We live and die by metrics and measurables, and if you’re not tracking, then you’re not getting all you can out of the websites you’re building.

The proof is, as they say, in the pudding.

In the world of internet marketing, this essentially means Google Page Position. Yes, yes…I know there are other search engines out there, and I know that there are other ways of driving traffic to your site, but “Big G” is still the most widely recognized traffic generator, and I don’t see any immediate end to that.

Bottom line – if you want to make money online, having a good (first page, certainly, top five would be even better) Google position for your search terms is of pivotal importance. Do that…get there, and the money is almost a foregone conclusion.

So it’s no surprise that people who are interested in making money online are ALSO interested in tracking the rankings of their money pages, and the search terms they’re trying to rank for. This aspect of the business is one part game, and one part obsession, but it’s serious stuff, because at the end of the day, if you can chart your progress as you march up (or down) the search engine rankings, you can ALSO chart and predict (with a high degree of accuracy) the income you can reasonably expect FROM those search terms.

Since I got started in IM, I’ve tested several different methodologies for tracking the ranking and position for the keywords I’m chasing, and the pages I’m chasing them with. These have ranged from a variety of free online solutions, to a couple of free software solutions, and culminating in a pair of paid products I’ve evaluated extensively.

I’m happy to report that after all that searching, I’ve found a product that not only does all the things I want and need it to do, but gives me features I didn’t even know I needed, until I saw them in action.

I’m talking specifically about a program called CuteRank.

Not only is it a stylish little program with an intuitive, and easy to understand interface, but it’s a joy to use for a couple of key reasons I’ll talk about just below.

Now…you might be thinking that there’s not many ways you could make a rank checking program fun to use, but you’d be wrong – the developers of CuteRank have done just that.

When you create your site profile (you create a separate profile for each site you want to track keywords for), the first thing you’ll note (and this is a nod in the direction of “ease of use,” for sure!) is that there’s an “automatically detect keywords” feature. I’ve tested it on a number of my sites, and it works pretty well, which makes setting the profiles up a snap. No, it won’t get every keyword variant you’re chasing, but it’ll get the major ones, and all your left with doing is filling in a few blanks.

Once the profile has been established, you can run the search to establish a baseline, which it will do quickly and easily enough, and once it’s done, it’ll display your page position results in two ways. First, you’ll get a color coded chart, showing which keywords are in what position (green = 1-10, first page listings), yellow = 11-30, and orange (positions 31-100). White entries are entries where you’re not currently ranking in the top one hundred.

This is nice, because it gives you an “at a glance” method of seeing where you are in your quest for keyword dominance for any given site. You can also switch to a gain/loss view, which will show you how many places you’ve advanced or fallen since your last keyword position check (green “+’s” and red “-‘s” making it easy to see which keywords are ascending or descending, and thus, which ones might need your attention in order to shore up position).

In addition to this, you also get a line graph charting your ranking position for each keyword over time. This is nice, because it gives you a good sense for what the aggregate impact of your marketing efforts are, but CuteRank doesn’t just stop here. If it did, it’d be a good package, and certainly the most attractive and easy to use, but in my mind, what really sets it apart is the “notes” feature, which enables you to not only chart your progress, but make detailed notes in the same program about the various approaches you’re trying. It’s all too easy to combine these two features to begin drawing conclusions about specifically which actions are netting you the biggest gains, and then adjusting your approach to ranking based on what your data is telling you, over time, and having both your notes AND your positioning data in the same place is both efficient and immensely convenient. It is, in short, a feature I use the hell out of, and highly recommend!

The other thing you’ll REALLY enjoy about this software is its scheduler. It’s certainly not unique in offering a scheduler, but what I like about this one in particular is that it’s very easy to not only enable it, but to set the interval. If you want to check your rankings daily…one click and done. Weekly…same story. Set it to what you want and forget. Get the data you need at the interval you need it. It’s simple, and simply devastatingly effective.

CuteRank has enormous advantages over free tools you can use online. Yes, it is true that said tools ARE free, but they’re also manual, and as such, inordinately time intensive, especially if you have more than 3-4 websites you’re trying to keep track of. For this reason alone, I’d recommend gravitating toward a paid rank tracking solution. If you’re just starting out and you only have a few sites, it’s possible to track those with online tools, but much beyond that and you’ll find that you’re spending all your time tracking, and none of your time actually doing the work of marketing and improving your rankings!

The program ALSO has compelling advantages over the two other software solutions I’ve tested it against, namely, Traffic Travis (free), and Alex Kruelik’s Magic Rank Tracker.

In the case of the former, Traffic Travis does a lot of things really well, but its rank checking/tracking feature is strictly no-frills. There’s no notes section, no auto-detect feature, no scheduler (at least in the free version). Yes, Traffic Travis does lots of other stuff, and it’s really quite good AT that other stuff, but where rank checking and tracking is concerned, it’s just not as robust a tool.

In the case of the latter, I’ve never gotten Magic Rank Tracker to work properly. You can’t add or remove keywords without crashing the program (I’ve found the best way to do that is to simply delete your website profile and start over, which is both tedious and time consuming), and while Magic Rank tracker has an automated feature, it simply tracks your positions daily (no way for you to set or adjust the tracking interval). Also, the software has no notes feature, and no keyword auto-detection. Yes, it DOES cost less, but in this case (IMO), you’re much better off spending a little extra on a truly robust tool that will give you more tracking options and a greater degree of control.

Information is power.

That’s true in nearly every sphere, but it holds doubly true for internet marketing. Good information and the ability to closely track your keyword rankings and positions…the ability to notate what you’re trying and when, then go back and assess how well (or poorly) a given strategy worked…these things are DIRECTLY tied to how much (or little) money you ultimately make online.

Learning the ropes of internet marketing is hard enough…why would you want to make it any harder than it has to be.

Buy the right tools for the job, and apply them. Learn to use them well, and learn to use the information they give you.

In this case, the right tool for the job of checking and tracking the rankings of your websites for specific key words and phrases is CuteRank.

It simply blows its competitors away, and is a snap to use. Even if your knowledge of computers is limited, you can have it installed, up and working for you in a matter of minutes, and it will magnify your effectiveness as an internet marketer.

No matter how you slice it, that’s good stuff. =D

I’m crazy ‘bout the program, and use it daily. As soon as I build a new site, it gets plugging into the program so I can start collecting data. The link above is an affiliate link. If you’d rather just go straight to the site, check out www.cuterank.net, and by all means, download the free trial first. You’ll be thrilled at the results!

-=Vel=-
-Chris