- Keywords allow us to find the content we’re looking for, and without them, our search experience would not be gratifying.
- Content is king, but great content deserves an effective keyword strategy to ensure it gets discovered.
- Marketers need a good SEO tool that allows them to conduct keyword research and track mapped keywords to see how their web pages perform against competitors.
- From all-in-one tools to standalone products, here are our favorite ways to monitor keyword rankings.
It’s hard to remember a world without the Internet. Nowadays, we turn to our phones, tablets, and laptops to discover great products and services. However, we’ve all experienced frustration when we can’t find the results we are looking for. That’s where keyword rankings come into play.
Keywords allow us to find the content we’re looking for, and without them, our search experience would not be gratifying. By now, you’re probably hip to the idea of keywords. Still, you also need a keyword tool to help with keyword discovery and track keyword rankings.
What Is keyword mapping?
Informative content is extremely limited without a keyword mapping strategy. Keyword mapping is the process of assigning and implementing relevant keywords within the copy of a webpage to help them appear on search results pages for that term. So how do you discover keywords?
First and foremost, you need a good SEO tool to conduct keyword research and discover what queries people use when searching the web. Secondly, you must track mapped keywords to see how your web pages are performing against the competition.
Still lost? Trust us; this will all start to make sense once you witness your content rising in the ranks. So without further ado, check out these top five tools that will help monitor your search engine rankings.
SEMrush
SEMrush has long been a favorite of digital marketing pros looking to optimize content and track performance. Not only can one assign keywords to web pages, but you can view metrics such as search difficulty and search volume and how difficult (1-100 scale) it will be to outrank a competitor for a keyword.
As you might imagine, this comes in handy when selecting keywords. Another cool thing about SEMrush is Domain Vs. Domain and GAP analysis functionalities that help visualize how content stacks up against the competition. Lastly, SEMrush makes it easy to generate, download, and share reports with others so your team can all be aligned when strategizing how to get a webpage in front of visitors.
Ahrefs
Ahrefs is another cost-effective tool with keyword research and tracking capabilities. Keywords Explorer and Rank Tracker make it easy to discover effective keywords while analyzing difficulty and traffic potential. Ahrefs offers a 7-day trial for $7. Like most premium tools, the Rank Tracker allows you to see what web pages are ranking for specific result types, including knowledge panels, graphs, and images.
SpyFu
In addition to keyword tracking, SpyFu essentially does what their name implies – it allows you to monitor keywords your competitors rank for; while helping you discover what keywords are driving traffic. Perhaps Spyfu’s most helpful feature is its Biggest Traffic Opportunities by keyword group feature, which tells you the keywords you’ll want to go after to gain more clicks.
One keyword strategy is to map related keywords to a single piece of content. For example, an automotive site can have a page dedicated to SUVs with content that serves related keywords such as “Compact SUV” or “Crossover SUV.” Read more about SpyFu here.
Moz Pro
Moz has long been a trusted source for all things SEO, and their premium tool Moz Pro is both user-friendly and effective for keyword research, discovery, and tracking.
Moz’s mobile vs. desktop visibility functionality shows different behavior depending on a user’s device and even allows tracking down to the national and local levels, which is extremely handy for voice search queries that favor local “near me” results. Added bonus: Moz has an awesome library of SEO resources one can tap into to help gain more context into keyword tracking and SEO in general.
SE Ranking
Last but certainly not least on our list of good SEO tools is SE Ranking. SE Ranking offers multiple features in addition to its robust tracking functionality. View live positions of your web pages on major search engines down to the country, region, and city level.
Keywords can be tracked on multiple localities by device type, all while giving you the dirt regarding what keywords your competitors are ranking for. Perhaps the coolest feature to SE ranking is its YouTube rank-tracking feature that comes in handy if you are cranking out video content and trying to get them to rank better on YouTube.
Closing remarks
Optimizing content for high-traffic keywords doesn’t have to be difficult and can be broken down into three easy steps:
- Create content based on keywords you want to rank
- Vet keywords using a tool such as SEM Rush, Ahrefs, SpyFu, Moz, or SE Ranking.
- Map keywords to relevant content and track rankings
We’ve said it before, and we’ll repeat it; content is king, but great content deserves an effective keyword strategy to ensure it actually gets discovered. Is your organization looking to improve its search engine rankings? If so, give us a call because we’d love to help! Let Redefine Marketing Group help get you closer to where you want to be. Page 1!
