While the task to check keyword positions for your blog posts may sound like a time consuming and expensive step, it doesn’t have to be. Google provides you with free tools that give you direct insight into their data for your blog.
Sign up for Search Console via Google Webmasters Tools.
If you haven’t already, sign up for Google Search Console and connect your blog. If you already use Google Analytics to track your stats, this step is quick and easy.
It may take a few days for your statistics to show up in the console when you sign up your site for the first time. And if it’s a newer blog (less than 6 months), there may not be much data available initially.
Tip: Setup each version of your URL: with and without the WWW as well as http and https.
Install the Keywords Everywhere Plugin (for Chrome or Firefox)
This is one of my favorite, free SEO tools for keyword research. If shows you search volume in Google Search results along with related keywords as a suggestion. For better traffic results, you want to use keywords that your target readers are actually using.
Tip: A “0” doesn’t always mean “0”. It’s likely a low search volume that’s not being exactly reported. I’ve also seen the same “0” for year-specific searches. The volume isn’t being reported yet.
How to check your keyword positions in Search Console
Log into Google Webmasters Tools and navigate over to Search Track > Search Analytics using the left navigation.
If Google has assigned any keywords to your blog posts and pages, you’ll see an initial view in the lower part of the page.
Click on all of the checkboxes in the filters box. This will give you the most information available and if you’ve already installed Keywords Everywhere, you’ll also see the potential search volume for each keyword.
How to check keyword positions for each blog post
Here’s where it gets interesting. Check the search filter to “pages” and click the double arrow on the right for the page you’re interested in.
Check the radio button in the filters back to “queries”. Now you’ll see all the keyword results associated to that blog post. And with keywords everywhere the associated volume.
It’s not uncommon to see a large number of keywords here because there’a few combinations of keywords that your target reader may be using. You can also use this new knowledge to decide if there are any keywords you want to additionally optimize your post for.
OR, this may also spark an idea for a dedicated blog post on a specific keyword. For example I’ve done roundup posts before that result in the post ranking for a targeted keyword. I wrote a specific post for that keyword and over time that post ranked for that focused keyword.
What if you don’t see any keywords?
Don’t panic if they’re showing nothing yet. It could either still be collecting data, or your blog is too new to be ranked yet. But if you haven’t been doing upfront keyword research and optimizing your posts for those keywords, you may not be seeing any keywords because Google hasn’t assigned keywords.
Sorry, but in that case you’ll have some work to do in working on your keyword research and optimizing your posts.
Over to you! How do you like to check keyword positions for your blog posts?
What has worked well for you? Where do you have questions? Let’s chat!
