Organic traffic should be a vital stat that you track for your business or hobby. The more your website grows organically, the less money and time you’ll be required to spend on it. You might say, “Yeah, how do I quickly grow my site organically?”

The answer to this question is you need to build as many ranked keywords as you can. This process isn’t hard, but it does take a lot of time to accomplish. You’ll need to create pages of content that Google will eventually index and (hopefully) present this content to viewers on the web.

Once you have content that is being shown to other readers, it is important to understand why this is being shown and to improve the content to show Google that yours may be valuable to be seen on page 1 of the SERP.

What Is The SERP?

The SERP (Search Engine Results Page) is the page that shows the most relevant and/or valuable content for a specific search query. There are typically ads on these pages if businesses want to pay to be seen on the first pages of Google/Bing/etc.

Here is an example of Google’s SERP when typing “automate my cleaning”:

The SERP page will show the website’s that either pay to be online (not organic) or website’s that added content Google deems to be the “best” according to their algorithm (organic). The first result is actually a blog post we wrote and published one time on a blog. Since then, Google has kept this on page 1 of their SERP and the article has been clicked on hundreds of times.

We don’t have to pay for this piece of content. It took time to write the post, but it will stay evergreen, meaning as long as it is ranking, we will get traffic to our site.

Free Options For Keyword Tracking

There are ways to track your keywords for free. Typically, these free options will have data available and will be more of a manual process. If you have a newer website or this is your first attempt at keyword tracking, reach out to a mentor or someone to help guide you through the process. It can be daunting to learn this on your own.

Here are the free options along with when/why you might use them:

#1 Bright Local

One of the ways we can quickly check my keyword rankings is by running a Google search on BrightLocal. The way we use this tool is if we recently wrote or updated content and want to see if Google has ranked this piece higher on the SERP. This is not a good tool to see how your entire site is doing on keyword rankings, but a tool for quick, one-off searches.

BrightLocal gives you a limited number of free searches to see where your piece of content stands in the rankings online. This can help you determine if a keyword is ranking in real-time, compared to others that might not be as accurate in real-time.

#2 Google Search Console

Google Search Console is a way to analyze multiple keywords on your website. It will let you know detailed stats on the positions, impressions, and CTR. In our opinion, this keyword tracking tool is a good option, but not necessarily the most accurate.

You will be able to get a general sense of how your website is doing and can help you determine where you might want to double-down on specific keywords that may be within striking distance of page 1.

#2 SEMrush Free Version

If you have a newer site, we recommend creating a free account on SEMrush. The free version is very limited, but it will give you an idea of how well your site is doing overall.

The reason why we recommend SEMrush is we feel it is one of the best one-stop-shop SEO tools for growing your website organically. Once you have enough cash flow coming in, you may want to upgrade to their premium service later. This can really help you find almost any data point needed to make small changes on your website to help your site grow.

How Do I Improve My Keyword Rankings?

This can be a hard task to accomplish because there are hundreds of competitors that are already running the race. The best advice we could give is to create more content that you know the reader would enjoy.

In addition to adding content, here are some additional ways to improve on your keyword rankings:

  • Update Keywords Based On Search Intent
  • Optimize Your Headings & Content Structure
  • Market (Share) The Content Online

These are a few strategies that can absolutely help you improve your keyword rankings. There are other ways to further help your content succeed, but they are a bit more complex. If you stick to these easier tasks, your content should do just fine.

Page1Design can help you with keyword tracking, marketing, and any areas of running a website. If you are struggling with building or growing your business, let us help you take on that daunting area of the business so you can focus on what you enjoy. Give us a shout for a free competitive analysis on your website.