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Have you ever heard the phrase, “What gets measured gets managed?”
It’s true.
If you aren’t tracking, you might as well be fumbling around in the dark. To be successful in anything, you need to know what’s going on.
That’s why professional bodybuilders have logs of every workout and every calorie consumed. Or why Ben Franklin made his own habit tracker, or why Kobe Bryant tracks the number of shots he makes and doesn’t leave the gym until he hits 800.
These people all track & measure, and they succeed.
So let’s apply this logic to an easy system you can use for SEO to understand what’s going on with your sites & track your success.
There are lots of ways to do it depending on the metrics you want to track, but one way or another you need to be tracking your results.
If you are reselling to clients, you don’t necessarily need to show them everything, but you’ll want to have it all at least for yourself.
1. How To Track Your Website Traffic
You should also measure traffic changes to see how many people are visiting your website over time.
Your rankings show you where you fall in the search results, but traffic shows how many people actually visit your site
You can use a free tool like Google Analytics for this, but you can also use Clicky as an alternative.
Here at The HOTH, we offer a free Website Traffic Checker to help you monitor how much traffic you and your competitors are getting.
2. How To Track Keyword Rankings
You’ll also want to track is where your website ranks for individual keywords in Google.
You can automatically track your historical keyword rankings with our Rank Tracking tool, HOTH Rank Tracker!
All you have to do is plug in the keywords that you want to track and your website address and it will keep track of what position your website is in for each keyword over time.
It will spit out nice-looking charts like this one!
By tracking your keyword rankings, you’ll be able to see if you’re improving or not.
3. How to Track Number Of Backlinks
The amount and quality of backlinks you have to your site is still a major ranking factor.
You can keep track of the number of backlinks you have with our free tool here or with a tool like the SEMrush Backlink Audit.
Conclusion
These are the basic tracking that you’ll want to do to start out.
If you cover these 3 things you’ll have a good solid base for what’s going on with your sites, know where you’re seeing results, and easily see where there is more work to do.
Happy Tracking!
some new tools there, I need to try it.
this is my site http://www.thewoman.lk i wanna do SEO for the site
We have a lot of guides for how to do SEO on our website, maybe you can start with this one https://www.thehoth.com/blog/seo-strategy/
Thank – You guys for being awesome!
Thanks for the info. But I generally use SEO Powersuite Rank Tracker to analyze where my keywords rank..the best part is I no need to pay them based on number of keywords I search.
Great article on tracking. I must admit that if it wasn’t for tracking I wouldn’t have chased down what caused a site from taking a dip. It’s a bit more of a chore but it also a security blanket plus give you the data for your clients as well.
Funnily enough, I just this afternoon, noted my purchase of Hoth Boost and will over the next few weeks, see what new links have appeared. Like Abhi above, I have been using the free version of SEO Powersuite for quite sometime and have found that it works reasonably well for my needs. Thank’s for the additional sites and tools which I shall look into shortly.
Trying to tie your actions to a ranking change is extremely difficult. Google has a really big index with lots of moving parts. Usually takes a few weeks for anything you do to have an effect.
Still a good idea and lots of insights can be gleaned.
Thanks for a nice post.
I would suggest adding columns to track if the links are still alive after certain days.
One that I like that is super powerful for SERP and a bunch of other spying is Spyfu
https://www.spyfu.com
They have free version and paid to run deeper reports. You can see who just fell off page 1 and give them a call to see if they need help with their seo 😉
I love Clicky. It is free as well as fast and very useful.
Thump up to The TOTH team. Your blog articles are so useful that I spend 2 hours every day reading them and taking actions and Google rankings for my 20+ websites have greatly improved with traffic and sales conversions coming in daily. Thanks so much for giving us free valuable content.
Thanks guys. Great tips here. I have a giant Excel spreadsheet I use for tracking and am a big fan of Serpfox.
Thanks Hoth for all wonderful suggestions.
HOTH is best For link building really it works alot to me THANKS THANKS SO MUCH HOTH !
‘If you aren’t tracking, you might as well be fumbling around in the dark.’ Very true, first thing we do is track keywords before we start a project and then we have a starting point on which we can measure our progress.
Good keyword rankings tools should also give you monthly search traffic counts per keyword so you can find out which keywords are the most profitable, I find when you start using keyword tracking tools it also gets you into the habit of researching alternative keywords too.
only did i know i havent been tracking one of my sites.
decided to sign up for serpfox and give it a go and see how it turns out
thanks for the suggestions.
I have always wondered what tool you guys use to track keywords rankings.
I have been trying thehoth its good tool now come here for learning all the seo tips and techniques.
Hi,
If I use paid ranking tool then it gives you different ranking report as compared to Google Webmaster Console. So which tool give you correct information Google or Private tool?
Thanks,
Rameez
We suggest using both, they give different information.
Simple things but they are all what matters
Great what you can do with a simple excel sheet.
Thanks for sharing
Great post! It is very helpful for me. thanks
Very helpful in keeping the project organized and allows you to see exactly what you have done with the links. I plan on implementing the tips.
I have noticed you don’t monetize your page, don’t waste your traffic, you can earn extra bucks every month because you’ve got high quality content.
If you want to know how to make extra money, search for: Ercannou’s essential adsense alternative
Very usefull. Thanks for sharing. I will give this a shot 😀
I used to track my links like you are suggesting in this post, but that’s actually not really necessary. You can find them easily in Google Search Console.
Thanks for the tip! We recommend both methods even though we didn’t include Google Search Console in this post. It’s up to your own organization preferences!
The HOTH’s blogs are always helpful. Thumps up!
Thanks Pravesh!
Be great if you created a download link for the links spreadsheet or shared it out via google docs. Lead Magnet Time!
Hi Clayton, I am using Google Analytics but I must admit I don’t look at it regularly. I need to get regular with it. I have a question about link building. Neil Patel has written an article that commenting on other blogs in your niche can build links as well. Should I keep track of those links as well. Also should I go back and comment on the blogs on multiple posts or just one. Thank you Raheela
Doesn’t this assume that Google immediately responds to changes to the website, which is not the case for many sites?
In reality, if Google only crawls my site, say, once every couple of weeks, I would assume that it only sees changes to the site over that interval. So, if I introduce a change that would blast me right up the rankings, and then another that drops me by even more, I wouldn’t see the positive change unless Google happens to crawl the site in between the modifications, surely?
Yes, Google always needs to crawl your site to see the changes you’ve made (as well as the whole internet for backlinks), but if you update your site often, then Google may crawl it multiple times per day. With that said, Google still can take weeks or months to show the effects of links that you’ve created.
I had saved this post when i first read, and re-discovered it now. Tracking what we do is so important, I also note down whenever I update and optimize an old blog post, writing down the traffic in the months before and after. I’ve watch one blog post go from getting 10 clicks a month to 200, just by updating and optimizing it – and I wouldn’t know this if I hadn’t tracked it!
Whats the best practices with a brand spanking new site?
Hey Dimitr, you could start here: https://www.thehoth.com/blog/seo-strategy/
Great Blog for starters as there is lot more to rank high when you are against people or team working against you on the same business
Thanks and Great tips here. I have a giant Excel spreadsheet I use for tracking process
The HOTH’s blogs are always helpful. Thumps up!
Trying to tie your conduct to a ranking change is extremely delicate. Google has a really big indicator with lots of moving corridor. generally takes a many weeks for anything you do to have an effect.
Still a good idea and lots of perceptivity can be picked.