Search Ranking Reports?

[PaulSteinbrueck]

Just curious as to what you all use to track/report search rankings?

And what in what search engines do you track your rankings - just Google? Google Maps? Bing? Bing Maps? Others?

Thanks,
Paul

 

[Colan Nielsen]

Hi Paul,

For rankings I mainly use Bright Local and The Local Falcon.

We typically track Google (Organic and Local) on both desktop and mobile.

For some clients we also track BING.

 

[Susan]

Hi Paul,

For rankings I mainly use Bright Local and The Local Falcon.

We typically track Google (Organic and Local) on both desktop and mobile.

For some clients we also track BING.

I use BrightLocal, The Local Falcon AND Whitespark's rank tracking tool!

Happy Friday!

 

[PaulSteinbrueck]

Thanks Colan and Susan. Why do you use BrightLocal, The Local Falcon and Whitespark? Why more than one tool?

 

[Colan Nielsen]

Hey @PaulSteinbrueck Bright Local is great because of all the features they have built over the years. For instance, they have a feature that takes screenshots of the SERP's that you track rankings for. This is critical for doing deep local SEO ranking analysis. And I love how they are a "local" SEO based ranking tracker but you can also track organic and Google Ads rankings.

The Local Falcon is great because it fills the gap that Bright Local doesn't cover. This being the ability to track rankings from multiple search locations simultaneously.

 

[JoshuaMackens]

I always post this but I'll vouch for Places Scout. I've used BrightLocal and while we have used them for their high level overview, automated reports, we use Places Scout internally to do deep ranking dives and competitor analysis. It's expensive but worth every penny.

 

[Eric Rohrback]

We use SERPwoo for rank tracking, but that's primarily for internal research/testing. I rarely give ranking reports unless a client asks for one specifically (they googled something and saw different results). If a client sees the ranking report then it's usually to verify that we are still improving in terms of ranking.

Most of our reporting is based around actual site traffic, leads, and revenue. The more we talk about rankings with a client, the more they lose focus on the real goal (revenue). Organic is also just one piece of the work, so rankings became less important as we are also working on paid channels with most of our clients.

 

[JoshuaMackens]

We use SERPwoo for rank tracking, but that's primarily for internal research/testing. I rarely give ranking reports unless a client asks for one specifically (they googled something and saw different results). If a client sees the ranking report then it's usually to verify that we are still improving in terms of ranking.

Most of our reporting is based around actual site traffic, leads, and revenue. The more we talk about rankings with a client, the more they lose focus on the real goal (revenue). Organic is also just one piece of the work, so rankings became less important as we are also working on paid channels with most of our clients.

How are you projecting revenue for them Eric?

Are you doing an initial conversation about lifetime value of a customer, lead close ratio and calculating from there?

 

[Eric Rohrback]

Usually their CRM. Hubspot has a free CRM to start with, but it's really whatever the client is comfortable using. As long as we stay on top of them about updating and keeping records accurate, then we get a fantastic feedback loop on our marketing efforts.

When actual revenue / deal stage isn't available, then yeah it's a LTV converstation to get an average value of a customer. Knowing how many marketing qualified leads get sent to sales, and how many of those were qualified can usually be pulled out of the CRM the client is using.

If your clients aren't using a CRM of some kind today, then get them on one. It makes their life easier because they can keep track of customers, and makes your life easier by getting real data on your efforts instead of guesses. There will be pushback initially, but once they start seeing the power of it they will most likely dedicate resources towards managing the system.

We just had one client bump hours for a part time employee up because she's now working on follow up for any leads that didn't respond after an initial phone call/meeting. Because of the Hubspot free CRM they saw they had a bunch of leads that were slipping through the cracks. Following up and getting one of those leads back into the sales cycle could mean a $300k-1mil job.

 

[JoshuaMackens]

Usually their CRM. Hubspot has a free CRM to start with, but it's really whatever the client is comfortable using. As long as we stay on top of them about updating and keeping records accurate, then we get a fantastic feedback loop on our marketing efforts.

When actual revenue / deal stage isn't available, then yeah it's a LTV converstation to get an average value of a customer. Knowing how many marketing qualified leads get sent to sales, and how many of those were qualified can usually be pulled out of the CRM the client is using.

If your clients aren't using a CRM of some kind today, then get them on one. It makes their life easier because they can keep track of customers, and makes your life easier by getting real data on your efforts instead of guesses. There will be pushback initially, but once they start seeing the power of it they will most likely dedicate resources towards managing the system.

We just had one client bump hours for a part time employee up because she's now working on follow up for any leads that didn't respond after an initial phone call/meeting. Because of the Hubspot free CRM they saw they had a bunch of leads that were slipping through the cracks. Following up and getting one of those leads back into the sales cycle could mean a $300k-1mil job.

Love it. Considering clients' CRM preference will be all over the place, am I understanding you correctly that you'll take the time to work with each one to dig through phone numbers you recorded as leads and match them with a real dollar value in their CRM? If so, does that take a ton of time?

 

[Eric Rohrback]

It's added value. It does take a little bit of time, but completely worth it in the long run since you get a better insight into the entire sales process, deals closed/lost, revenue generated from efforts, etc.

The more to can speak to actual dollars generated for the business, the easier it is to justify more campaigns / different projects. It opens their eyes to what the online work is really doing for their business.

 

[BenFisher]

@whitespark All the way!

We used to use Bright Local (Ask Darren about the import function), but the reports are impossible for a client to read. I also love Local Falcon.

 

[JoshuaMackens]

@whitespark All the way!

We used to use Bright Local (Ask Darren about the import function), but the reports are impossible for a client to read. I also love Local Falcon.

I have to agree. Bright Local's reports need to be much more simplistic for clients. They're in a weird spot where the reports aren't technical enough for internal reporting but not basic enough for external reporting.

I've tried to mention this to them several times but I guess my feedback wasn't chosen to be escalated for implementation, which is understandable. You have to make judgment calls on what's best to do for the tool which means not all feedback is implemented, nor should it be. Nevertheless, I think it would be a good idea for them to review this feedback.