What is a SERP checker and how do I check my ranking?

SERP ranking or Search Engine Results Page ranking is the position a website appears in a search engines results page.

For example the keyword you base your site/page on is website design and someone puts that search term in to Google, your SERP is the position that your site/page is returned in the results.  Different keywords will return different positions in the search results.

How can I work out my my position?

The obvious way is to type a search in to a search engine then scroll your way through the results until you find a result for your page.  This can get tedious particularly if you are looking for various keywords relating to your business.

The best way is to use SERP checker to keep track of your position relating to specific keywords. There are various free SERP checker services available, and you can find them directly from a search (ironically!).

What SERP checker do I use?

I have used various different SERP checking utilities, but at the moment I am experimenting with a free to use service from SERP Lab.  It’s primarily free to use, but they do have some paid upgrades to generate income to support and develop the system further (it  also carries Google adverts).

You can use the SERP checker without registering on the site, but if you register (which is free) then the system will check automatically for you.  It takes a while for it to return the values for your particular keywords as it queues them in with everyone elses requests and they are processed in sequence (if it’s busy it can take an hour or so).  You can schedule how often it checks your keywords, so remember to come back regularly and see whether there has been any change.

It gives you a comprehensive overview of how your site is (hopefully) improving ranking wise, and all the data can be exported to a CSV file if you want to manipulate the data offline.

There is also the option to add your competitors websites in so you can see how you are doing against them!  I’m still working my way through all the options right now, so will hopefully post a follow up blog later on.

Using a SERP Checker – In Summary

Knowing how well you are doing in Google is key to understanding how to focus your website. Using a SERP checker takes the hard work out of working this out, and choosing one with plenty of tracking features is a good idea.