy.
Let's get started.
What Is a Keyword Rank Checker
A keyword rank checker is a tool that allows you to check your site's position in the search results for your target keywords. Rank checkers are a vital part of any SEO professional's armory and play a crucial role in helping them evaluate, analyze, and evolve their marketing and SEO strategy.
You can think of keyword rank checkers as radars that detect your site's movement in the search rankings for different keywords.
A rank checker indexes millions of search results across the web and identifies the keywords where your website ranks in the first 100 results. It then keeps an eye on these keywords and notifies you of any changes in your search ranking for a keyword.
For example, suppose your site ranks at the 20th position in search results for the keyword "how to make a website." First, a keyword rank checker would identify this keyword and where you're ranking for it. Second, it will continuously track your site's position for this keyword.
So if your site moves from the 20th position to the 19th, 15th, 22nd, or any other position, the rank checker will immediately notify you.
A rank checker also provides you vital SEO information about a keyword search as its monthly search volume, its search competition, its variations, and the top website ranking for it.
Why do you need keyword rank checkers? Can't you check your rankings manually?
You can check your site's ranking manually, of course, but there are a few problems with manual rank checking.
- Without a rank checker, you have no way to find out what keywords your site is ranking for.
- Even if you find a keyword where your site is ranking in the first 100 results, you will need to check it manually on Google Search. For instance, if you want to manually track your rankings for the keyword "how to make a website," you will need to enter the keyword into Google Search and manually browse each search page to find your site.
- Even when you find your site in the search results manually, there's no way to track the ranking changes without a rank checker.
- And finally, you won't find other related keywords your site is ranking for without using a rank checking tool.
In short, a keyword rank checker significantly simplifies the process of finding and tracking the keywords your site is ranking for and helps you devise an SEO strategy based on its findings.
How SEO Keyword Rank Checkers Work
Keyword rank checkers work on the same principles as Google's search engine algorithms. Every keyword rank checker uses automated bots (spiders) to continuously explore the search results for billions of keywords.
They maintain their own search databases, which contain information about billions of keyword, their variations, and the sites ranking for them.
When you enter a URL in a rank checker, it immediately searches its index to find all the keywords it's ranking for and generates a detailed report. You can then select the keywords you want to track and monitor for your website.
Most keyword rank checkers have specific keyword limits for their users, which is why you need to be careful in choosing the keywords you want to track.
Once you finalize your target keywords, the keyword rank checker sends weekly or monthly rank tracking reports based on your settings.
Benefits of Using a Keyword Rank Checker
We've explained how rank checkers work. But why should you care? What's the benefit of using a keyword rank checker for your business?
A rank checker gives you numerous advantages over your competitors. Let's discuss the most prominent ones.
1. Allows You to Evaluate Your Current SEO Strength
You can't develop an SEO strategy without clearly understanding your current SEO standings.
This is where a keyword rank checker is priceless.
It helps you identify all the keywords driving traffic to your site and allows you to fully evaluate your SEO strength. Using a rank checker, you can find the keywords with the highest search volume driving traffic to your site and prioritize them in your SEO strategy.
Similarly, once you know where you stand in terms of SEO, you can develop monthly, quarterly, and annual targets for your SEO strategy.
2. Saves Time by Automating Rank Tracking
A rank tracker saves you hundreds of hours every year by automatically tracking and monitoring all the keywords your site ranks for.
It constantly keeps an eye on any changes to your search rankings for your target keywords and notifies you through email alerts.
Doing this manually with such efficiency is almost impossible.
3. Helps You Discover New Keywords
One of the biggest advantages of a rank checker is that it helps you uncover new keywords driving traffic to your site. You can guess a few keywords based on the topic of your content, but you can never fully identify all the long-tail keywords that might be sending traffic your way.
A rank checker does that easily and helps you identify secondary and tertiary keywords that you can target in your content marketing and SEO strategy.
4. Helps You Determine if Your SEO Strategy Is Working
Without using a keyword rank checker, you can never be sure if your SEO strategy is working or not.
Why? Because when you publish new content, target a new set of keywords, or optimize your site for a new topic, you can only know if your site is moving up or down the search results by using a rank checker.
If your rankings rise for a keyword after publishing a new article, it means your SEO strategy is working. On the contrary, if your rankings continue to fall, you should reevaluate your strategy.
How to Use Free Website Ranking Checkers
Can you use a website rank checker for free? There are a few ways to check your website rankings without purchasing expensive software.
The most obvious option is Google Search Console.
Google Search Console is a free Google product you can use to control and manage your site's search appearance.
It also provides you with a keyword report that shows the exact search queries driving traffic to your site, along with your site's average search rankings for them.
However, it lacks advanced features, such as position change alerts, search volume, and keyword difficulty, which you get with premium rank checkers.
Still, it's a very handy product for casual bloggers, content creators, and organizations not fully prepared to invest in a premium rank checker.
When to Use Premium Rank Tracking Software
If you're serious about growing your brand's SEO presence and driving thousands of visitors from organic search results, you need to invest in a high-quality premium rank tracking software.
While there are many premium rank tracking software options on the market, we believe that Demandjumps's rank checker offers the perfect balance of utility, insights, and value for money for growing B2B and B2C businesses.
Demandjump's rank checker provides you with complete keyword rank tracking capabilities and allows you to constantly monitor any position changes for your target keywords.
It also shows you historic keyword search trends and allows you to compare various keywords to determine the best fit for your content strategy.
Additionally, it allows you to set up email alerts and sends you weekly position change reports to ensure you're always on top of the latest changes to your site's search rankings.
How to Use an SEO Ranking Checker for Your Business
Using an SEO rank checker for your business isn't rocket science.
Almost every premium rank checker offers an excellent user experience and makes it easy to quickly find and track the relevant keywords for your business.
Generally, most keyword rank checkers have the following workflow.
- Step 1: The user signs in to access the keyword rank checker.
- Step 2: The user enters a URL in the rank checker.
- Step 3: The rank checker returns with a list of keywords driving traffic to the searched URL.
- Step 4: The user chooses the keyword from the report they wish to track.
- Step 5: The rank checker starts monitoring the chosen keywords for the user's URL.
- Step 6: The rank checker sends email alerts every time the user's URL changes position for the selected keywords.
Apart from this standard workflow, most rank checkers also provide advanced reports, graphs, and competition analysis to help the users determine if a keyword is worth targeting in their SEO and content strategy.
Are You Ready to Use a Keyword Rank Checker?
As we said at the start, keyword rank checkers are crucial for gaining insights on your SEO strength and developing a long-term content marketing strategy that consistently drives organic search traffic to your site.
Investing in a premium rank checker like Demandjump gives you a significant advantage over your competitors and helps you discover new keyword ranking opportunities promptly.
Get started today for free!
