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So how do you build a keyword rank tracker with any segmentation you want, for free, in a few minutes?
Watch the full video guide:
Yesterday, in the Squadron’s weekly session, we covered a lot of interesting topics.
One of them was rank tracking, and how you can replace (or at least compete with) tools that cost thousands to tens of thousands of shekels a year.
We showed how to track rankings for several keywords at once, filtered by gains only, drops only, or both, compared against any time range you want (day/week/month/quarter/year). You can even narrow it to a specific set of keywords you care about. All with Google Search Console and Google Sheets.
Want to learn SEO for your own site without breaking the bank? Join the Squadron 👆
How to Build a Free Rank Tracker with Google Search Console + Google Sheets: Step by Step
Step one: open your property in Google Search Console and pick a date range compared against any other range you want: week over week, month over month, quarter over quarter, and so on.
Next, pick the specific set of keywords you want to focus on.
You don’t always want to see every keyword that moved up or down. Usually you want to focus on the money keywords you’re actively working to rank.
To do that, use the QUERY filter and add a very simple regex that looks like this,
for example:
ברביקיו|מנגל|גריל גז|פחמים (barbecue|grill|gas grill|charcoal)
All you need to do is enter each keyword you want to check and separate them with a pipe character, no spaces: | .
You can add as many keywords as you like. Once you click APPLY, the report will show only the changes for those keywords.
Next, display the trends you care about: gains, drops, new keywords, or keywords that disappeared from the search results entirely.
To do this, just scroll down, click the triangle filter, and select POSITION DIFFERENCE:
You can choose anything greater than or less than zero.
Greater than zero = the keyword dropped in position (negative result). For example, it moved from result #9 to result #10 in search.
Less than zero = the keyword moved up in position (positive result). For example, the query moved from result #10 to result #9 in search.
Now all that’s left is to save the URL of the view you just built. It contains:
- The specific property (site) you want to track
- The specific set of keywords you want to look at
- The date range and comparison (for example, last month vs. the previous month)
Then save it in a simple Google Sheets table.
Every time you open the link, you’ll jump straight to that view and see what changed for your keywords.
And that’s how you save hundreds of shekels on rank tracking tools, which do the same thing, just wrapped in a nicer package 🙂
Good luck!
