Last week we put out an appeal for questions about SEO that we could answer. Yes, you’re right, we’d run out of things to write about and needed inspiration but you came up trumps and so here’s the first in a series of blogs answering some of those queries.

We start with : “Is there a quick way to find out where your site ranks in google for a specific keyword. e.g. for my site I want to know which page it ranks on for say – Successful Project Management?”

The key here is the word “easy” because that implies that a solution is needed that will simply give a list of the keywords and where you currently rank for them by going away and querying Google. Luckily, there is!

In fact, there are lots of bits of software that do this and they range in functionality and cost from free to very expensive. If you’re an agency like us then there’s little choice but to go for the expensive stuff because it lets you collect the ranking data for lots of companies all in one go but if you’ve got one website and just a bunch of keywords, there are a couple of free systems.

SEO Book Firefox Extension

This tool has been around for as long as SEO has been in the news. It’s a superb tool which works well for people with a few keywords and just a few sites. The great thing about it is that it is installed into the Firefox browser so it’s nice and light on resources. However to get it you need to fly through a bunch of hoops and registered with the website first. You can do that over here : http://tools.seobook.com/firefox/rank-checker/

Once you’ve registered you will also get some tips and advice from one of the best guys in the business – Aaron Wall. He almost invented SEO and so it’s worth listening when he talks.

When you’ve installed the software, you’ll see a new button appear in the top right corner of Firefox like this : . The first thing you need to do is to configure it to use the correct version of Google so click on the little arrow next to the button and choose ‘Options’. Change the settings to reflect the country you’re in and then click ‘OK’:

Now it’s time to add some keywords and your domain (i.e. your website address). This can get a bit complex so instead of trying to describe it, here’s a video for your viewing pleasure. Just click play.

Traffic Travis

If the above solution has a far too sensible name, then maybe this is the one for you. Traffic Travis is a system that does far more than just check the rank of sites and so it’s a great tool to use for other purposes. However, we’ll just look at the ranking capabilities here.

First of all, head over to http://www.traffictravis.com/and click on the ‘download button’. You’ll need to surrender your name and email address to get it, but don’t worry, they’re not the sort to spam everyone.

When installed, you’ll be asked to fill out a form like this below: (Click for a bigger Version)

It will default to only getting the top ten results so remember to change that to at least 50 otherwise you might be left thinking your site isn’t ranked anywhere.

When it’s finished updating it will give you a whole set of data that may be a bit confusing at first, but take your time to read them and research and even come along to one of our seminars and you’ll soon understand it. Suffice to say, it’s important stuff that can have a far reaching affect on your site.

As we can see here, the site is ranking number one for the keywords but it’s also telling us how many back links we’ve got which is an important metric.

In Summary

So there you go, two very easy methods for checking your ranking. Let us know how you get on with them!

If you have any more questions about SEO, we’d love for you to post them here:

http://www.callowaygreen.com/blog/2012/02/16/questions-about-seo/

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