Semalt: How To Check The Positioning Of Your Website
If you want to know the positioning of your website in Google, you just have to check that your website appears in the SERPs of the search engine for some keywords relevant to your activity.
There are three fairly simple ways to check your website's ranking:
- The first, as you might expect, is a manual search by entering the desired keyword in the Google search bar.
- The second way is to use Google Search Console, as long as you have connected this tool to your site.
- And finally, you can use various third-party measurement tools like the Dedicated SEO Dashboard.
To learn more about how to know the ranking of a website, we will share with you some simple notions about web pages and SEO ranking to check your Google ranking on your own with tips and understand which tools to use to do it automatically.
The basic requirements for your website to be positioned on the Internet
For your site to rank well in the search engines of the market it operates in, it must meet at least these requirements:
- Having done good keyword research.
- Having a good navigation structure.
- Being quickly and easily accessible from both cell phones and computers.
- Having a good SEO On Page and Off Page.
- That the content you publish is rich in information that solves the user's questions.
- Have authority and relevance in the sector (we will see this in another article soon).
Let's assume that your site meets most of these requirements and that it has been online for a while, find out below how you can check if it is well ranked on Google.
Manually check your website's Google ranking
Without going into details, the first verification you can do is manual, that is to say, you have to search directly on Google, from your cell phone or PC, the keyword or the query you want, and that has been worked directly on your site (for example, sale of integral kitchens).
This check should be done anonymously by opening a browser window in private browsing mode so as not to skew the results with cookies or previous visits.
However, this manual review should be done with an eye toward how users would search for your product or service. For example, if the goal of the page was to appear for a local search, you can't expect to appear in the SERPs for a generic keyword without a specific location. For example, "plastic surgery" versus "plastic surgery Medellín" or the same concept, "shoes" versus "brand X sports shoes".
The limitation of this manual check is that it is based on a precise search dictated by the main keyword of the page, ignoring all related keywords. So the site could continue to rank and generate visits and even better conversions without you knowing exactly how the magic works.
In simpler terms, manual research without information on how keywords are coming to your site limits you to checking only what you think is working; and surely you want to improve and expand that keyword spectrum to reach more buyers, right? If so, it's time to discover other, more comprehensive auditing tips.
Know the positioning of your website with the Google Search Console
The Google Search Console (GSC) is a valuable tool for gaining valuable information about the searches that led your visitors to find you and your website.
While it is a fairly simple tool to use, you will need to connect it to your website and perhaps go through a tutorial to take advantage of its features.
Once you've learned the basics, you'll find that in the Performance section, you can analyze the queries that brought clicks to your site and sort them by your choice of position, clicks, or impressions.
You will also be able to see the pages that generated the most traffic. This is the most interesting part because once you have clicked on the page, you want to analyze and click on the query button again; you will find out the keywords that brought visits to your site for that specific URL, and with this, you can improve your content.
By observing the average position, you can see where your URL is located. So, by adopting the best content improvement techniques (texts, images, videos), you will see that in a short time there will be an increase in traffic that will help you improve the overall ranking.
Use a better SEO tracking tool for your website: the Dedicated SEO Dashboard
As we have seen, there are several free or paid SEO software, which besides having many other useful features for any SEO consultant, are dedicated to tracking rankings. One of these programs stands out mainly because of the many advantages it offers the Dedicated SEO Dashboard.
In such software, by placing your domain in the Domain overview section or in the Site Explorer sections, you can find out how many keywords your site is ranked for, in what position it is, how many average searches these keywords have per month, and what is the overall estimated traffic.
In addition, you can continuously monitor the ranking of certain keywords you have chosen by including them in dedicated projects.
With such an all-in-one SEO tool, it is also easy to study your competitors and understand how they interact with the market. It is possible to use the tool for free to find out how well your site is positioned on Google.
If you don't have the budget for expensive paid tools, don't worry, the Dedicated SEO Dashboard will help you check your Google ranking for free and access the information you need to improve it. However, if you aspire to use the much more advanced features of the tool, you can do so at a lower cost compared to other much less effective tools.
In addition, the tool has several other advantages in terms of country keyword databases. Indeed, in competing tools, the volume of keywords searched is much less than that provided by the DSD. Here, it is also possible to create a project, i.e. to add your site and to have an overview of its performance on Google.
How does Google search work?
The hands-on was clearly the easiest part, but you must know some basic theory about how Google search results work and the process of generating them. This will help you understand how the search engine works on a basic level, master some technical terms, and better understand the tools mentioned.
First of all, Google, from a search performed by the user, returns results called SERPs, usually divided into paid results (at the top and/or bottom of the page marking the word Advertising or Ad) and organic results.
When we talk about SEO and positioning in Google, as in this case, we refer to all the organic results that are conditioned by the optimization work done on the site.
To do this, Google uses a system called a crawler, which constantly scans the web for new information to store in its index.
Once this information is identified, the tracker analyzes it, lists it, and assigns it a rake, making it available in the results. Clearly, the above is the very, very, very simplified summary of the process.
Time to rank a website
How long should I wait to rank a URL within my site or an entire site for one or more keywords? This question is most often a source of tension between the owner of a website and the SEO agencies or freelance experts who are called to work on the site.
Well, it depends on many factors and experience. As experts in the field, we have seen sites rank much faster immediately after proper indexing (and following Google's guidelines). Some sites achieved the desired result in a short period (weeks or months).
Other sites, in more competitive markets (and whose companies may have a larger budget or cover more content distribution channels), took months or years.
Obviously, trying to rank for a long-tail query is relatively easier than for a single keyword. So aiming for more specific, long-term, and short-term ranking goals could help rank for even the most complex keywords.
Another factor to remember when it comes to positioning a site on a keyword is the competition that aligns with the keyword. The more competition there is, the more difficult it will be to rank. Study the sector in which you want to operate and make the right choice of really useful keywords to facilitate your positioning.
Conclusion
Positioning his / her site at the top of Google is every website owner's dream. While exciting for the SEO manager and pleasing for the website owner, it is hard to say for sure when the work will start and when the website will be on top.
To move forward much faster and get the first results after a few weeks, it is important to monitor on a daily basis how the positioning of your website evolves. It is a task that seems tedious, but with the help of the best SEO tools, such as the Dedicated SEO Dashboard, you will accomplish tasks in no time. Moreover, the tool will accurately point out the errors to be corrected and the semantic keywords to be considered for better results.
If you get lost in all this SEO jargon, the help of an expert in the field would be welcome. At Semalt, we have experienced experts available 24 / 7 to help you make sense of your dreams
If you need to learn more about the subject of SEO and website promotion, we invite you to visit our Semalt blog.
