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I do not track my keyword rankings that closely, except in a broad way. And that's to know whether my overall organic traffic is up or down. A few years back, I have listed a bunch of free Google rank checkers but realized later that free rank trackers do not work.
It may work at times when you randomly check it but free rank checkers are not something that you want to rely on especially when you are managing a lot of SEO campaigns or personally want to track hundreds of keyword rankings.
Meanwhile, if you want to track only a handful of keywords then the best way to track them is to do it manually. For instance, I use the Google Chrome extension SERPTrends when I want to track individual keywords without actually tracking.
That's right. SERPTrends is just a lightweight tool that shows the ranking changes of the listed URLs within the search result itself. So when I don't want to track any keywords, I just deactivate the extension and it's that simple.
On the flipside, if you want to track hundreds of keywords and is looking for a premium rank tracker tool then ProRankTracker could be your best choice.
Today, I'm reviewing this nifty rank tracking tool that allows you to track the rankings of your keywords on almost all the major search engines on the planet.
And I'm happy that this is a sponsored review as otherwise, I wouldn't have come across this less-known (oh, at least I didn't know) SERP tool.
As of now, I'm using my complimentary SEMrush account for all things SEO (including rank tracking) as it's an all-in-one SEO suite. And as I mentioned earlier, I use SEMrush's Position Tracking to monitor the overall organic traffic trends (like this) and since it supports "Competitors" I will know whether it's a broad-based change or not.
However, SEMrush's SERP checker is not as comprehensive as ProRankTracker. Moreover, SEMrush is good for tracking only Google SERPs. So if you want to track your keyword rankings on all search engines then you will need a premium rank checker and ProRankTracker is worth a try.
First things first.
Should you track your rankings?Well, it depends. If you are writing (or created a website) as if Google doesn't exist (ideally, that should be the case) then you do not need any SEO tools. At all.
However, if you care about your organic rankings and have your own ranking goals then it's not a bad idea to track the ranking of your primary keywords. Otherwise, you wouldn't know whether you are doing better or not, don't you think?
Again, if you are an SEO (or is running an SEO agency) then sooner or later you are going to need a rank tracker anyway.
Meet ProRankTracker
ProRankTracker is a full-fledged SERP checker that gives you a comprehensive view of your website's rankings across all major search engines (includes but not limited to Google, Bing, and Yahoo).
The best thing? It supports local rank tracking (including map listings) and it means you can track keywords in almost any language and from any country or city. That's not all. It also supports branded sub-accounts and white label reports.
ProRankTracker is a cloud-based tool that automatically updates the ranking on a daily basis (plus on demand too) and it means that you don't have to download any software on your computer.
Oh yeah, there's a free plan too and that's good to track up to 20 keywords and its premium plans are relatively cheap.
When you login to ProRankTracker, you will see that everything is organized under six sections: RANKINGS, REPORTS, URLS & TERMS, SETTINGS, TOOLS, and ACCOUNT USAGE.
Note: You can click on the screenshots to open its enlarged image in a new tab/window.
RANKINGS
DashboardDashboard is your home for everything. That is, it gives an overview of what's happening plus few stats (like the total number of keywords and URLs and sub-accounts that you have added) and it gives an overview of your keyword ranking changes over time. The dashboard is made up of widgets and it means that you can drag it and change the way it's organized.
When you get started, the first thing you obviously need to do is add URLs and Terms (that's what they call Keywords). I'm not using my domain name because my targeted keywords are really diverse in nature and that makes it difficult to fully explore this nifty SEO tool.
So I'm going to enter Wunderlist.com as my primary URL and I'm going to assume that Todoist.com is my competitor.
Don't Miss: Todoist vs. Wunderlist vs. Any.do: The Ultimate Comparison
Why Wunderlist and Todoist? Because I love both and they are in the same space targeting the same audience. And that makes it easy for me to explore and compare and review.
Here you go:
As you can see, I'm tracking the top 10 keywords on Google.com and Bing.com and it's using "20 terms" or the maximum "terms" that are allowed in the free plan. It also means that "20 terms" could be enough for a niche website that is not targeting hundreds of thousands of keywords.
ProRankTracker Rankings Discovery
When the URLs and the Keywords are added, ProRankTracker automatically discovers more keywords that you are already ranked for but is not tracking. And you can add those keywords with just one-click (provided your account supports that much keyword limit or else it shows a warning).
And then there's a Keyword Suggestions tool that gives more keyword suggestions based on the keywords that you are already tracking and ranked for.
So I picked the keyword "task manager app" and it suggested the following keywords:
So yeah, I added all of them. Simple as that!
Now if you go back to the Dashboard (after a day or two) then you will see a dashboard that's full of insights.
Like this:
URL View shows a quick stats of all your URLs and its ranking stats (like this). It individually shows the ranking stats of all your tracking URLs. And it includes the daily, weekly, and monthly ranking changes plus it shows the organic keyword search volume data.
Term ViewTerm View on the other side shows a quick stats of all your keywords and its ranking stats (like this). If you are tracking hundreds of keywords then you can use the "Filter" to narrow down the results. That is, you can filter the results by groups, tags, devices, search engines, device, and more.
List ViewList View gives a consolidated view of all the domain names that you are tracking plus it gives quick access to reports, graphs, keyword suggestions, etc. for each URL (like this).
REPORTS
Reports let you download the ranking stats of your keywords as PDF, CSV, or XLSX to your desktop or you can send it to your email or Dropbox or Google Drive.
Actually, it appears like ProRankTracker's core strength lies in its reporting feature. Because you will see that it's got a lot of options and can be heavily customized so that you get to see only what you want to see in your reports.
Reports are further subcategorized into Overview Reports, Progress Reports, Comparison Reports, and Benchmark Reports. And that's not all. It also allows you to share your reports with your clients or team members.
And you can use "Automated Reports" to automatically export your (daily, weekly, or monthly) overview reports to your email or Dropbox or Google Drive. Again, you can enable "Notifications" to set email notifications whenever there is a change in your ranking.
Overview ReportsI'm not going to explain "Reports" in a comprehensive way as I imagine picture screenshots says more than any number of words. ;)
Overview Report
Here's a sample overview report.
Groups Summary
Progress Reports lets you track the daily or weekly or monthly ranking progress of your website. All you need to do is, select the URL and the time frame that you want to track.
Daily Breakdown
Here's a sample daily report. It may not appear comprehensive to you but that's because I'm tracking the rankings of only one URL.
Comparison ReportsComparison Reports lets you compare the rankings of a given set of keywords on different URLs or search engines.
URLs Comparison ReportURLs Comparison Report allows you compare the rankings of multiple URLs for the same set of keywords. So you need to make sure that you are tracking multiple URLs via ProRankTracker.
When I created my first campaign, I added only one URL (i.e. wunderlist.com), so I had to create another campaign with multiple URLs (as shown below) to review this feature as ProRankTracker doesn't allow you add more URLs to an existing campaign.
Adding URLs (with keywords) to compare:
Adding a new comparison report:
The result:
Pro Tip: ProRankTracker does not have the option to add your competitor URLs. So what you can do is add your competitor URLs along with your own domain names and then use the URL Comparison Reports to compare the rankings of your website with your competitors.
Search Engines Comparison ReportSearch Engines Comparison Report lets you compare the rankings of a single URL on different search engines.
Adding a new search engine comparison report:
The result:
Benchmark Report lets you compare the rankings of a single URL between two dates or weeks or months.
Here's a sample benchmark report (comparing two dates).
Export LogExport Log lets you download all the reports that you have generated and they are automatically deleted after 24 hours.
URLS & TERMS
Add URLs & TermsAdd URLs & Terms lets you add more URLs and keywords to track.
Edit URLEdit URL lets you edit your URL or assigned groups. It also allows you to add new keywords or remove/disable existing terms.
URL GroupsURL Groups allows to assign a group to a set of URLs so that you could track it with ease and you will see how useful it is to generate reports using predefined groups.
Term TagsTerm Tags lets you group your keywords and it makes tracking and monitoring easy and simple.
SETTINGS
ProRankTracker doesn't give you a lot of options in its settings (except the obvious ones). Anyways it's worth to mention that it supports white label reporting, sub-accounts, and integration with Dropbox and Google Drive.
PRICING
As you can see, the major difference between the different pricing plans is its ability to track keywords (or terms as they call it).
Term & URL: What You Need To Know
One Term = 1 search term tracked for 1 URL on 1 search engine.
Every URL/Term/Search-Engine combination counts as 1.
Every Local combination (i.e: different city) or a Mobile combination (different mobile device) counts as 1.
The terms limit of a plan is Total.
It basically means that if you want to track 5 keywords (of one website) on Google's 4 local sites (say, google.ca, google.com.au, google.co.in, and google.de) or on 4 different search engines then you will need a total of 20 terms.
ProRankTracker does not have a free trial and that's a problem. They do have a free plan but that's good for nothing if you want to track hundreds of keywords when you get started.
ProRankTracker: Pros & Cons ProsProRankTracker is a nifty SEO tool that's all about reports. Of course it's got tools like rankings discovery, keyword suggestions, etc. but at the end of the day, it's all made for generating comprehensive reports.
If you have a niche website then ProRankTracker's free version could be enough for you. On the flipside, if you are a blogger then you probably need a premium plan as your targeted keywords go on increasing daily/weekly/monthly depending upon how often you update your blog.
Happy Rank Tracking! :)
Disclosure: This review was sponsored (?) by ProRankTracker. However, it hasn't influenced my views in any way as they paid for my time and not for a biased positive review.
ProRankTracker Review: Track Your Keyword Rankings Everywhere
4.33 (86.67%) 3 votes
Source: ProRankTracker Review: Track Your Keyword Rankings Everywhere
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