SERP Reports [see: What is a SERP Report] are an important part of measuring SEO performance and SERPs are Key Performance Indicators (KPI) and can be both a leading and lagging indicator of overall growth, health, and performance. SERP Reporting Tools are one of the 5 major SEO tools that every digital marketing team needs to track performance.
Where can I track SERP data and what tools are available?
The primary tool for SERP data for your website is obviously Google Search Console and it is the most accurate (with caveats) SERP reporting tool available. For Google Organic search. Then there are third-party tools like SEMrush, AHrefs, Moz, etc that provide specific keyword/keyphrase position tracking and very importantly, keep a historical view of each keyword’s position.
So why is SERP tracking important?
Well, while GSC might be your book of truth, it also keeps a record of EVERY key phrase, permutation (keyword order within a phase), variation, and typo. It also stores that for different countries and pages. But for most organizations, that’s too much data. Enter Payalsis of Analysis. A modern-day niche cybersecurity company focusing on XDR, MDR, or SIEM could have over 10k search words in their Keyword Universe inside Google’s index. That’s impossible to manage, track, and report on. But seeing as some keywords are more focused, some are entirely irrelevant, and some just mean the same thing or just have no search volume, tracking your top 100-500 keywords is vital to see how you different content, video, inbound, outbound and PR strategies are working to deliver growth.
Ongoing Keyword Research for SERP Reports
Markets change, influenced by news, events, influencers, Industry Research Analysts (Forrester, Gartner, etc), and market demands and threats, and so do keyword universes. Keeping relevant keywords with the same value – for example transactional or commercial, is critical to making the SERP report a valuable pane of glass
Platforms
While Google is the obvious de factor search engine for the vast majority of the English-speaking world and the majority of the world, especially the US, Canada, and Europe, a lot of consideration has to be given to YouTube (the world’s second-largest search engine) and Bing and also DuckDuckGo – especially for Microsoft-centric Technology and Cybersecurity decision makers.
SERP Reports as a KPI
In every SEO program, there are primary KPIs that you need to measure
- Brand Health with Branded Search Reports
- Mission Statement Keywords
- Keyword Distribution
- Keyword Positioning
- Organic traffic
- Organic Impressions
- Competitor Performance Comparison
