How to check your Google rank for any keyword

There’s just nothing quite like typing in a keyword and seeing your website on the first page of Google.

This is the ‘aha’ moment of SEO.

It’s when it all comes together, and that hard work of creating content seems worth it.  It’s honestly one of my favorite things to share with a client because it brings them (and me) so much joy.

In order to get to this point in your SEO journey, you’ll need to first get search engines to:

1. Recognize your website and its pages are high quality and value-packed.
2. Understand exactly the meaning and purpose of your content.
3. Reward your website with authority and high rankings.

If you’ve been working on your website’s SEO for a while, it is high time to see if your website is getting closer to this objective.

But how can you measure your site’s progress? That’s where monitoring your rank for target keywords comes into play.

This is just one piece of a well-constructed SEO strategy. For the rest, click the button below to get our free SEO strategy guide - it’s the same framework we’ve used to 10x traffic for our clients.

What do I mean by “check your rank for a keyword”?

Some SEO specialists might point to dozens of keywords that you rank highly for, but not all keywords are equal.

When I focus on keyword rankings, I zero in on the keywords that matter, also known as “target keywords.”

Your target keywords should be carefully chosen based on what your customers will be looking for on Google.

Your website’s ranking is determined by where your website falls in the list of results for a particular keyword.

Take the keyword “what to feed kitten” for example.

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If your page is the first result that people see on Google (ignoring ads), then your page has the #1 ranking. Congrats!

If your page is the next result down in the list, your page would have the #2 ranking. And so on.

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For target keywords, you want your keyword ranking to be as close to the top of the Google search results as possible — it’s all about being in that #1 spot!

There are many different on-page and off-page SEO strategies that can help your website climb through the ranks. But you’ll never know how these strategies are performing if you don’t check back in to see where your page ranks.

Why is checking your rank for a keyword important?

Some people like to obsess over keyword rankings; if you ask me, I care a lot more about traffic and conversions than individual keywords.

But monitoring your rank for target keywords is still important. Here are a few reasons:

• You can benchmark the performance of your site
• You can compare different query types
• You can see how changes to your page impacted rank
• You can monitor the impact of backlinks on your rank

How often should you check your keyword ranking?

The answer is complicated - it depends on certain factors about your target keywords, your website, and the amount of resources you have available to dedicate to SEO.

When actively working on an SEO strategy, I might check rank once a week or so. It’s pretty rare that Google would make changes from day to day, though it does happen (especially when Google has an ongoing algorithm update).

For longer-term strategies that don’t need as much active oversight, once a month is usually good enough. Again, traffic and leads matter more, but keeping an eye on your rank helps ensure your website continues to perform well on Google.

That said, the consistency in which you check your keyword rankings will depend on the SEO resources and time available to you.

How to check your rank for a keyword

There are a few different options when it comes to checking your keyword ranking. You can check your rankings manually or use a tool to do so. Tools are extremely popular as they provide ease and save time, and there are both free and paid options available.

We’ve provided an overview of your options below so you can find the right choice for your website.

• Check manually
• Use Google Search Console (free)
• Use SEO software (free or paid)

Manually check your keyword ranking

Manually checking your keyword ranking is by far the most time-consuming option, but it is free and requires no tools.

With a simple spreadsheet, you can keep track of the keywords that you care about and Google them every so often to check your rank. Sometimes, I’ll manually Google the target keywords for my clients to see who else ranks and what unique features Google adds to the homepage, so even we SEO experts like to manually Google target keywords!

Use Google Search Console

Google provides its own free tool to track your site’s keyword rankings: Google Search Console.

Google Search Console shows you how your website performs in Google Search results. You can see:

• Which keywords your site ranks for
• Which pages show up for those keywords
• Your rank
• Your click-through rate

And more!

By default, Google Search Console will give you all the data for your website, but you can filter by query (keyword) to view individual keywords or keywords that all contain the same term.

You can also see all of the keywords a page ranks for by filtering by page. For example, here are the keywords this post ranks for (how's that for breaking the fourth wall?):

So you can see, with a bit of navigation involved, Google Search Console can provide decent insights into your overall site ranking, as well as specific data on particular URLs and search queries.

Use an SEO tool

There are tons of free and paid SEO tools available to you to track your rank (among other SEO tasks).

Ahrefs provides a free Keyword Rank Checker where you can see where a certain website or URL ranks for any keyword in 243 countries. The feature is incredibly easy to use. Simply fill in the keyword and domain/URL in the given fields, select the country, and click “Check rankings.”

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SEMrush offers a tool that allows you to monitor your performance, and your competitors’ as well. Here are a few features their paid plan offers:

• Rank tracking
• Daily rankings for domains, subdomains, and URLs for up to 5,000 keywords
• Position and ranking distributions to compare your site to your competitors
• Track data for up to 10 geographic locations

Ahrefs and SEMRush are pricey, though; they start over $100, which can eat into a limited budget.

Knowing your rank is the first step. Download our free SEO strategy guide

Knowing what you rank for, and how your rank has changed over time is just one piece of a well-constructed SEO strategy.

You need to make sure you create the right content, that you are getting qualified traffic, and that your traffic converts into high-quality leads — and there’s more you need to do for that than simply track your keywords.

After working with over 100 companies on SEO and organic growth, we wrote a guide to document the exact process we use. We developed this framework to generate 10x increases in traffic and hundreds of thousands in organic revenue for our clients, and I know it will work for your business.

Click the button below to download your free guide.