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Rank tracking checks where your site shows up when people search for the words you care about, on a schedule set by your plan, so you can see whether your work on the site is moving you up. This guide tracks six local and branded searches for Northwind’s website, northwindroasters.com, in Portland.

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Open Rank Tracking

1

Open SEO Analysis

Click Marketing in the left rail, then the SEO Analysis card.
The SEO Analysis card on the Marketing page, outlined

SEO Analysis, on the Marketing page

2

Pick your site

Click the Rank Tracking tab and pick your site in the list on the right. Only sites with their own domain are listed, because the checks look for that domain in the results.
The SEO Dashboard tabs with Rank Tracking outlined, and the site New Live Northwind Coffee Roasters - northwindroasters.com picked and outlined

Rank Tracking, with Northwind's site picked

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Add the searches you care about

Click Add Keywords, then fill in the window:
  • Domain is already your site.
  • Location and Search language are the country and language your customers search in. For a local business, add your city under Locations (Optional), or leave it empty to check the whole country.
  • Keywords (one per line): the searches you want to show up for. Mix your business name with what a new customer would type, like “coffee roasters portland”.
  • Track on: the search engines to check. Google and Bing are a good start; the AI answer engines are marked Beta or New. The line underneath says how many your plan checks for each keyword.
  • Track Local Rankings also checks where your business shows in Google’s map results for each search: type your Business Name in the box that appears so it can find your listing. Track Mobile Rankings checks Google’s phone results.
The bottom of the window counts the checks it will set up (Will create 12 rankings for six searches on two engines). Click Add 6 Keywords.
Add Keywords: the domain northwindroasters.com, the location Portland, Oregon, six keywords, Google and Bing ticked under Track on, and the Add 6 Keywords button, all outlined

Six Portland searches, on Google and Bing

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Read your rankings

The first checks finish within a few minutes. Each search shows where your site came up on each engine, the change since the last check, and the page that ranks. not found means your site was not in the results that were checked. Northwind is #1 on Google for its own name, and it does not show up yet for the other searches: that is the work to do.
The keyword list: northwind coffee roasters ranks 1 on Google with the home page as its URL, outlined; the other Portland searches read not found

Northwind's first results

The cards at the top count how many of your searches rank on each engine. The Average Ranking Position chart fills in once there are two or more checks, and rankings are checked daily on Standard and Premium and weekly on Starter. The Free plan doesn’t include rank tracking.
The cards Google Rankings 1, outlined, Google Change, Bing Rankings 0, Bing Change, Google Local Rankings, Google Mobile Rankings and Volume

The summary cards

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Check again, tag and export

1

Check now

Tick the searches you want to check right away and click Sync Selected. Your plan includes a few of these checks a day, and each search counts once for every engine it is on: 2 a day on Starter, 10 on Standard and 20 on Premium. Tag groups them, for example “branded” or “wholesale”, so you can filter by tag later.
The bar for one selected keyword, with Sync Selected outlined, then Tag, Delete Selected and Clear

Sync Selected, for the ticked searches

2

Export a spreadsheet

Click Tag tools, then Export CSV to download each search’s current, previous and best position on every engine, for a report or a spreadsheet.
The bottom of the Tag tools menu: Import tags from CSV, and Export CSV, outlined

Export CSV, in Tag tools

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Good to know

  • Start small. A handful of searches that bring customers is more useful than a long list. Your plan checks each search on a set number of engines. Each extra city repeats every engine you picked, and phone or map results add one more in each city, so watch the line under Track on.
  • Rankings move slowly. Give a change to your site a few weeks before you judge it, and watch the trend rather than one day.
  • More: Track Keyword Rankings covers every setting, and Run a Site Audit and Fix What It Finds finds what holds your pages back.