Path: Marketing > SEO > Tools > Rankings
Before You Start
Site deployed and indexed
Google needs to have crawled and indexed your pages
GSC connected
Google Search Console improves data accuracy
Add Keywords to Track
Add your keywords
Click + Add Keywords. Paste them one per line, or upload a CSV. Start with the 20-50 keywords that matter most — you can add more later.
Set country and language
Rankings vary dramatically by locale. Pick the country and language your customers actually search in. For multi-market sites, add the same keyword for each country separately.
Set device
Desktop and mobile rankings differ. Track both if mobile traffic matters to you (it almost certainly does).
Set tracking frequency
Daily is best for active SEO campaigns. Weekly saves quota on large keyword sets where day-to-day noise isn’t useful.
Reading the Dashboard
Each keyword row shows:- Current position — latest tracked rank.
1is top,-means outside the tracked top 100. - Change over time — a sparkline showing position movement over the last 30-90 days.
- SERP features — icons indicating whether the keyword triggers a featured snippet, image pack, local pack, video carousel, or “People Also Ask” box.
- Ranking URL — which of your pages is actually ranking. This can change over time as Google picks different best-match pages.
Group Keywords with Segments
Dump all your keywords in one bucket and the dashboard gets unreadable fast. Segments fix that.- By topic —
web-design,seo-tools,pricing - Brand vs non-brand — keeps easy-rank branded terms from inflating your average
- Funnel stage — top (informational), middle (commercial), bottom (transactional)
Get Alerts on Changes
Don’t check the dashboard manually — get notified when things move.Set thresholds
Common setups:
- Ping me when any keyword enters top 3
- Ping me when any keyword drops out of top 10
- Ping me on any >5 position change, either direction
Route the alert
Alerts can go to email, Slack, or kick off a workflow. For full automation, see Workflow: Alert on SEO Ranking Drops.
Historical Data for Reporting
Every ranking report you hand a client or stakeholder should answer two questions: “Are we improving?” and “On what?” The line-chart view on each keyword — and the aggregate view across segments — makes that story easy to tell. Export any date range to CSV or PDF for presentations. Schedule recurring exports (weekly, monthly) to ship automatically.Google rankings are personalized and geographically sensitive. Always compare data across the same device and location settings — a keyword ranking 3rd for you in Chicago might be 8th for your client in Austin. Use the tool’s clean/non-personalized data as the source of truth.
Verify It Worked
Add 5 keywords. Wait 24 hours. Open an incognito browser, set location to match your Rankings config, and Google one of the keywords. The position you see should match (within 1-2 positions — Google varies results even for logged-out searches).Troubleshooting
No rankings data after 24 hours
No rankings data after 24 hours
Your site may not be indexed. Submit your sitemap to Google Search Console and wait 1-2 weeks for new domains. For existing sites, double-check the tracked URL pattern matches your actual pages.
Position fluctuates wildly day-to-day
Position fluctuates wildly day-to-day
Normal for new sites and heavily-contested keywords. Google runs experiments and personalizes results. Look at weekly averages, not individual days. Things stabilize once you have meaningful authority for the term.
Wrong URL is ranking for my keyword
Wrong URL is ranking for my keyword
Google’s algorithm picks whichever page it thinks best matches the query. If you want a different page to rank, improve that page’s relevance: better title, better content targeting the keyword, and internal links from related pages pointing to it.
A keyword shows `-` (not in top 100)
A keyword shows `-` (not in top 100)
You’re outside the tracked range. Check the SERP manually — the keyword may just be too competitive right now. Focus effort on keywords where you’re ranking 11-30 (gettable to page one) before chasing ones where you’re nowhere near.
Rankings don't match what I see in Google
Rankings don't match what I see in Google
Google personalizes based on search history, location, and device. Our tracker uses clean, non-personalized requests. Your own Google shows your results; the tracker shows the neutral truth. Always compare apples to apples using the tracker data for reporting.
What’s Next?
Research More Keywords
Find the next batch of keywords to target
Run an SEO Audit
Find and fix issues holding your rankings back