Working with Keywords

Adding New Keywords to the Project

Once you've created your ranking project you can see how you rank for your relevant keywords in the search engines that are important to you. Now you need to come up with more keywords and keyphrases. This is vital for getting a more comprehensive picture of how you rank. Moreover, you can find profitable keywords you can optimize for.

There are two ways you can add new keywords to your project: by hand and using automatic suggestion feature.

Adding Keywords Manually

To add new keywords by hand, simply click the Add button on the main toolbar, or choose Tools > Add Keyword(s)... from the navigation menu.

Once you do that, Rank Tracker will pop up a Wizard that will guide you through the process of adding new keywords.

Step 1

Enter your keywords one per line. Click Next if you wish to also check rankings for these keywords right now, or click Finish to just add the keyword(s) to the project and check them later.

Step 2

Rank Tracker shows you the list of preferred search engines. These are the search engines you've chosen previously for use within the current project.

Some people will want to check Google rankings every day, and Bing rankings once a week. So here you can simply uncheck Bing and only check your selected keywords in Google.

By default, Rank Tracker will select all preferred search engines here.

Click Next to check the rankings for the specified keywords in the selected search engines now, or click Finish to add the keywords to the project and check them later.

Step 3

Just sit back and relax while Rank Tracker is checking the keywords. The process can take a while depending on how many search engines you selected, how many keywords you've added, whether or not the Human Emulation feature is being used, and the speed of your Internet connection.

You can interrupt the process at any time by clicking the Stop button.

Step 4

Rank Tracker will show you a brief keyword check summary. You can click the Finish button to complete the Wizard and add the new keywords to the project, or you can click Cancel to start over.

Getting Keyword Suggestions

Rank Tracker includes a powerful Keyword Suggestion feature that lets you discover new keywords you've probably been missing. You can then use these keywords to optimize your site and achieve higher search engines rankings, or leverage them in your pay-per-click campaigns.

To get suggestions for any of the keywords, first select the keywords you need using your mouse, then click the Suggest button on the toolbar, or choose Tools > Get Keyword Suggestions... from the navigation menu.

You can also right-click the selected keywords and choose Get Keyword Suggestions... from the context menu.

Note: You can hold down CTRL (or CMD on a Mac version) or SHIFT keys to select multiple keywords.

Once you do that, Rank Tracker will pop up a Wizard that will guide you through the process of getting keyword suggestions.

Step 1

You need to enter a number of generic keywords related to your niche or business. Rank Tracker will use these keywords to generate suggestions using the available keyword research methods.

Note: Rank Tracker will automatically populate the text area under Step 1 with the keywords you selected in the main view. You can add more keywords by hand or go with the ones already selected.

Step 2

You need to select one of the available keyword research methods (Wordtracker, Competition Research, Google Suggest, Yahoo! Search Assist, etc.) To better understand each keyword research method, select a method from the dropdown menu, and Rank Tracker will show you a detailed description of how each method works.

Once you've chosen your keyword research method, click Next, and Rank Tracker will generate keyword suggestions.

Step 3

Just sit back and relax while Rank Tracker is generating suggestions using the keyword research method you've chosen under Step 2. The process can take a while depending on how many initial keywords you've entered, and the speed of your Internet connection.

You can interrupt the process at any time by clicking the Stop button.

Step 4

Rank Tracker will show you a list of generated keyword suggestions. Just click the checkbox next to a keyword to mark it for inclusion into your project. You can use the Select All and Select None buttons to quickly mark or unmark all keywords.

Notice that Rank Tracker will also retrieve the Google competition value for each of the keywords. This tells you how many sites you would be competing against if you chose to optimize your site for this keyword.

Rank Tracker will also show you the number of searches that each keyword gets according to Wordtracker.

Finally, Rank Tracker will put the above two values together and calculate the Keyword Efficiency Index for you. Keywords with the best KEI value are marked green, while keywords with the worst KEI value are marked red. If you need to find new keywords that — when optimized for — will bring more traffic to your site, your goal here is to generate keywords with a high KEI value.

Once you've selected the keywords you're interested in, click the Next button to check your rankings for these keywords in the preferred search engines, or click Finish to just add them to your project.

Removing Keywords from the Project

To remove unnecessary keywords from the project, first select the keywords you wish to remove using your mouse, then click the Remove button on the toolbar, or choose Tools > Remove Keyword(s) from the navigation menu.

You can also right-click the selected keywords and choose Remove Keyword(s) from the context menu.

Note: You can hold down CTRL (or CMD on a Mac version) or SHIFT keys to select multiple keywords.

For most effective use of Rank Tracker, please, go through the related settings list to configure the tool as is convenient for you.

Related settings:

Preferred search engines

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