How to Check Your Website Rankings
You might have a blog or a niche site, but did you ever want to learn how to check your website rankings?
It’s no secret that you can gain organic traffic by ranking high for certain search terms known as keywords.
It’s probably the most common way for affiliate marketers to bring free organic traffic to their websites. And the greatest thing about it is – people are already looking for something the site has to offer.
You might know how to do keyword research, but if not – I covered this as well in my other posts. However, in this post, you’ll find everything there is about site rank and how to check how your site ranks for free, so keep on reading!
What are Search Rankings?
When was the last time you searched for something using Google?
The chances are it was today! I didn’t know this but I guessed it since Google is the most popular search engine that allows you to find almost anything you are looking for.
But did you ever wonder how search engines such as Google help you find exactly what you’re looking for?
It’s a complicated process and it involves a lot of algorithms. However, what’s most important is that anyone can try and rank for certain keywords in search engines for free.
I did it with my websites, and many other marketers did it as well. It’s a long process, but it’s not hard to do.
And what do you get in return?
You get the ability to rank well and acquire free organic traffic if you provide helpful & valuable content.
Therefore, if you have optimized your website for search engines, and if you were targeting keywords in your posts – the chance is you’re already ranking for some of the keywords.
If you’re not ranking, you’re at least indexed in search engines for these keywords – which is one step closer to acquiring rankings and traffic.
And if you did – I’m sure you’re wondering how to check your rankings, so keep on reading!
How to Check Your Website Rankings?
There are a couple of ways to check your website rankings. But what’s even better yet is that all efficient & easy ways to check your rankings are free for everyone.
Therefore, down below, I’ll show you how to check your website rankings using:
- Google Search Console
- Google Analytics
- Jaaxy Site Index
Google Search Console
If you have optimized your website for search engines, this means that you must have created an account for Search Console where you’ve submitted a sitemap file for your website.
It’s a free service provided by Google and it’s easy to get started. If you’ve just created your search console account – you might not have enough data to analyze your website rankings.
However, if you have an established website and you’ve set up your Search Console account at the early stage – here’s what you need to do.
Log into your Google Search Console, click on Performance, and you’ll see a graph with stats.
You’ll see information such as:
- Clicks – number of clicks your website gets
- Impressions – number of people who saw your website as a part of the search result
- CTR – stands for click-through-rate and it tells you the percentage of people who click on your website
- Position – average position for all of your keywords
Down below the graph, you’ll see more information – and we’ll focus on queries (keywords).
You’ll see queries which are essentially keywords you’re ranking for. To the right, you’ll also see clicks, impressions, and position.
Note: If you don’t see the position, click on the filter, and choose the position to be displayed as a statistic for each query.
Google Analytics
Analytics is an ideal tool for checking on your traffic and finding out how your visitors behave on your website.
However, it’s also a great tool for finding out where your visitors come from and what keywords lead them to your website.
Once you log into Google Analytics, in the left side menu, choose Acquisition, then choose All Traffic, and in the sub-menu, choose Channels.
This will lead you to an explorer page where you will be able to see a number of users who visited your website, but also keywords that helped them discover your website.*
Jaaxy Site Index
My favorite way to look up my website rankings is by using Jaaxy.
Jaaxy is a keyword research tool, but it also has additional features such as Site Rank which allows you to check rankings for individual keywords you’ve targeted.
I find this way to be the most accurate way because you get to type in specific keywords you’ve targeted, rather than see all keywords your website is ranking for.
Most of the time, one post will rank for dozens of keywords, and yet if you’re interested in finding only the ranking for one keyword – Site Rank inside Jaaxy is the best feature you can use.
Jaaxy is free to use, and even though the starter membership is limited – the great thing about it is that it’s an actual membership type rather than a trial version which will expire.
One of my favorite things about the Site Rank feature inside the Jaaxy is that you can set auto-scans for your keywords. This way, you can get notified of changes related to your keyword rankings.
Another great thing is that it doesn’t only search for your keywords within Google, but it also includes search results in Bing and Yahoo.
Even though Google is the most popular search engine, Bing and Yahoo still make about 33% of the search traffic online and this can mean a lot to a small website.
I wrote a full review on Jaaxy – keyword research tool, so feel free to check it out! However, if you’re ready to check your site rankings using Jaaxy, I recommend signing up for free.
Benefits of Ranking High in Search Engines
Ranking high in search engines can take months for a new website, and it surely requires a quality keyword research.
But what are the benefits you can receive once your website ranks high for a popular keyword?
The most common benefits are:
- Organic exposure
- Free organic traffic
Once visitors visit your website – it all depends on your website how these visitors will act.
Some might not even read a single post on your website. However, others who are really interested in something you have to offer might read your blog post, leave a comment, share it, or even take action and read more.
Affiliate marketers provide valuable and helpful content that can solve problems or even provide solutions. Depending on the content quality, most affiliate marketers are able to convert visitors into clients or customers.
Therefore, once you achieve free organic traffic – it’s up to you to do your best to provide them with an answer or solution they’re looking for.
How to Rank Your Website in Search Engines?
The benefits of ranking a website in search engines are more than enough for people to take action and start optimizing their website.
In order to rank your website in search engines – you need to do two things:
- Optimize it for search engines
- Find and target quality keywords
Optimizing Your Website
As I’ve mentioned earlier – in order to rank your website in search engines such as Google, you need to do basic on-page SEO.
SEO stands for search engine optimization and it’s a process of performing various tasks and adjusting a number of settings on your website so it’s visible by search engines.
I wrote a full post on SEO and how to optimize your website, so I highly recommend reading this post before proceeding.
Finding and Targeting Quality Keywords
Keywords confuse a lot of people, however, they’re very simple to understand. Keywords are basically phrases people search in search engines.
For example, let’s say you are very interested in badminton and you’re just beginning to train badminton, and you need a new racket.
What would you type in Google?
You would type something like “how to choose a badminton racket“.
This phrase is a keyword and by using a keyword research tool – you can find out how many people search for this exact keyword on a monthly basis.
Also, you can find out how many websites are competing to rank for this keyword. Some keyword research tools such as Jaaxy can also tell you the quality of the keyword and whether you should try and rank for this keyword.
Anyone can research keywords for free, and I wrote a full guidepost on how to research keywords using Jaaxy. I recommend reading it before working on ranking your site high in search engines!
Conclusion
Checking the rankings of your site is the most exciting part for me. It’s where you get to see that the time and hard work you put into your website is starting to pay off.
The greatest thing about ranking in search engines is that along with free organic traffic & exposure, you also get access to traffic that will be able to visit your website even when you aren’t online.
Hopefully, you now know how to check your website rankings, and no matter which way you choose – it’s very simple to find out your results.
However, if you’ve just started your website, you aren’t getting a lot of traffic, or you aren’t ranking for many keywords – I wouldn’t recommend you to constantly check up on your statistics.
Not many things will change in the beginning and you won’t even have enough data to analyze, yet this might put you down and make you feel like the work you’re doing isn’t paying off.
What is your favorite way of checking how well your website ranks in search engines? Are you taking advantage of traffic available from other search engines than Google?
I’d love to hear your opinion so feel free to leave a comment down below. If you have any questions, don’t hesitate to ask them. I always do my best to respond to all comments and will do my best to help you out!
