Today we’re talking about SERP monitoring (that’s Search Engine Results Page monitoring) so let me first of all explain WHY.

Over the last year or so, I’ve been successfully promoting people’s websites up to Google page one and business has been growing nicely over that time.

Sounds good, yes, but with growth comes growing pains.

Like the inevitable fact that you outgrow some of the systems that worked for you when you were just starting out. Take SERP monitoring, for example.

SERP monitoring

That’s tracking where your clients’ key phrases are being listed in the Search Engine Results Pages (SERPs).

Initially a text file was all I needed.

Later my simple little list became a trifle more “sophisticated”… maybe.

But my programmer son has been saying to me from time to time, “Dad, are you still tracking your Google results manually?”

And the answer has been yes most of the time.

Now I did find one free application that worked sort-of. It harvested some results from somewhere in the Google empire but the odd thing was that when I would do a manual search of Google.com the results from this freebie were not the same as I was getting from doing a straight search in Google. Hmmm, not good.

So I upgraded my SERP monitoring system to another piece of software. This time it cost me a little, and it was automated so that was nice. But the results still didn’t match what I was getting from doing the monitoring manually.

Manual SERP monitoring

When I say I was doing my SERP monitoring manually, here’s what I mean: Take any keyphrase, paste it into google.com and then use the find function (which is Ctrl+F in Firefox) to locate the client’s domain name. If it wasn’t on page one of the search results (and in those days, most of the time it wasn’t – especially when the client is new), I’d have to click on Google’s Advanced Search link and set it to show 100 results… then do the search again.

Repeat this rigamarole multiple times for multiple keyphrases for that client.

Multiply that by several dozen SEO clients… and you can quickly see a lot of time going down the gurgler by doing the tracking for all the keywords of all my clients manually.

Long story, short. All this monitoring became such a pain that I did it LESS OFTEN than I should have.

And that had its own set of consequences.

Like the day that one client from the UK wrote to tell me (his SEO guy!) that he was now on page one. If he hadn’t told me, I would not have known!

Oops.

Trouble was… I didn’t have a viable alternative. I considered outsourcing the SERP monitoring task to somebody from Odesk. Indeed, I wrote up the job specs for one of my outsourcers.

And it was about that time, fortuitously, that I ran across a FREE TRIAL of an advanced website ranking software.

Web ranking software… free

The more I read their site, the more I was impressed with AWR. This looked like the capable SERP monitoring software I had been needing but didn’t know if it even existed.

Nor did I know ALL it would do for me back then.

Why so enthusiastic?

One reason I’m so positive about this particular rank tracking software is that I’ve already discovered some page one listings I did not know I had. As an SEO service provider, that means I can delight another client or two (and also ask for the relevant results-based fees… which of course delights me too!).

Plus, it’s already saving me a ton of time — despite the time it took to get set up the first time round.

Let me explain about the setup time. This is a serious piece of kit which will monitor as many sites and as many search terms as you want, so naturally you have to feed in the URLs and the keyphrases you want it to track for you. That’s the setup I was referring to. Not hard, eh.

If you like the sound of ‘unlimited’, this is a keeper

From the smooth download of the .exe install file and trouble-free installation process, all the way through to the fact that you can create an unlimited number of reports for an unlimited number of sites and keyphrases, and an unlimited number of clients, and then automatically email those reports to an unlimited number of users… this is a keeper. You get a 30 day full featured trial and I imagine you’re going to appreciate it long before the 30 days is up. Like I did. Finally I’ve got myself an automated way to keep track of the search engine ranking data for all my clients and my own sites.

They’ve packed a lot of functionality into this download so naturally the screen looked very busy the first time I saw it. Luckily there is an online help area where I could enlarge the font with a couple of clicks of my trusty Firefox browser and that made reading the help info a whole lot easier on my 62 year old eyes.

Web ranking software you don’t have to watch (but I bet you’ll want to)

Another nice feature is that the application launches itself, invisibly and silently. It collects the latest data for all the sites you’re monitoring, then it goes away… all in the background. If you want, it will also send out emails for you or just save the reports to a folder. Dont you just love that.

Okay, so you dont have to watch it do its work… but the first few times you probably will. Like I did. It was reassuring to see the little note saying it is “sleeping between pages”. It just chugs its way through the whole laborious process while I get to do something else. Gotta love that, too.

But wait, there’s more – as the ad man says.

There’s a keyword research tool built right in.

And… the software wont get you into trouble with Google either because it mimics the way we humans search in a web browser. AWR does each query page by page, pausing between pages. That means you get better accuracy of results (which is probably why the software I tried earlier was producing wonky results… too fast for its own good, it would seem).

My quick summary of this SERP monitoring software

Advanced Web Ranking is powerful, it works invisibly in the background and it seems like the only limits would be the power of your computer or your internet connection. Depending on your needs, AWR is available in several versions from Standard up to Enterprise and you can take it for a 30 day trial at no cost. To learn more and to download your free copy, visit http://www.AdvancedWebRanking.com

PS:
Would you like to see some of the GOOGLE PAGE ONE results I’m getting which this SERP monitoring software is nicely tracking for me? Easy. Just click that last link.