1. How to read my keyword reports?
Keyword reports are one of the main features of the Strato MarketingRadar applications. With consistent and daily updates of your keyword positions on Google, you are aware of your current performance each day. With this information, you can decide to focus on any performing keyword to increase your rankings further. By integrating them into your chosen webpage, or even running a Google Ads campaign to focus around these is a great strategy to stay on top of your competition.
To find your keyword reports for each keyword you have chosen, click on “Reports” in the left menu and then on “Search engines”.
A little drop-down menu at the top of each report gives you the option to switch between national and local data reporting. This way you can check your results for the local area and compare them with national results. Keep in mind that if you are a local business, focus on your service area.
The first report graph shows you the results of your keywords and position for today's date (first column), a week ago (second column) and a month ago (third column). Here you can stay on top of any keyword fluctuations.
Next to it, you have the third column which indicates the search volume of the keywords and how it evolved over the course of a few months. Search volume means how many people used the exact same search term.
A dash in the report indicates that your website is nowhere to be found in the first 100 results (or on the first 10 pages) of Google, and you do not have a ranking for the specific keywords.
A green arrow pointing up indicates that your rankings have been improving and a red arrow pointing down that your rankings have been decreasing.
You might also have seen a little red pin next to your ranking position when your website is ranking within the top 3 positions in Google. This means that your Google Business entry is being displayed in the Google Maps results above the organic results in the SERP (as seen below).
You will get more details about each keyword if you click on the keywords. A pop-up window with extra information will open, and there you can find a screenshot of your website’s snippet in Google’s result pages, as well as data related to the keyword’s potential search volume and cost per click for this keyword in Google Ads cost.
2. What other keyword reports do I get?
The second report gives you a detailed overview of the evolution of your rankings over the last 30 days. You get to see what exact position your website was ranking in each day.
The third report gives you data about your competitors. You get to compare your website’s rankings with theirs for each of your keywords. In order to get relevant data in this table, you have to pick your competitors carefully. Make sure you choose realistic companies that are similar to yours in size and that target the same audience as you do. Adding competitors that are big worldwide known brands won’t give you realistic information on how your business ranks compared to others, especially if you are a local business.
3. Why are my rankings going up and down?
Fluctuations in the ranking from day to day are normal. The lower your website is ranking in the result pages, the more likely you are to experience greater fluctuations. Especially when you start working on your SEO tasks.
Those ups and downs can be due to many factors. Results can be affected by changes in Google’s algorithms, adjustments to your website’s content or change in your competition, Google Ads campaign and many more.
You should not focus on day-to-day evolution but rather analyze your rankings over longer periods of time. This can give you a better understanding and picture of how your SEO strategy is working. If a keyword drops in your rankings and then stays low, it is a good chance to check what could be causing this.
4. What if my rankings are not improving?
It can take several weeks or even several months before you see improvements.
However, if you do notice an overall negative trend over several weeks, you should check:
whether Google has announced any big algorithm change and see what you can do to fix your drop in ranking;
whether you have a new big competitor or whether any of your main competitors have a new SEO strategy and learn from it;
whether you have changed any of your website’s URLs;
whether you might have lost any valuable backlinks and try to get them back;
whether your internal links and redirects are in order and fix them if you notice any issues;
Your website’s loading speed;
Any change in the content you might have done.
However, if you have done all the tasks and you don’t see any improvement at all after this time, it might be time to adapt your strategy.
First of all, check your keywords. The color of the keyword gives you an idea of its level of achievability. Green stands for a low level of difficult achievability, orange for an intermediate level and red for a high level of difficulty. This means that red keywords are very hard to rank for, especially for SMBs, because they are used by a great deal of websites and you might be competing against big names or big branches that have a complete team working full-time on their SEO.
Therefore, red keywords are often unrealistic keywords for small companies as they are unlikely to ever reach top places for them. You should focus on easier keywords, green or orange keywords, that have a good search volume.
5. Why are my results different from the results I get in Google?
Please note that those results might not look exactly like the ones you get if you do a search from your own browser. Google tries to customize the results, and it gives you as much as possible by taking into account your preferences and search history. If you often search for your own website, Google is more likely to display it at a more prominent position in the search results it has tailored for you. But this does not mean that other users will see it this way. Google results depend on the search history, location, interest, age and other elements.
You also need to make sure your keywords truly reflect what you are offering to customers. Google’s priority is always to give the user the best possible answer to their query. Therefore, Google will never display your website in the search results if your website’s content is not relevant to the user.
If the problem doesn’t come from your keywords, it might come from your content. You have to remember to write for humans and not for machines and your content has to answer the most common questions your visitors might have.
Always go by the saying, “Keywords need to match the content of the page they are assigned to.”
You now have all the information you need to analyze your Strato MarketingRadar keywords ranking reports and the performance of your SEO strategy and to get back on track if you realize your strategy needs to be adjusted.
For any further questions, please contact our support team, we are happy to help you.
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