5 Best Rank Tracking Tools for SEO Monitoring

Rank tracking tools let you monitor your SEO performance over time. By tracking which keywords you’re ranking for, where you’re gaining, and where you’re losing.

Backlinko.com ranks for more than 114K keywords in the US. 16K of these rank in the top 10 positions.

Keeping track of the keywords we know drive the most value helps us ensure we have visibility for key terms in volatile search results.

But keyword rank trackers also help us find opportunities where we can drive even more value from underperforming content. And they can help your business do the same.

That’s why we put together this list of the five best rank tracking tools for businesses, SEO agencies, and blogs of all sizes. So you can find the right solution to improve your website’s SEO.

What Features Do You Need in a Ranking Tool?

Choosing the right rank tracking tool for your website ensures you have all the features and data you need.

Look for tools that offer these key features:

Keyword tracking: Monitor your rankings for target keywords across multiple search engines. Pay close attention to update frequency. Some tools offer daily data (like Semrush), while others may only update weekly.
Historical ranking data: Access past ranking data to identify trends and patterns. You can use this to understand the impact of your SEO efforts over time.
Competitor tracking: Track your competitors’ rankings for the same keywords you’re targeting. Get context for your own performance and find opportunities to outrank your rivals.
Rank tracking alerts: Receive automated alerts when significant changes occur in your keyword rankings. Quickly respond to drops or capitalize on gains.
Reporting and analytics: Generate reports and visualize your ranking data through charts and graphs. This makes it easier to digest complex SEO data. And share your progress with clients or stakeholders.

What’s the Best Rank Tracking Tool?

1. Semrush Position Tracking Tool

Best for tracking keyword rankings and SERP features

Semrush’s Position Tracking tool helps you monitor your website’s rankings for specific keywords on Google, Bing, and Baidu. You can track your own progress over time and compare your rankings to your competitors.

You can also track your rankings across devices and locations to see how your website performs in different markets.

The tool uses Semrush’s extensive data set. Which covers over 25 billion keywords across 140+ countries and regions.

Let’s look at some of these features in more detail:

Rankings Summary

The “Overview” tab gives you a summary of your domain’s visibility, estimated traffic, and average position for every keyword you’re tracking.

At the top, you’ll find the “Visibility Trend” chart. This shows the progress of your site’s visibility in Google’s top 100 results for your tracked keywords.

Below the chart is the “Rankings Overview” table. Where you can quickly compare your performance against your competitors for each tracked keyword.

This allows you to easily spot areas where your competitors are outperforming you.

Competitors Discovery

The “Competitors Discovery” tab highlights other domains vying for your target keywords. It identifies your top rivals based on your tracked keywords.

This is especially useful if you’re a newcomer wanting an overview of the key players in your space who are targeting the same keywords.

The centerpiece of this tab is the “Competition Map.” This visual overview plots out the competitive landscape for your keywords.

Each domain is represented by a circle on the map. Hover over any domain to see key metrics like the number of keywords it ranks for and its average position.

Cannibalization Data

Cannibalization is an issue where multiple pages on your website compete for the same keyword(s). Potentially harming your rankings.

The “Cannibalization” tab makes it easy to spot if multiple pages are competing against each other in search results.

At the top of the report, you’ll see your overall “Cannibalization Health” score. A score of 100% means there’s no cannibalization detected for your tracked keywords.

And below the score, you can filter by keywords to see which pages are competing against each other.

Tracking Tags

Organize your keywords with tags to track performance metrics for specific keyword groups. Like blog categories or specific groups of products.

The “Tags” report shows you how each tag group is performing in terms of:

Share of Voice
Visibility %
Estimated Traffic
Average Position

Page-Specific Data

The “Pages” report gives you a complete view of which landing pages on your site (or a competitor’s) rank for your tracked keywords.

This page-level data shows which pages are ranking for the most (tracked) keywords. Along with key metrics like average position, search volume, and estimated traffic for those keywords.

Use this report to identify your top-performing pages at a glance. And identify which ones have seen the biggest keyword gains or losses over time.

Pros and Cons

Pricing

Pro: $139.95 per month. Includes tracking of 500 keywords and five projects.
Guru: $249.95 per month. Increases to 1,500 tracked keywords and 15 projects.
Business: $499.95 per month. Track 5,000 keywords and 40 projects.

An Enterprise solution with custom pricing is also available.

All plans come with a free 14-day trial. And you can track up to ten keywords with a free plan.

2. Advanced Web Ranking

Best for advanced keyword tracking

Advanced Web Ranking (AWR) helps you see how your website ranks for specific keywords on different search engines, in specific locations, and by device.

AWR goes beyond Google and tracks rankings on platforms like YouTube and Amazon.

If you’re an SEO beginner, or you only have basic tracking needs, other tools on this list, like Mangools SERPWatcher (which we discuss further down), might be a better fit for you.

But if you want more granular data, AWR could be the keyword tracker for you.

Let’s explore some of the best features:

Forecasting

Advanced Web Ranking’s Forecasting feature predicts the potential impact of improving your keyword rankings.

Letting you estimate the organic traffic, conversions, and revenue you could achieve by reaching your target positions.

The tool’s output data is split into two categories: aggregated forecast data and forecast data per keyword.

Aggregated forecast data includes high-level metrics calculated across all the keywords in your forecast. Like actual and forecasted visits, total search volume, YoY search trends, and additional revenue.

This bird’s-eye view is great for setting overall SEO targets, tracking your progress, and reporting potential and actual impact to stakeholders.

Forecast data per keyword drills down to the individual term level. Showing metrics like initial position, target position, and click share.

This granular data lets you identify the specific terms and topics with the highest potential value. So you can improve your current content and double down on high-value keywords.

Customizable Reports

Advanced Web Ranking offers highly flexible reporting options. Allowing you to create reports tailored to your specific needs and preferences.

You can also change the data source for your key performance indicators (KPIs). For example, you can combine Google Analytics data with Search Console or Ranking data.

Drill down to the exact data you need. And present it in a way that aligns with your priorities.

Scheduling and Automation

With the built-in scheduler, you can automate report delivery by email. To easily keep your clients up to date with their ranking progress.

This is a huge time-saver if you manage multiple clients. No more manually sending monthly reports to each client.

Just set up a frequency in the report scheduler:

Data Export

Advanced Web Ranking provides robust data export options. Giving you the flexibility to integrate ranking data into your existing reporting platforms. Keeping your workflows manageable.

You have a few options:

Use the developer API to automatically feed ranking data into your own data management or business intelligence tool
Set up an automated export that pushes CSV files to your preferred file transfer protocol (FTP) location. From there, you can add the data into other reporting or dashboard tools.
Connecting Advanced Web Ranking to Looker Studio (formerly Google Data Studio). Where you can build custom dashboards that blend ranking data with metrics from Google Analytics, Google Ads, and more.

These flexible export options allow you to use ranking data from Advanced Web Ranking in ways that suit your specific existing workflows.

Pros and Cons

Pricing

Pro: $99 per month. Tracks up to 7,000 keywords per week, offers market share data and keyword intent/difficulty analysis, and provides SERP feature tracking (e.g., featured snippets).
Agency: $199 per month. Tracks up to 14,500 keywords per week, offers one-hour update frequency for keyword rankings, and includes local search volumes.
Enterprise: $499 per month. Tracks up to 35,500 keywords per week, offers data migration assistance and CSV exports to FTP, and provides a developer API.
Custom: $700 per month (price may vary). Tracks up to 50,000 keywords per week, offers custom billing quotes and enterprise scaling options.

There’s a 30-day free trial available.

3. SEOmonitor

Best for tracking rankings over time and forecasting future performance

SEOmonitor tracks keywords and SERP features, includes a forecasting feature, and provides insights into keyword cannibalization.

So you can understand the impact of your SEO efforts. And understand where you have missing or competing pages for your target keywords.

Let’s have a look at the tool’s main features in more detail:

SEO Forecasts

SEOmonitor’s forecasting tool estimates the potential impact of your SEO efforts. Helping you set realistic goals and expectations.

It predicts the organic traffic and conversions you could achieve for a set of target keywords. Based on your current rankings and keyword search volumes.

Keyword-level forecasts are also available. Showing how search volume, organic click share, and related queries contribute to the overall traffic potential.

SERP Feature Tracking

SEOmonitor tracks SERP features daily across both desktop and mobile.

Which is important because different SERP features can have very different impacts on your click-through rates and traffic.

The platform provides in-depth data on each feature. It identifies which sites are listed in each one. And reports how many elements are present (like the number of People Also Ask questions).

Daily Alerting System

SEOmonitor equips you with a comprehensive alerting system that goes beyond just periodic reports.

Its “Signals” are bite-sized, daily alerts that flag major changes or events. Like sudden rank shifts, outranking a competitor, year-over-year trend changes based on the market, or a new Google update.

Signals cover a wide range of important events. Grouped into categories like:

Page Issues Detection

Flag page-level issues that can hurt your rankings. And identify and fix problems before they result in lost traffic.

It takes Google’s ranking factors into account to suggest fixes.

Here’s how SEOmonitor displays issues:

The platform looks for four key things:

Missing landing pages: Keywords that don’t have a relevant page targeting them
Desired page not ranking: Keywords for which your specified target page isn’t showing up in search results
Cannibalization: Where multiple pages from your site are competing for the same keyword
Device differences: Instances where your rankings for a keyword differ significantly on desktop and mobile

Pros and Cons

Pricing

SEOmonitor uses a unique pricing structure based on the number of keywords you want to track. Here’s a breakdown of how the pricing structure looks for 1000 tracked keywords:

Unlimited SEO Campaigns for $108 per month
1,000 keywords tracked daily for $43
One website with Google Search Console (GSC) and Google Analytics (GA) connection for $11
Total cost of $162 per month

4. Mangools SERPWatcher

Best for getting an at-a-glance view of your overall ranking performance

Mangools SERPWatcher combines data from multiple sources to track the overall progress of your website’s rankings in Google search results.

Designed with affordability and user-friendliness in mind, SERPWatcher is particularly helpful for beginners. It offers a good mix of basic and advanced data to cater to various SEO needs.

Here are some of the tool’s best features:

Performance Index

Get an overview of your overall ranking performance with a helpful metric called Performance Index (PI). Here’s what it looks like:

PI distills all your ranking data down to a single, trackable number. Letting you quickly gauge the impact of your SEO efforts.

PI takes into account two key factors:

Your current ranking position for each tracked keyword
The search volume of each tracked keyword

Mangools weighs each keyword according to these attributes. Keywords that rank higher and have greater search volume have more influence on your PI. Helping you quickly understand which keywords may be most valuable to your business.

Custom Rank Alerts

Mangools provides daily updates and alerts based on triggers you specify. Helping you stay on top of your rankings so you can react quickly to any changes. Minimizing traffic drops or capitalizing on ranking gains.

For example, get notifications whenever a keyword enters or drops out of the top 10 results. Or if a high-priority keyword sees a significant jump or drop.

Local Ranking Data

SERPWatcher offers robust local rank tracking features. Perfect for businesses targeting specific geographic markets. With a focus on local SEO.

You can track rankings for any location. Down to the city or even neighborhood level.

How granular can you go?

The platform offers over 50,000 locations to choose from. Including states, counties, cities and designated market area (DMA) regions.

SERPWatcher also tracks Google’s Map Pack results. Also known as the “local pack,” this SERP feature is critical for local businesses. As it often appears at the top of the results. Even above the traditional organic listings.

Here’s what it looks like:

Just hover over the Map Pack icon on any tracked keyword. Or check the rankings sidebar for more details.

Identify locations where you’re underperforming in the Map Pack and prioritize updating those pages to improve local visibility. Or spot regions where you’re dominating the local organic results and double down on those strategies.

Featured Snippet Data

Identifying featured snippet opportunities can be tricky if you’re tracking a large number of keywords.

SERPWatcher detects when a featured snippet is present for any of your tracked keywords. And alerts you if you’ve claimed that snippet.

Featured snippets are a powerful way to leapfrog competitors in the SERPs. By claiming these coveted spots, you can rank higher on Google and drive more traffic to your website.

Sort your keywords by ranking to find low-hanging opportunities. Look for keywords where you already rank on page one and have the quotation mark icon.

These are prime candidates to target. A few tweaks to your content could be enough to claim the snippet.

Imagine you run a blog about home organization. You rank on the first page for a keyword like “how to declutter your closet,” and Google shows a featured snippet from a competitor.

Updating your post with a concise, step-by-step answer to the query might help you win the snippet and drive more traffic to your site.

Then, create a tag for keywords where you’ve already secured the snippet. Check their status and spot any snippets you’ve lost. Then make updates to reclaim them.

Pros and Cons

Pricing

Mangools SERPWatcher offers tree pricing plans, including other tools from the Mangools SEO Suite:

Basic: $29.90 per month. Tracks up to 200 keywords. Offers basic rank tracking, competitor analysis, and mobile/desktop rank tracking.
Premium: $44.90 per month. Tracks up to 700 keywords. Offers additional functionalities like SERP history data and white-label reports.
Agency: $89.90 per month. Tracks up to 700 keywords. Offers priority support and team management functionalities.

5. Ahrefs Rank Tracker

Best for visualizing SEO progress with interactive graphs

The Ahrefs Rank Tracker monitors your website’s rankings for specific keywords across desktop and mobile versions in up to 190 countries. It’s part of Ahrefs’ suite of other SEO tools.

Rank Tracker also offers SEO metrics on competing pages and helps you find new keyword opportunities. All to improve your website’s search engine rankings.

Let’s take a look at its features:

SERP Features Tracking

Ahrefs’ Rank Tracker provides comprehensive tracking of SERP features. In total, Rank Tracker monitors 15 different SERP features. Including local packs, image packs, featured snippets, and video previews.

This allows you to quickly gauge how well you capture SERP features. And helps you identify opportunities to win more of them.

For example, you might find your competitors are dominating video results. But you have few or none. That could be a signal to invest in optimized video content.

Interactive Graphs

Ahrefs’ Rank Tracker offers interactive graphs to visualize your SEO progress. Making it easy to track your performance and share your wins with clients or stakeholders.

You can quickly spot trends and shifts without getting lost in numbers.

It shows five key metrics:

Share of voice
Average position
Traffic
SERP features
Positions

Competitors Overview

The competitors overview feature lets you zoom out and get a clear picture of how your pages are performing in search results compared to your competitors.

You might discover a competitor is slowly but steadily gaining ground. Or you might see a rival dominating a certain type of SERP feature. You can then take targeted actions like optimizing your content for the specific SERP features.

The overview report focuses on three critical areas:

Positions

See how your rankings compare to competitors across your tracked keywords. This chart compares ranking positions over time.

Traffic

The traffic comparison chart plots estimated traffic from your tracked keywords. Revealing who’s capturing the lion’s share of relevant search traffic.

SERP Features

The SERP features report tallies up the number of features (like featured snippets and video results) earned by each competitor.

Keyword Filters and Tags

Easily organize your rank tracking workflows with filters and tags. These let you categorize your tracked keywords any way you want.

Such as by product type if you run an ecommerce store, to see which lines are doing best in search. Or by blog post category. To help you understand which topics you’re dominating and where you need to improve.

Pros and Cons

Pricing

Ahrefs offers five pricing plans:

Starter: $29 per month with limited access to certain tools
Lite: $129 per month for 750 tracked keywords
Standard: $249 per month for 2,000 tracked keywords
Advanced: $449 per month for 5,000 tracked keywords
Enterprise: $14,990 annual contract for 10,000 tracked keywords

There’s also a limited free trial available.

Bonus Tool: Semrush Map Rank Tracker

Best for tracking your local business’s rankings on Google Maps

With the Semrush Map Rank Tracker, you can monitor your local business’s rankings on Google Maps for your chosen keywords and locations.

To use the tool, you define a grid around your target location. Choose from several grid sizes. Ranging from 5×5 up to 15×15. And select the distance you want to cover.

The campaign then gives you a real-time snapshot of your average rank in each area.

Let’s take a closer look at the tool’s features:

Grid-Based Heatmap Report

The “Grid-Based Heatmap Report” provides a visual representation of your Google Maps rankings in your target area. Providing a granular view of how your business ranks in different parts of your service area.

Why is this important?

Because local rankings vary based on the searcher’s location. Even within the same city or town.

The heatmap uses color coding to show your average ranking in each location. Making it easy to understand where you’re winning and where you’re losing.

Competitor Tracking

The tool doesn’t just track your own local rankings. It also allows you to monitor your competitors’ performance on Google Maps.

Your online rivals are often your real-world neighbors. They’re competing for the same local customers in the same geographic areas.

Comparing your own data to your competitors pinpoints areas for improvement. Right down to specific corners of the cities you’re targeting.

When you create a Map Rank Tracker campaign for your own business, Semrush will automatically suggest a list of competitors to track.

You’ll have access to the same robust data for your competitors as you do for your own business.

Customizable Tracking

You can also set your preferred tracking schedule and configurations to fit your specific needs.

For some businesses, weekly updates may be sufficient. Especially if you’re in a stable market with relatively low competition.

But for others, you may need to track rankings more frequently. If you’re in a growing industry, you may even want to track your rankings daily.

Choose from predefined intervals like weekly or monthly updates. Or select the “manual” option to set your own custom tracking frequency.

This level of control ensures you’re getting the data you need when you need it.

Multiple Keyword Tracking

Track rankings for up to 100 keywords relevant to your business. Input your own custom keywords. Or use Semrush’s AI-powered keyword suggestions to find relevant terms you may be missing.

Once you’ve set up your keywords, toggle between them in the Map Rank Tracker interface. Simply use the keyword dropdown at the top of the screen to switch your view.

This makes it super easy to track rankings for different keywords in each area.

Pros and Cons

Pricing

Free plan: One campaign and 50 credits as a free user
Map Rank Tracker Basic: $30 per month. Comes with one campaign and 4,000 credits

Rank Tracking Tools That Didn’t Make the List

Here are some other rank tracking tools you might want to consider, depending on your specific needs:

Nozzle: Ideal for those who need to track rankings for a large number of keywords. They offer bulk pricing options that can be cost-effective for high-volume tracking.
Google Search Console: While not a full-fledged rank tracker, Google Search Console is a free tool from Google that offers some rank tracking data. While the data is somewhat limited, it does come directly from Google.
SEO PowerSuite: This suite offers a free rank tracker with a limited feature set. But it’s a good option if you need basic rank tracking functionality.
SE Ranking: Full suite that offers tools for keyword research, competitor analysis, rank tracking, website audits, and more.

Choose the Best Rank Tracking Tool for Your Workflow

There are many great rank tracking tools out there, but they’re all built for different situations and needs.

The right choice for you depends on factors like your budget, whether you need local ranking data, and if you’re looking for more tools bundled into one platform.

If you’re unsure where to start, explore how specific types of rank trackers can support your most important SEO activities. For example, if you run a physical store, learn more about the best local rank trackers to help you track and improve your local search rankings.

And if you want a rank tracker that’s part of a wider tool suite, check out our guide to the best SEO tools.

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