Here are the instructions for using our rank tracking service once it has been set up for you.


Notes about ranking results:

Google and other search engines deliver personalised results based on factors that include your geographic location, your previous search history, your browser history and more. For this reason, if you and I were to both search for the same term we will often get different results. If you are regularly checking your keyword performance by doing a Google search and noting where you are in relation to your competitors, this information will be skewed and is unlikely to be the same as if a real potential customer was doing a first time search for your products or services.


For this reason we enlist the help of keyword tracking software that is not affected by the above issues.  The results displayed by the software will be comparable to where you would appear to a first time searcher located in New Zealand, but not specifically in your local region. In a real life situation local searchers normally get localised results based on their computer IP address, so local companies normally get some priority. In other words, a local searcher will likely see your results higher than what the non-localised results are shown by the software.



Logging in:


There will be up to 50 keywords tracked for you. You can generate reports if you wish, or simply log in on a regular basis to check progress. It is not uncommon, especially when keywords are still rising up the rankings, to occasionally jump up and down dramatically before returning to a more gradual increase. This is called the 'Google Dance' and is nothing to be concerned about.



MENU TABS

Keywords: Shows the list of keywords and your current ranking data

Groups: Not used

Competitors: Shows the competitors you are being tracked against

Search engines: Shows which search engines are being monitored (in most cases this will be Google NZ)

Show competitor / hide competitor: This toggles the display to either show or hide the competitor from your results



The following features are shown on the screen grab below.

  1. Choose whose data you wish to display on this side (normally this will be yours)
  2. Choose which competitor you wish to show data for
  3. Your name will display here
  4. The chosen competitors name will display here
  5. Keywords will display in this column
  6. Clicking on the name or the red/green arrows will change how the information is sorted (eg highest ranking, lowest ranking)
  7. The date the keyword was last checked is shown here. Most are updated every fortnight.
  8. This figure shows if a keyword has gone up or down since last check


By clicking on a keyword, you can view the ranking history of that keyword since tracking was started.


The 'visibility' shown on the graph relates to the overall visibility of your site based on an algorithm that takes in a wide variety of factors including social media.