Rank tracker: A complete checklist to choose the best SERP checker
If you're doing SEO you will end up finding yourself in need of an SERP checker, sooner or later. That's because you simply couldn't do the job without it. But after you investigated the market and viewed all kinds of trackers, with different features and prices, you may feel lost in the trackers and don't know which one to choose. In this checklist I will talk about the features you should pay attention to when selecting a tracker. It doesn't matter if you've already enrolled into one, you can compare them to the SERP checker you're using now, and decide whether to continue using it to check keyword ranking the next month or replace it with a better one.
A complete checklist to choose the best SERP checker
What do we do with rank trackers?
So, why do we need a rank tracker anyway? Have you asked yourself the question? Or what can the rank trackers and SERP checkers help us in our work? The aim of our work is to bring up the keyword rankings, this work involves lots of efforts and takes a long time to see the effects. Before the goal is achieved, ongoing tracking and analyzing should and must be done day after day. Each time we've taken some action, or carried out some operations to the SEO strategy, we don't leave it behind, instead we will constantly track the keyword ranking to evaluate how our strategy is working actually. The process may take days or even months, the ranking may change every day. If you're doing mobile rank tracking or location tracking, the problem will become even more complex.
That's why you will need an SEO rank tracker. And here comes my main topic: what to look when choosing an SERP tracker. From my experience, the following features are necessary for a good tracker.
Rank accuracy
It's without doubt that ranking accuracy should come first when you look for a keyword rank checker tool for SEO. I've heard many times that my readers and friends complain the ranking data is not accurate in the reports trackers send them. This is a big problem that you should never ignore. An SERP checker should and must provide the true results to users. To track keyword position is easy, but to track it precisely is difficult. In fact, a good rank checker can not only provide accurate ranking data, but also should be able to detect ranking movements and notify users.
Cloud tracking or desktop tracking
There're basically two kinds of tracking, one is the cloud tracker (or web based tracker) and the other is desktop tracker. The desktop trackers are different from cloud rank trackers the way they work. When you use a desktop tracker, you're tracking results using your own computer. This means if you're tracking lots of keywords the same time, you will probably get blocked by search engines. This will not happen for cloud trackers, they will handle the job themselves and you needn't worry about it at all. Another benefit of using a cloud tracker is, you don't need to take your computer anywhere you go to view the ranking reports. On the contrary, you can check the ranking data on any computer as long as there is Internet connection. Thus give you the ability to access ranking data anywhere all over the world.
Mobile rank tracker
I think it's not enough no matter how many times I mentioned the importance of mobile rank tracking:
- - Why you must track mobile ranks and 5 useful tips to improve mobile ranks
- - Does your tracker provide mobile rank tracking?
Mobile traffic is the bigger part of Internet traffic now. More people access the Internet with mobile devices than desktop devices. Search engines like Google will valuate your site's mobile friendliness for your website's overall ranking. You may be doing well now in desktop ranks, but your mobile ranking may be different. If you don't pay attention to mobile rank tracking, you're not doing SEO right. But the reality is only part of the SERP trackers can track mobile ranks, the others simply can't.
How often are rankings updated
When it comes to the rank update frequency while you are selecting a good rank tracker, my advice will be: daily updates is the minimum requirement. Good news is this is the frequency most SERP checkers can provide. Daily updates are important to SEO work, the ranking is updated every day in SERPs and we should notice the change every time it happens.
The ability to track more search engines
When we talk about "search engines", we're not only meaning search engines like Google, Bing, Yahoo! and Yandex, we also mean Google's Maps search, Local search, Mobile search, and so on, and also Google in other countries such as Google.co.uk, Google.ca, Google.com.au and about 200 other countries. The same thing on Bing, Yahoo! and Yandex. Some of the variations of search engines a good rank tracker should be able to handle:
| Google organic search | Yahoo.com | Bing, Yandex and so on |
| Google Mobile | Yahoo Canada | ... |
| Google Maps | Yahoo United Kingdom | |
| Google Local finder | Yahoo Australia | |
| Google.com | ... | |
| Google.co.uk | ||
| ... |
Price per tracked keyword per month
With all the above features an SEO rank tracker should provide, it comes to the price factor to decide which to choose. For all the candidates, you can do a simple calculation to get the price per tracked keyword per month. You can then compare which tracker provide the most affordable packages per month per keyword. Although this is a straightforward method, you should still consider the other features along with the price factor and do not rely only on the price parameter to choose a SERP checker.
Support more languages other than English
Most of the time we're doing business in the English market, but for some people and companies doing oversea and global business, it is necessary to use a keyword rank checker that supports multiple languages. Most of online SERP trackers come with only English language. Some outstanding trackers support some common languages such as French, German, Portuguese, Spanish and so on. In case you need to track multiple languages, choose a tracker that supports them.
Easy to use UI and simple reporting
We don't want the rank tracking job takes too much of our daily time, therefore we turn to SERP checkers for help. But if the tracker is hard to use and navigate, what's the meaning of it? So in this way we must choose the trackers that have easy to use UI and simple reporting.
White label reporting
For SEO agencies who are doing SEO for their clients, you should consider take advantage of the white label feature that provided by SERP trackers. The white label reporting feature will highly increase your brand name impressions. For rank trackers that have white label reporting function, you can update your own company's brand name and logo. Then on each of the rank report sent to clients, there will be your company name on it. The clients will think it's your company which is behind the tracker and therefore fell confident that your company is competitive to others.
Sub accounts
This is a more powerful feature to white label reporting. While the former only allows you send branded reporting to clients, the sub accounts feature allows them login to the dashboard and view the ranking reports themselves. With the sub accounts feature, you will definitely blow your competitors miles away. This is the ultimate weapon to SEO agencies on rank tracking. Each of your clients will have an account and password you set for them. You can assign different permissions such as view, update, add, delete and so on. It seems you are the owner to the tracking system and everything is under your control. As an SEO agency, you must choose this feature. See how SEO agency: Use white label rank tracker to boost your business.
So that'll be the complete checklist to choose a good SERP checker. If I've missed something out, please tell me I will add it up. Select an SERP checker from the best ones we've chosen for you.
