Keyword tracking guides your website growth by visually plotting your climb, stagnation, and decline in rank, the core goal of SEO.
Much like trading stocks over time, plotting out the peaks and valleys helps to tell a story of your SEO journey.
By seeing the trends and growth over time, you can determine if your SEO efforts to influence rank are working or not.
Without this intel, your SEO efforts are being done blindly or with less focus than actually works.
The Early Stage: Casting a Wide Net
In the early stages of SEO, it’s essential to cast a broad net of keywords across the landscape of your niche.
These keywords should have a solid connection to your Apex Keyword but not be too closely related to each other.
Think of it as placing one keyword every mile or so, leaving “feelers” out there.
When one of these keywords crosses into the top 100 SERP listings, it’s a sign to consider adding words that are closer to it to see what else is happening in Google.
Adapting to Growth: Refining Your Keyword Focus
As your website grows and certain keywords start to gain traction, it’s time to refine your keyword focus.
When a keyword first makes it into Google, it usually hangs out in the 100-200 range before crossing into double digits as on-page and technical aspects come together.
At this point, a smattering of directory links, social links, or other lower-value links could bump you up a few places.
Overcoming Stagnation: The Role of Authority and Backlinks
You may notice another stall in rank, typically bouncing around 10 or 20 places, but still a ways away from the top 10. This is another good time for some slightly better links.
If your rank improves, great! But if it stalls out and new links aren’t doing the trick, you need MUCH better links to compete against others in that niche.
The types of high-quality links that can help break through a ranking plateau span from poor (but easy!) directory links and social media sources up to elite authority sites such as major news sites.
There are many sources of links, some free, some paid, some good, some bad. Finding a reputable link builder like Comptrio can help navigate this process.
Navigating Fluctuations: The Long-Term Perspective
When it comes to rank fluctuations, the best advice is don’t look at rank daily. It will distract you from useful things and make you freak out over small changes all the time.
Rank bounces, new pages do things, Google has to reorder the list, and the battle for the top is dynamic and fluid.
Trends over time are better guides, and the actual performance of your site is the ultimate decider of success.
Bringing It All Together
Keyword tracking is an essential tool for guiding your SEO strategy at every stage of your website’s growth.
By tracking your keywords over time, you can identify when to shift focus from content to backlinks, know when your efforts are working or not, and make informed plans for the future.
A keyword tracking tool like DIY SEO Toolbox can help you visualize your SEO journey and make data-driven decisions to keep your website climbing in the ranks.