How to track SEO Rankings The Ultimate Guide.

SEO is a necessary aspect of our digital lives. In 2023 it was reported that there had been a 69% growth in the budget allocated to the process of optimizing search engines, and that figure will not be slowing down. What exactly is an effective SEO strategy? What should you consider when starting? How do you keep track of rank tracking? We’ll go over the questions about search engine rankings and provide an easy checklist of ranking tracking for SEO.

Let’s get some basics off the table. When we discuss SEO rankings, we are talking about the position of a website’s page for certain terms on the search engine result page. A variety of factors can affect the rankings of websites, such as organic search traffic, SEO optimization backlinks as well as subject matter authority, user experience, quality of content as well as site speed, and others.

Why is SEO Rankings Important?

The higher your website’s ranking towards the top of the search results page, the more reliable it appears. This can result in more the number of clicks and organic traffic that comes to your website. Therefore, the goal of ranking high in SEO is to create trust among readers as well as the Google indexing engine. Trust is the key to success.

How do you set SEO Ranking Benchmarks?

Achieving the top 5 positions for any keyword can bring about 67% more visitors. In this regard, you should strive for at least the fifth spot for every keyword that is relevant to your company.

Secondly, consider search intent. If you’re in the top spot, no. 1 or 2 in the search, and you not getting results, then it’s likely that you’re ranking on keywords that aren’t pertinent to the content you’re creating.

How can I verify my SEO Rankings?

To determine whether a particular webpage or landing page is performing well, you first evaluate the current rankings of their SEO.

The most well-known method of evaluating SEO results can be found in Google Search Console. Here’s the way to do it:

Choose the domain that you would like to determine the rank of in the menu on the left uppermost;
Click on Search Results;

Find the square to the right. This is your typical place over time;

Go to Queries below, and you will be able to see the keywords that you rank for;

You can filter your search results by position and view the most popular keywords on this page.

If you’re using third-party software such as Ahrefs or Semrush, This is how you can determine the rank of your keywords:

On the Overview window, type in the domain name of your primary domain;
Input the keyword into include in the Include Search Bar. The following example illustrates SEO analytics keywords;
Sort by the position that the keyword is ranked on;

You can now find the keyword’s position and also which landing page is ranked on it.

Many SEO tools can help you achieve this. They’re often referred to as webmaster tools. Google Search Console, SEMRush, and Ahrefs are fantastic for this. You can also track Google ranking in both paid and organic searches using SE Ranking Google Ranking Checker. Alongside displaying how your site’s pages rank for the keywords, you want to rank, and It also gives you information about their search volume as well as traffic forecasts, as well as SERP functions. Additionally, you can locate an entire list of free tracking tools at SEO Review tools. Remember that every free tool is offered to be used for a reason, so it is recommended to check out several of them prior to pursuing your SEO endeavors.

How do you keep track of SEO?

The process of tracking SEO’s progress involves SEO metrics. To determine the most significant SEO metrics, you’ll be aware of your SEO objectives. We’ll go into more detail about creating objectives in the following paragraph; however, for now, we’ll concentrate on the most important metrics that SEO professionals employ:

Organic traffic is the number of visitors to your website you receive through your SEO efforts.
Keyword rankings are the highest spots on specific keywords that your landing pages and websites have a position on;
Search visibility is the percentage of clicks that are received for each keyword you rank on
The rate at which a click is followed by a (CTR) A percentage of people who click on the search result, divided by the number of impressions
The bounce rate is the number of people who visit your site but leave the site without engaging with the page.
Speed of site – search engines prioritize pages that have greater load speeds;

Backlinks are the number of links that link from one site to another.

Each of these metrics must have some kind of benchmark. Certain metrics are distinguished by the date they must be met.

Organic traffic – determine the minimum amount of traffic per month you must achieve;

Keyword rankings – the #1 spot on Google is averaging 31.7 percent CTR. Concentrate on ranking at the top of search results as you can. Since positions 7-10 are almost no distinctions in SERPs, you should aim for at at-least the 5th position on the first page for each search term. Examine your competitors with specific keywords to discover ways to rank higher;
Keyword visibility – non-branded visibility for search rarely exceeds 40 percent. Targeting visibility of 30% is a good goal. However, 20-25% is acceptable.
The click-through rate (CTR) organic CTR is heavily influenced by the position you are in on SERPs. Find out the ways that each position affects CTR. You can also decide your CTR goals according to the positions you are in;
Rate of bounce – a good bounce rate is largely dependent on the industry in which you operate. In the case of B2B websites, the bounce rate is between 25 and 55 percent. Setting your benchmarks somewhere in between could be a good place to start.
Site speed – the highest speed of loading a site is not more than 3 seconds. Address technical issues, such as the size of images or server load, in order to improve the speed
Backlinks – set the minimum number of backlinks. Every backlink on other sites must meet the minimum rank requirement (also try to get backlinks that are ranked in the top 5 or more).

Example: Here, you can look at all the metrics above in one Whatagraph dashboard. This allows you to keep track of all metrics throughout the day. The data here is sourced from three data sources: Google Analytics, Google Search Console, and Ahrefs.

This is quite the SEO measurement list. The examples above include a number of indicators that can help assess your SEO performance. With Whatagraph, however, you can build your own dashboard, which includes relevant metrics for your website.

How do you set SEO Goals?

Once you’ve established your benchmarks, it’s now time to establish goals.

First, you must set your goals and then evaluate them to your goals. You will now have a strategy for what pages need to be improved to be more ranked. This is what you should be aware of when making goals:

The goals must be quantifiable. A precise, numerical goal that does not allow for interpretation for each keyword, as well as every metric, is listed above.

The goals must be precise. It is possible and necessary to have an ultimate goal in all your marketing efforts, that is, to bring in this many leads and create this amount of traffic. However, be specific that you are able to generate this many leads through this specific keyword. This keyword should be ranked in this particular position.

The goals must be recorded. No matter if the SEO campaign is managed solely by you or an entire team, you need to record your SEO efforts and outcomes. In this way, you’ll always know what was successful and what did not. If you’re part of an entire team, they are in the same boat with regard to SEO’s progress. Additionally, you can monitor the SEO outcomes as time passes.

Example It is a working template that compares the benchmark to the target. It can be used when creating goals by hand. This is a good keyword, but it could be enhanced.

How do you track SEO Leads?

Each SEO campaign has a single objective: converting. These can include sales; however, for the B2B world, conversions typically refer to leads. How do you track the SEO leads?

The first step is to find out what actions visitors to your website take to turn into a lead.

It could be the registration form, Live Chat initiation, or a subscription – whatever you discover will assist you in selling.

Many tools can be used to track the conversion of leads:

Google Analytics – tracking the customers’ journeys through various SEO campaigns is possible using a Google Analytics account. It is free to use, but it’s not the most simple to install. It will show where the organic traffic comes from and what landing pages it is directed to, and similar to that, you will be able to see which landing pages are the most effective at converting.
Google Tag Manager – this tool is free and assists in managing the tracking of your website. It makes use of tags to better identify certain events and user experiences on websites, which allows SEO experts to improve their optimization.
Google Search Console – a tool that allows you to identify and track keywords that you are targeting and how they affect the traffic to your site. In conjunction with Google Analytics and Google Tag Manager, the three tools will help you boost your site’s rankings tremendously.
Whatagraph is a data-aggregation tool that is also an excellent SEO dashboard creator with which you can measure your website’s performance. It is not only restricted to Google tools platforms such as Whatagraph and gives a more comprehensive view of SEO achievement beyond rank tracking and multi-channel performance.

Bonus Tips

The quality of content on your website is the primary ranking factor that can assist you in rising to the top of the results page. It is possible to optimize your content for SEO, gain lots of backlinks, and also improve every aspect of the technical side of your site. However, if your content is lacking in engagement, the site’s users will not be interested in it, and search engines won’t think of you as an authority. Don’t skip out on content quality. It can increase your rank.