Unveiling SE Ranking: A Comprehensive SEO Software Tool for Digital Marketers
Search engine optimization (SEO) is one of the most important aspects of digital marketing. It’s also one of the most cost effective traffic channels. On the other hand, it’s also highly competitive. Everyone wants traffic, and if you want to stand out from the crowd, you need to be well-equipped with the right tools. In SEO, SE Ranking is one of the top ranking tools. So, let’s take a look at how SE Ranking works and how you can use it to rank higher in organic search results.
What Does SE Ranking Do?
SEO is a complicated process that includes technical optimization, content optimisation, link generation, keyword and competitor analysis, and more. That’s why SE Ranking SEO platform provides a wide range of features that include keyword research, rank-checking, backlink analysis, competitive intelligence, report generation, workflow rights and roles, and much more. SE Ranking allows you to track your website’s health, create and manage link-generation campaigns, and gain insights from your competitors.
What SEO Tasks Does SE Ranking Handle?
Let’s examine all of the capabilities of the SE Ranking SEO tool.
- Keyword research and rank analysis
- Website technical analysis and changes monitoring
- Backlink analysis and acquisition
- The benefits of using the SE Ranking SEO platform
Keyword Research and Rank Analysis:
Keywords play a vital role in SEO. With proper keyword research and tracking, you’ll be able to get a clear picture of the potential market of your current situation and plan your actions accordingly.
SE Ranking Keyword Research
It all begins with discovery. With more than 7 billion search queries in SE Ranking’s database, you need to understand the criteria to choose what’s best for you.
Before we dive in, we’ll need to familiarize ourselves with the metrics that SE Ranking offers for executing a discovery. There are two ways to do this: keyword suggestions and competitive research. So let’s dive into both.
Keywords Suggestions Tool
- Go to Keyword Research
- Navigate to Suggestions
- Enter your main term
- Include: filter queries that contain each of the following words
- Exclude: excludes phrases with any of the following words
- Word count (from-to): set up the keyword length of words to omit too long or too short queries
- Characters (from-to): same as word count, but counts query symbols
- Search volume (from-to): filter queries with too low or too high search volume
- SERP features: select or un-select additional elements presented on the SERP
- Cost per click (from-to): make keywords fit your PPC budget
- Competition (from-to): filter keywords with lower competition to improve your ads budget
- Difficulty (from-to): exclude keywords with too high of an organic search competitiveness
In the illustration provided, I utilized the term “SEO” in conjunction with “tool” to refine the search to “SEO + tool.” Subsequently, I eliminated “google” to exclude SEO tools from Google in the search results. Following this, I established a series of filters to sift through challenging, excessively long/short, and unpopular queries.
Competitive research
In the Competitive Research section of SE Ranking’s “Organic traffic research” tab, you have the ability to view the top competitors based on shared or missing keywords. This feature allows you to identify the topics that your competitors are covering, but you are not. To access this valuable information, simply navigate to the Missing Keywords section. It is recommended to analyze the common keywords used by your top competitors in order to filter out any irrelevant keywords.
- The competitors’ positions and recent changes
- Keyword metrics
- Keywords filter
- Keyword selection: add selected phrases directly to your SE Ranking project
Utilizing this set of tools, you can efficiently address any content gaps without delay.
SE Ranking Keyword Rank Tracker
Recall the keywords we previously included in a project? Before delving into keyword tracking, let’s explore what projects are and how to effectively manage them in SE Ranking.
Projects in SE Ranking
Go to Projects -> Create a new project
1. Just enter a domain
2. Add the keywords:
a. From the keyword research or Google Search Console as a list
b. Or/and from SE Ranking’s suggestions
3. Set up the search engine.
4. Select your competitors
5. Expands the SE Ranking functionality
Congratulations! Your project has been created. Let’s move to the keyword tracking part.
Detailed Rankings Report
- The main area contains the positions by day and their difference from the previous day (the positions can also be compared by month, week, etc.)
- Assign a page to selected keywords
- Add selected keywords to a group
- Tag selected keywords
- Delete selected keywords
- See what pages are ranked by the search query
- If there are several URLs for a single keyword for a selected period, their count will be displayed here
- If the target URL you’ve landed the keyword to is not the same as the SERP URL, the icon and positions become red.
With this SEO ranking report software, you can manage keywords and URL ranking for those keywords and see problems with pages such as keyword cannibalization.
You have the ability to refine your search using filters, allowing you to view specific queries based on URL, tags, groups, and more. SE Ranking rank tracking software stands out with its unique SERP filter feature, enabling you to monitor the performance of your pages in featured snippets, local pack results, map results, and other areas.
The last useful collaboration feature is that you can share the rankings report with your colleague or client or even with someone not registered with SE Ranking.
Website Technical Analysis And Changes Monitoring
This aspect has become essential due to the increasing importance of website speed, security, structure, mobile-friendliness, and responsive design in the SEO strategies of many marketers.
We have previously discussed the technical optimization of a website, but what does it entail? Technical optimization refers to a set of best practices in website development that aim to provide a good user experience (UX), enhance security, and effectively manage the crawling budget.
When it comes to UX, the technical aspects revolve around Web.dev metrics, particularly loading speed and Core Web Vitals such as Largest Contentful Paint, First Input Delay, and Cumulative Layout Shift, among others.
To optimize the crawling process of your website, simply creating a sitemap.xml is not enough. It is also crucial to establish a proper website structure through internal linking. This allows the Google bot to comprehend your website and visit all the necessary pages. Additionally, a well-structured website enables users to navigate seamlessly. Remember, every page should ideally have a 200 response or a 301 redirect if you need to change a web page URL.
Unfortunately, security is often neglected until browsers label a page as “Unsecure” and prevent users from accessing it.
The good news is that all these issues can be monitored and addressed using SE Ranking’s Website Audit tool!
SE Ranking Website Audit
After setting up a project in SE Ranking, the bot initiates a scan of your website, examining each link to identify any errors present on each page. Once the scan is complete, you can view a comprehensive list of issues on the dashboard under “Website audit” – “Overview.” Let’s analyze it section by section.
This report provides an analysis of the pages’ performance in terms of Core Web Vitals (CWV) based on Google’s Web.dev metrics (previously referred to as Lighthouse) for desktop and mobile. It offers insights into the website’s loading speed and accessibility, giving a comprehensive overview of its overall performance.
Issue Report
This report shows the errors with the biggest amount of affected pages. Navigating to a detailed report will show you much more.
Let’s move to “Issue Report”, where you can see all the issues in detail, navigate between issue priority, error type, and affected pages, and download the result. Basically, SE Ranking generates a to-do list of how you can improve your website health.
Crawled pages
This report is similar to the Issue Report, but instead of expanding pages from issues, you expand issues from pages. This report helps ensure your important pages have no critical errors. Here you can also analyze your URLs using filters.
Found links
This report contains 2 tabs: internal and external. Both work great to check the response codes for both inbound and outbound links to fix non-200 links by fast navigation to the source URL.
In addition, there are two other tab-specific things you can do with this report.
The “Internal” tab is an effective tool for discovering the anchor texts utilized in internal linking for a specific page. By filtering the “Hyperlink” type, you can export the results and create a pivot table in Excel to analyze the most frequently used anchors per page. Additionally, you have the option to export the results to the external tab and generate a pivot table there. This allows you to identify the most popular outgoing domains and assess their quality. It serves as a quick method to verify if your website has been subjected to spamming or not.
use the Parameter Checker to identify low-quality domains quickly.
Monitor changes
With Page Changes Monitor, you can import pages you want to track to monitor their changes. SE Ranking can crawl added pages daily and store their changelog. It also sends you notifications if there are any changes on the tracked pages.
Crawl Comparison
Another change that you will be able to see with SE Ranking is website health change. Here you can compare two audits by dates. You can also schedule weekly website crawling to keep track of issues.
Backlink Analysis And Acquisition
We have already discussed how SE Ranking assists marketers in on-page optimization through Keyword Research and technical optimization in the Website Audit. Now, let’s shift our focus to off-page SEO.
When it comes to improving search engine rankings, backlinks play a crucial role as they serve as significant external signals. Off-page optimization primarily consists of two branches: backlink analysis and link building. The good news is that SE Ranking can assist you with both aspects!
SE Ranking Backlink Checker
SEO revolves around outperforming your competitors. To achieve excellence, it is crucial to understand the strategies of your rivals in terms of backlinks. To accomplish this, visit the “Backlink checker” tool and enter the website of one of the competitors you have identified previously.
In the first section you will see aggregated metrics in a macro breakdown of the backlinks profile:
- Domain trust is SE Ranking’s parameter to determine the quality of a domain (bigger = better)
- Similar to domain trust, page trust measures the page quality (main page in our case)
- Count of unique anchor texts. By dividing it by the total amount of backlinks, you’ll get how many unique anchors per backlink a competitor is using
- Dofollow/Nofollow ratio. Nofollow also includes “sponsored” and “UGC” tags.
- Statistics by destination pages for referring domains (one link per domain)
- Statistics by destination pages for backlinks
- Count of backlinks from domains with .edu TLD
- Same for .gov domains
- Unique IPs count. This is important because several domains can have the same IP (subdomains, for instance). This metric is important to consider when determining the number of unique domains.
- Several IPs can be placed in one subnet. A subnet is like a folder with a bunch of IPs: if its number does not dramatically differ from the IP count, it’s okay. Other ways may signal shady SEO methods (PBNs for instance).
A lot of insights from a single screen, right? But there are more:
Backlink dynamics to calculate how many resources you’ll need to ensure the same pace of link building
Top anchors to understand the ratio of anchor types (brand, URL, keywords, other). From it, you’ll be able to know how aggressive you can be with your exact-match anchors.
Finally, we have the referring domains map, also known as the Distribution map. Within this feature, you have the option to select either CCTLDS or Countries modes. I suggest opting for the Countries mode as this report relies on IPs rather than TLDs, providing a more accurate representation of the domain’s country of origin.
Now that you have a fundamental grasp of the types of links you should focus on, let’s explore how SE Ranking can assist you in developing a meticulous link-building strategy.
In SE Ranking, you can effectively manage your link-building process once you have devised a strategy and identified potential donors.
Utilizing the Backlinks report, you can gain insights into the specific pages that your competitors receive links from. This information allows you to compile a comprehensive list of potential donors for acquiring links on your own website.
To ensure the highest quality domains, I recommend selecting the one backlink per domain mode and filtering the links based on their DT (Domain Trust) score.
Additionally, prioritize dofollow backlinks as they carry the most weight in terms of SEO value. By focusing on these high-quality backlinks, you can optimize your link-building efforts and enhance your website’s visibility.
Backlink Monitor
First, you need to import the backlinks you want to track. You can do it several ways:
- Add the backlinks manually
- Import them from GSC
- Select them from SE Ranking’s Backlink Checker Tool
I recommend using all of these methods together to get the complete list of backlinks to track.
The managing window may seem complex at first, but it’s actually quite intuitive and easy to use:
- Check if the link to your website is presented on a page
- Check if Google indexed the referring page. SEOs stop working on a backlink after acquiring it, but a not indexed link is the same as no backlink. That’s why it’s crucial to monitor how your backlinks are indexed or, if they are not, perform actions to fix it.
- Domain Trust to see the quality of referring domain
- Link anchor
- Destination URL on your website
- Backlink type: dofollow/nofollow, text/image
- Facebook shares
- External links count
- Country of origin by IP
- Date when SE Ranking discovered the link. Note: it can differ from the published date
- The day when the SE Ranking bot verified that the backlink was presented on a URL.
- Indicate whether the URL or domain is disavowed.
- Price for a link, super useful for budgeting and bookkeeping. Payments can be set as one-time (e.g., forum link, guest post) or recurring (sponsored link).
- Save the manager responsible for a link to know who to ask if something happens to it.
- Other comments
With this toolset, you can keep track of how your link building is going and swiftly react to backlink issues.
Here’s what you can see. Let’s examine what you can do.
- Refresh the page’s status and index check
- Delete the link from the tracking list
- Add a link to disavow: select a backlink and a mode (URL or domain). Once it’s done, generate a file for the GSC Disavow tool import.
- Edit a link’s price, manager, or notes
- Move a page to a group. A great grouping example is by link type (profile, comment, guest post, etc.)
- Navigate through link statuses
The Benefits Of Using The SE Ranking SEO Platform
Many Tools, One Interface
SEO is a multifaceted but cohesive procedure, where each aspect can be developed independently and eventually integrated. It is possible to construct a landing page, but it necessitates the use of keywords. Building a link is an option, but it is important to identify the priority landing pages. Content optimization is essential, but it becomes futile if the page is not indexed. SE Ranking offers the ability to consolidate all these processes within a unified platform. This integration fosters a powerful synergy that accelerates your growth.
Accurate Data
SEO relies heavily on inbox data, making the accuracy of this data crucial. With SE Ranking, you can rest assured that all the data provided is completely precise. From SERPs and linked domains to indexed pages and anchor texts, SE Ranking ensures 100% accuracy in all aspects.
Keeping Pace With The Search Engines
Search engines are always in a state of evolution, leading to frequent changes in SERPs. SE Ranking’s spiders diligently crawl through SERPs and websites on a daily basis to offer current data for monitoring changes and their causes. This tool enables users to seamlessly integrate Google Analytics and Google Search Console to view authentic data in a single location.
Automated And Custom SEO Reports
Given the complexity of SEO, it is easy to overlook crucial aspects of optimization when focusing on a single task. Rather than attempting to manage extensive data in spreadsheets and manually updating them, SE Ranking offers a reporting feature that streamlines and expedites this process. By utilizing SE Ranking’s automated and customizable reports, you can effectively monitor all significant elements of your website and promptly address any identified issues.
Is SEO Software Required For SEO Success?
Naturally, it is not obligatory. However, just like in any other competition, having the best tools is essential to become the frontrunner. Consider a racer with a sluggish car – while they can participate, they will never emerge as the victor. The primary objective of SEO is to secure the top position.
To achieve this, it is undoubtedly necessary to utilize some form of software. This can range from MS Excel to online SEO software such as SE Ranking. The advantages derived from specialized tools enhance your SEO efforts and significantly save time, which is an invaluable resource not only in marketing but also in business as a whole.
Therefore, the answer is yes, you should definitely employ SEO software to attain success in organic search. The choice of tools is entirely up to you, of course. This article serves as a demonstration of one such tool – SE Ranking. Give its free demo account a try to determine if it meets your requirements.