5 Best Tools to Check Google Keyword Rankings

Posted by George W on in Hosting Tips

If you’ve put in time, effort and resources into creating your website, surely you also have an SEO strategy in place. That includes optimizing each page of your website for top keywords. Now, how do you know if you’ve done all the right things? To find out, you need to know how your pages rank on the search engine results page (SERP). That’s where these Google keyword rankings checker tools come in.

These keyword rank checkers are useful tools that will help you track where your website ranks in Google, often with helpful features to see how your rankings change over time.

Here we go…

Five best Google keyword rankings checker tools

Below, we’ll compare the five best Google keyword rankings checker tools across seven different categories:

  • Price – what you’ll pay for a premium plan.
  • Free plan limits/availability – whether the tool offers a free plan/trial. If so, what the limits are.
  • Historical rank tracking – whether you can track how your rankings change over time.
  • Competitor Analysis – whether you can monitor the rankings for your competitors.
  • Device and location tracking – whether you can track rankings for different locations or devices.
  • Ease of use – the convenience of the interface.
  • Other notable features

1. SERPWatcher

At the outset, SERPWatcher makes it clear that it’s not just about tracking your website ranking day-by-day. Instead, it tracks overall progress on its creatively-named “dominance index”. The associated metrics provide critical outputs for SEO.

Price:

SERPWatcher comes bundled with a set of tools such as KWFinder, SERPChecker and more. Three packages are available:

  • Basic ($49 / month)
  • Premium ($69 / month)
  • Agency ($129 / month)

Annual payments will save you roughly 40%.

You’ll get to track 200/700/1500 keywords, depending on your package. That’s for all tracked domains, without limit on the number of domains.

Free plan:

A ten-day free trial allows you to track ten keywords.

Ease of use:

You can create, add, rename, remove or delete keywords at any time. Simply import keywords from KWFinder, paste them from a list, or drag and drop entire files. Keywords can also be exported in a CSV file or copied to clipboard.

The dashboard provides all the data on one screen in a two-column interface. The left column gives you all the info about positions. Here, you’ll find options to create, add or filter tags. In the right column, you’ll find the aggregated metrics that are important for rank tracking. And the friendly interface keeps you abreast of the biggest changes, keyword position flow, estimated visits per month and a keyword ranking distribution chart.

Other notable features:

  • A dominance index to track overall progress
  • Daily rank updates
  • Shareable and interactive reports
  • Email alerts – scheduled and event-based

Data is purchased from trusted data providers such as Moz, for greater accuracy. All-in-all, a comprehensive way to keep track of your website rankings.

2. SEMRush

The way it works with SEMRush is, you’ll need to start a project for specific domains to analyze their performance using different tools. The Position Tracking tool is what allows you to track your website’s ranking for target keywords.

Price:

All plans include about 28 tools/features:

  • Pro (99.95/ month)
  • Guru ($199.95/month)
  • Business ($399.95/month)
  • Enterprise tailored to suit individual needs

Other tools include On-Page SEO Checker, Brand Monitoring, Site Audit and more.

Free plan:

Pro and Guru offer seven-day free trial.

Ease of use:

SEMRush offers multiple ways to add keywords – manually, from a *txt* or CSV file or by connecting to your search console. For each keyword, you can add up to five tags, and organize them in groups to easily manage thousands of search terms. A side-by-side comparison of competitor metrics helps you benchmark your keywords’ performance.

Other notable features:

  • Daily updated data
  • Weekly notifications of ranking changes
  • Complete workflow for any SEO professional

According to our review, SEMRush is a full-fledged SEO solution that makes it a valuable partner in any SEO strategy.

3. Ahrefs

Tools for checking Google keyword rankings probably don’t get any better than Ahrefs. It’s an accurate, location-specific ranking tool.

Price:

Ahrefs offers multiple tools including Rank Tracker, in four packages pegged at four price levels:

  • Lite ($99/month) – create 5 projects and track 500 keywords with updates every 7 days.
  • Standard ($179/month) – create 10 projects and track 1,500 keywords with updates every 5 days.
  • Advanced ($399/month) – create 25 projects and track 5.000 keywords with updates every 3 days.
  • Agency ($999/month) – create 100 projects and track 10,000 keywords with updates every 3 days.

All plans include all tools – Keyword Research, Content Explorer, Site Audit and more.

Free plan:

Ahrefs doesn’t offer any fully free plan for its keyword rankings checker, though you can try out the Lite or Standard plan for seven days by paying $7.

Ease of use:

With Ahrefs, all you’ve got to do is feed in or import a list of keywords, and add country-specification against each keyword. Ahrefs will start tracking, visualize it for you, and send you regular updates. You’ll see your full ranking history on a handy graph. You can also set it up to receive an automated rankings report via email.

Other notable features:

  • Multiple filters help you segment your data, and track ranking position in groups at multiple levels
  • You get data on a total of 13 SERP features such as Tweet box, Sitelinks, and Thumbnails
  • Advanced metrics for tracked keywords such as ranking progress and estimated search volume
  • Wide data crawling leading to a large index base offering you reliable data

In short, Ahrefs is a full-featured SEO tool that you’ll want working for you.

4. SEOprofiler

SEOprofiler positions itself as a complete website promotion tool that includes a feature for checking Google keyword rankings.

Price:

Four plans are available with an unconditional 30-day money-back guarantee:

  • Standard ($69.95/month) – check 500 keywords daily.
  • Smart ($99.95) – check 1,000 keywords daily.
  • Professional ($249.95) – check 2,500 keywords daily.
  • Enterprise ($999.95) – check 10,000 keywords daily.

A ranking check on all three search engines for the same country/language/location combination counts as only one keyword.

Ease of use:

Adding keywords is as easy as clicking a button. The Monitor will check all the pages, including the sub-domains, and provide detailed keyword rankings and visibility reports. Also, it creates keyword groups automatically and allows you to add as many tags as you like to your keywords. To get detailed information on any keyword, click the keyword in the ‘All keywords’ page.

Other notable features:

  • Detailed reports with actionable tips
  • PDF reports, white-label reports
  • Daily updated data, search volumes, potential organic traffic, and aggregated metrics to give you insight into how rankings influence traffic
  • Ability to alert you to important keywords that you should focus on

SEOprofiler maybe ideal for agencies who need to offer detailed, easy-to-understand and eye-catching reports to clients without any third-party branding.

5. Moz Rank Tracker

Moz Rank Tracker tracks your website’s keywords performance as well as overall visibility in search engine results over time.

Price:

All Pro plans include full SEO toolset including tools like Keyword Explorer, on-demand crawl and more.

  • Standard ($99/month) – 5 campaigns.
  • Medium ($179/month) – 10 campaigns.
  • Large ($249/month) – 25 campaigns.
  • Premium ($599/month) – 50 campaigns.

There’s an approximate 20% cut when you pay annually.  One campaign consists of one tracked domain or URL + three competitor websites. For each keyword, track rankings across Google (including Google mobile), Bing and Yahoo.

Free plan:

30-day free trial gives access to all features included in the Moz Pro Medium.

Ease of use:

Subscribers can schedule periodic as well as event-based alerts. You’ll be able to generate and export PDF or CSV reports covering search rankings, links, site crawl data, and even the competition easily. To make reports more informative, you can drag-and-drop charts and graphs with your own notes. Reports can go out automatically to clients at any frequency you specify.

Other notable features:

  • Replace the Moz logo with your own
  • Access to MozBar, an SEO toolbar for Chrome.
  • Search Visibility score for an overview of your ranking
  • High-quality data including Domain and Page authority

Which One is The Best for Keyword Rank Checker?

After the comparison above, you should be able to pick the Google keyword rankings checker tool that’s best for your needs. Unfortunately, none of these tools offer unlimited free plans. But if you want the most generous free plan, Moz Rank Tracker is a great place to start.