Here is an example ranking report with extra information that we send out to our clients that enrol onto our website optimisation / SEO program.
Welcome to your Initial Ranking report! The table below shows your current search engine rankings, compared with previous months and our initial benchmark (taken at the very start of the campaign). The numbers refer to the actual ranking position. There are 10 listings per search engine results page (SERP), so a ranking of 42 would mean you are on the fifth page, position 2. This table is the main benchmark of progress, and you will receive one of these reports at the end of each month. If you have questions, feel free to get in contact, or refer to the FAQs at the bottom of this document.
Search Engine: Google.co.uk
Keyword Initial Ranking End Month 1
keyword 1 Not in Top 1000 Same
keyword 2 Not in Top 1000 Same
keyword 3 Not in Top 1000 Same
Frequently Asked Questions:
What should I be looking for? As this is the first ranking report, you can only check your current positioning (in the first column). In future reports, you should be looking for an overall upward trend on your keyword rankings in the search engines. Fluctuations are common, as SEO is not an exact science – so rankings can (and do) shuffle up and down. However, you should be looking for an overall upward trend.
What kind of progress is considered “good” progress? This varies on how competitive your keywords are, and whereabouts you are positioned in the search engines. If your keywords are very low competition, we would expect results (front page or higher) within just a few months. More competitive terms can take several months (sometimes over a year) to gain top rankings. As a rule, it generally takes at least a couple of months for our work to filter through to Google, so the initial months can be slow. Also, when you are ranked on or near the front page, our job becomes quite a bit tougher (as there is more competition), so progress can seem slow for the final push. New domains are generally more difficult to rank, so results may take longer to achieve.
Again, fluctuations are commonplace – so the real success metric should be observing an overall upward trend.
When I check the results, they appear slightly different to yours. Why is this? This is common, and could be for a number of reasons:
Personalization of search: By default, Google now “Personalizes” your search results. What this means is: Google learns which websites you visit often (which will usually be your personal/company websites) and tends to rank them differently (often higher) than a typical web user would see them. We can provide you more information on Personalization, and how to turn it off. By default, we will conduct rank checks with personalization turned off.
Location Settings: For some queries, (eg: Pizza), Google will look at your computer’s location and base their results on your local area (eg: Pizza’s in New York). This is unlikely to be a suprise, as if your keywords fall into this category – Zine would have informed you at the start and structured the campaign accordingly.
Google Datacenters: Google has an advanced network of storage devices and computing power that powers their web index. Your results are likely to be from the closest datacenter to your location. Different datacenters are updated at different times, and this can lead to (often only slight) variations in rankings.
What tools/process do you use to calculate the rankings? We use 3 separate tools, some paid and some free – followed by a manual check by one of our team members (usually the account manager). The first tool allows us to scan the first 1000 results while most only allow the top 100. To double check the accuracy, we cross check using a couple of other tools and manually. With this approach, we are able to see results as if we are searching from any county and post code, with or without personalization and in multiple languages – so we have a truly crystal clear picture of the rankings.
The rankings are slightly different in my office, compared with my laptop/ tablet / phone/ home PC – See points above on personalization and location settings.
How long does it take for the links to be picked up with Google? – Experts say it can take 3-4 months for all of the links to be picked up by Google and the value passed to your website. Our experience has generally showed this to be a bit quicker, but 3 months is a good benchmark.
How long will these rankings hold their position? Will they fall off? – Overall, your rankings will hold strong for the medium – long term, without any additional work. The work we carry out is very much sustainable, and many clients find their rankings to continue improving for the months (and years) ahead. However, the real determinant is how strong your competition is. The main reason your rankings will slide down is due to your competition investing in SEO. In competitive niches, your rankings could slide as soon as a few weeks if you competitors are optimizing heavily and you are not!
