Have you ever Googled the question, “What keywords do I rank for?” Me neither. But I know that a little over 200 people worldwide Google that exact question every month (on average). And I know exactly what they are looking for and why. They simply want to see what keywords their website is ranking for in Google, and in what position. This can be very useful information if you know what to do with it. Consider this to be a sort of internal keyword research for your website. Really, it’s more of an analysis. But if you combine your website analysis with some good keyword research, you will quickly see the benefit and understand ways that you could improve search traffic to your website or blog.
In this post, I am going to use this website – Dumb Passive Income – as an example. I am going to show you how to easily find the keywords that your site is currently ranking for. I am going to take it one step further and show you how you can easily put those keywords into Long Tail Platinum in order to get a more in depth analysis.
Before I start, I want to emphasize the importance of getting to the top ten in Google’s search results. I wrote about this in more detail recently in one of my posts about using keyword research for blogging. Here is a snippet from that post…
Getting to the first page of Google (the top ten search results) is the number one goal and the main purpose for all keyword research. The vast majority of clicks through to web pages, from searches, come from sites that are listed on the first page. Think about it from your own point of view. When you do a random search on Google, how often do you look past page 1 of the results before clicking through to another site to find what you are looking for?
Okay. Now to answer the question – what keywords do i rank for?
Free Keyword Ranking Report From Google
Log in to your Google account and go to Google Webmaster Tools. Your website(s) may or may not be listed here. It depends whether you’ve used this tool before. The screen looks like this for me. 
If your site isn’t listed, simply click the ADD A SITE button and Google will walk you through a simple verification process to insure that you are the owner of the site. Hint: If you already have Google Analytics running on your site, this is probably the easiest verification method to use.
Next – click on the Search queries tab (in the middle). This page brings up a slew of sortable and customizeable search data for your site. Mine looked like this on Dec. 17, 2012.
The default date settings (upper right) are for the past 30 days. Looking at the next bits of data for Dumb Passive Income, you can see that there are 108 keywords (search terms) that I rank for in the previous 30 day period. These keywords have been displayed on somebody’s screen, somewhere in the world, 6,500 times. Of those 6,500 impressions, 250 people have clicked through to my site in the last 30 days.
Next, there is a nice little chart. But after that is where I like to focus. The table below lists all of the keywords that I rank for in the given time period. You can sort by column simply by clicking on the column heading. The one that interests me the most is the Avg. Position heading on the far right. Click on it and your list will be sorted by average position that each keyword ranks in Google.
Pretty cool, huh? Now that we have all of this information, what can we do with it? This part is even cooler. I’m going to show you how to easily insert the keywords into Long Tail Platinum and show you how you can use that data to improve search traffic to your site.
Long Tail Platinum to Analyze Keywords I Rank For
One of the new features available in Long Tail Platinum is the ability to upload up to 10,000 of your own keywords into the tool at a time. This is exactly what I want to do to analyze the keywords that I rank for. I certainly don’t want to type in all 108 keywords manually. This is how I move them over to Long Tail Platinum.
- In Google Webmaster tools, click on the button just above the table that says, Download this table.
- Choose your download preference, CSV (if you use Excel or another non-web spreadsheet) or Google Docs
- Once you have this data in a spreadsheet, you will have to sort by the Avg. Position column again in ascending order (delete line 1 with the column headings first). Make sure you sort the entire sheet, not just the column for Avg. position, to make sure the keywords still match up with the correct numbers.
- Highlight and copy only the column with the keywords in it
- Open up Long Tail Platinum, choose your campaign (or add a new one), check the box for Enter Your Own Keywords, then simply paste your entire list into the box.
Next, click the Generate Keywords button at the bottom of Long Tail Platinum. I now have all of the keywords that my site ranked for in the last 30 days inserted into Long Tail Platinum, sorted in order by average position in Google. I like to compare the data side-by-side by opening up two windows right next to each other like this
I can now use Long Tail Platinum to analyze the keywords that my site is already ranking for! Here are some of the things that I look for
- number of local and global searches
- take a closer look at my keywords that rank 4 through 10 to see if I have a chance to boost them up to spots 1 through 3
- take a closer look at my keywords that rank just below the top ten in Google, (11 plus) to see if I have a chance to break into the top ten
- for keywords that I wish to analyze deeper, I click the Calculate button in the Keyword Competitiveness (KC) column
When I find keywords that I think I can improve upon, there are a few things I can do.
- go back to older posts that contain these keywords and improve optimization (as described in detail in this post)
- plan new posts around these keywords that will be fully optimized
- inter-link relevant posts on this site with appropriate anchor text (not always exact match though) for keywords
- get links from other sites pointing to posts with targeted keywords
A Specific Optimization Example Using This Post
In my side-by-side comparison, I found a good keyword that I ranked just outside the top 3 for in Google. I had an average ranking in the previous 30 days of 5.6 for the keyword get long tail pro. Looking at Long Tail Platinum, I easily see that this keyword gets only 22 local monthly searches, but 110 global monthly searches. I click the Calculate button in the KC column and find that the average KC score is only 19! Wow! This keyword is extremely easy to rank for.
Of course, I already rank for it, but I wanted to see if I have a chance to break into the top 3 in Google. I click over to the Competitor Analysis page in Long Tail Platinum.
My previous post on this site for the Long Tail Pro giveaway is currently sitting at #4. The site in the #1 spot is the Warrior Forum with a KC score of 54.5. That is unbeatable for me. But I do have a chance to possibly get this post up to the #2 spot. Here is what I am doing, specifically, to try to achieve this.
My original title for this post was just going to be, What Keywords Do I Rank For? This, in itself, was another strategic keyword strategy. Since doing this analysis and deciding that I also want to rank this post for get long tail pro, I needed to add at least part of that keyword to the title. Looking at the current top ten results in Google, none of them actually have the word get as part of the title, and I couldn’t justify putting it in mine either. The title already looks a little bit silly with a quoted question in the middle of a non-question title. I think it would have looked stupid and downright pushy if I titled it something like, Get Long Tail Pro to Analyze “What Keywords Do I Rank For?”
So I have Long Tail Pro in the title now. I also added get long tail pro as a Tag in WordPress, as part of the ALT Tag in the image above, and as an H2 Heading for the sub-section below. I also plan to put it in the Meta description with my SEO plugin.
Doing these simple steps to optimize a post that I was writing anyway could give me an excellent monetary return for my small investment of time. People who are searching for the exact term, get long tail pro, are probably people who are looking to buy. I know I probably won’t get to the #1 spot in Google. But, if I can get to #2 I might expect 15 to 20 visitors per month just from this keyword. If only one of those 15 to 20 decides to purchase through one of my affiliate links, then I’m coming out ahead!
Get Long Tail Pro Today and Upgrade to Platinum
I hope this example helps you see how you too could use Long Tail Platinum to better optimize posts on your site for certain keywords that you already rank for. Long Tail Platinum does have a low monthly cost. As I demonstrated with my example though, it should easily pay for itself if you combine its use with some of your own affiliate programs or other advertising or products that you sell.
You do need to own Long Tail Pro in order to upgrade to Long Tail Platinum. Get Long Tail Pro today, which is always just a low one-time cost and is updated for free for life. Upgrade to Platinum to unlock the incredibly valuable features like the Keyword Competitiveness (KC) calculation and the ability to upload up to 10,000 of your own keywords at a time.
All links and banners within this post that lead to Long Tail Pro or Platinum are affiliate links. If you choose to make a purchase through any of these links, I will receive a commission. If you’ve found this post helpful and informative and do decide to buy, I greatly appreciate you doing so through one of my links. Thank You and happy keyword hunting!
Remember, there are several dumb ways to create passive income online, but only one site that is blogging about it! Dumb Passive Income… dot com.
Matthew Allen
I just did this for my own site! By using the Webmaster tools I can pretty much get the feeling where I rank (as it tells you) and the number of people that searched it over the past month (impressions). The only thing that the LTP allows you to do is check the competition of that particular word (which does help). I guess I’m able to see that a phrase might be highly competitive so that tells me that I shouldn’t waste my time to try and get it ranking higher.
Thanks for the tip!
Exactly Jason. It helps you save time by preventing you from wasting time. I especially like that you can look for keywords that could somehow relate to affiliate offers or products. You may not have even known you were ranking for these keywords. Therefore, you might not even have that particular affiliate product in the post(s) that is/are ranking for it. If Long Tail Platinum shows you how easy it can be to rank higher, you could write another entire (optimized) post on the subject, with affiliate offers, and link to the already ranking posts.
Another good post Matt! I am really hoping I win your giveaway as I am getting really intrigued with the product. I’ve been using Adwords more and implemented some of your suggestions, but am really liking what you show as possible through using this. Like Jason touched on, I am wanting to save time and it really does look like that would be possible through using it.
Sorry John, the Rafflecopter gods were not kind to you this time around. Andrea Whitmer won the giveaway. Updated on the giveaway page with a handy way to congratulate her via Twitter with one click!
I also am really intrigued with the product, Long Tail Platinum, which is why I’ve been obsessed with blogging about it lately. For those who wish to use keyword research as a strategy, I’m attempting to show how much time they can save with this tool. But more importantly, how it can lead to profits! I really believe that if used correctly, the tool will pay for itself.
Oh, that’s ok. Congrats to Andrea! I am actually thinking of trying out the free trial one with the thinking of buying it in January.
That’s awesome. I had no idea how to read the data in Google so I followed what you said above. So it looks like I have queries into the thousands so that’s good I guess but might take me some time to go through.So if I have keywords in positions higher than 10 those are the keywords I should focus on or SEO better, if I understand correctly. What is CTR? I’ve always liked the SEO of blog posts. I think it’s fun to see what you can do with a blog post. Mr.CBB
Sounds like a plan John! Remember, the free trial does not include the Platinum features, so you wouldn’t get the benefit of the KC calculation or the ability to upload up to 10,000 of your own keywords, or the ability to save Favorites. You can still get a good feel for the tool with the free trial though. Also, I would be most grateful if you accessed the free trial and/or purchased through one of the affiliate links on my site. Thanks man!
Hi Mr. CBB! I’m glad my post helped you better understand the Google data! CTR is Click Through Rate. Within the Google Webmaster Tool as talked about in this post, it is the CTR for that keyword. If a keyword has 100 impressions and people clicked to your site from those impressions 5 times, it would be a 5% CTR.
Keywords in positons 11 plus are keywords that are not being seen of the first page of Google search results. You may or may not want to improve SEO for pages containing these keywords, depending on several factors. Mainly, what is the competition for the current top ten results in Google. If you think you have a good chance of beating any of them and boosting your site/post into the top ten, then yes, improve SEO for posts containing that keyword. This is where a tool like Long Tail Platinum comes in handy. It makes analyzing the competition a cinch!
Matt, this is absolutely brilliant. Well done! I’ve already tried implementing some of this strategy for my site. Hopefully I can turn some of those page 2 and 3’s into page 1’s!
awesome post Matt! This actually adds another reason to the many you have already given me that i need to pick up long tail pro, and platinum. This would help so much in allowing me to see what else I can target with my niche sites and how easy or hard it would be to rank for.
Thank You MMD! Good luck implementing the strategy.
I’m telling ya Bryan, I’ve been using my Long Tail Platinum every single day. Not only for the Rank Checker, but also for simple keyword research techniques like this one. I’m very confident that the return you (or I) get from owning Long Tail Platinum is far greater than the cost – if actually used properly, of course.
I hope it pays for itself in the long run, I have a feeling I will be able to increase traffic to my sites by hitting long tail words i never thought of.
What was the rationale for trying to rank for “get long tail pro” as opposed to “long tail pro”? I can think of a lot of words I might put in front of a product name if I were searching, such as “buy” “download” or “how to use”, depending on my purpose. But I doubt I would use “get”
P.S. Feel free to use any of my sites in future examples!
Thanks for the question Edward. The rationale was because I was already ranking for “get long tail pro.” This was not a keyword that I intentionally went after in the first place, but by using this technique I figured out that I had already been ranking for it at an average position of 5.6 for the previous 30 days. Long Tail Platinum showed me that it has very low competition and 110 global monthly searches. I decided to optimize this post to see if I could break into the top 3 in Google for “get long tail pro.” It’s been 9 days now since I published this post, and I’ve been bouncing between position 3 and 4, and even getting a little bit of traffic from this keyword!
Matt, I just wanted to follow up with you. I picked up Long Tail Pro over the weekend and promptly returned to this page to get a bit of guidance for using it properly. Im glad your guide has shown me what a useful tool this is. I hope it works out as expected!
Cool Bryan! I think it’s awesome that I have created a sort of a “guide” that people will come back to and refer to. That’s a good thing and hopefully I create many more posts like this.
Congratulations on your Long Tail Pro purchase. You will not be disappointed. Let me know if you ever have any questions.
Hi Matt –
I think that I have done enough background research (thanks to sites like yours!) and I am taking The Plunge to create my first affiliate site. I picked up Long Tail Pro (Platinum) and will be using a lot of the tips you have given on your site for guidance.
Thank you so much for this blog! I too, am entering this field as a “side gig” and am deeply encouraged by you and your progress over the years. Well done and thanks again for being a shining example of what can be done with some determination, gumption, and planning!
Regards,
Abraham Briceno
P.S.
I just purchased Long Tail Pro (Platinum) using an affiliate link on your blog. It was a big help to have the 10-day trial to help me get used to toying around with the controls (whilst watching your case study) before taking The Plunge.
Awesome Abraham! Just sent you a personal email to thank you. I appreciate the kind words very much!
Your trinity blogs on seo has been mind boggling and numbing at the same time. I’ve saved the links and plan to return to it to understand it better.
Thanks for the great info!