9 Best Rank Tracking Software: My Top Picks

In this guide, I reviewed and ranked the nine best rank-tracking software, along with my top 3 choices so that you can pick the best one for your business.

Investing in the best-ranking software is essential for any serious online business owner or marketer.

Sure, you can leverage a free rank-tracking tool like Google Search Console. But, like most free tools, Google Search Console can only do half the job.

As you create exciting and engaging content to promote your business, it is equally important to understand how that content is performing in search engines.

You'll want to know if the content positively affects your website's traffic – and that's where a rank tracker comes in.

What's a Rank Tracker?

Rank tracking software is a tool that allows you to see how your business stacks up when pitted against the competition.

Rank trackers take a set of keywords that relate to your business or marketing campaign and analyze the search engines to determine where visitors (read potential customers) would find a link to your site if they searched for those keywords.

You must be thinking;

Do I Really Need to Use Rank Tracker Software?

Yes, you do. Here's why:

To Monitor your SEO Efforts

Accurate SEO rank tracking can help you identify Key Performance Indicators (KPIs) to understand better how your business should tweak its marketing or content creation.

To Monitor your Marketing Campaigns

As you create content and develop SEO strategies, using a rank tracking tool can provide insights into the effectiveness of your marketing efforts. 

In addition, by leveraging a rank tracking tool, you can see which articles or blogs posts drive the most benefit to your customers. That way, you can optimize your website to improve the overall performance.

For instance, if you use a keyword rank checker tool and discover that certain keywords are trending, you can create content revolving around those keywords to boost organic traffic.

To Monitor your Keyword Rankings in Search Engines

A keyword rank tracker can help you keep tabs on your keyword positions in major search engines.

In fact, the best keyword tracker should notify you promptly if your keywords drop positions. Receiving regular alerts when your rankings drop can help you implement strategies to improve your search engine rankings.

To Monitor your Competitors

To outperform your competitors, it is necessary to take a sneak peek at what they're doing. You can use rank tracking tools to follow your competitors and monitor their traffic.

When you understand how your competition is performing, you can curate marketing and content creation strategies from the point of information.

You can, for instance, use your competitor's keywords more effectively by adding more relevant information to outrank them.

As you can see, failure to use a rank tracker can have repercussions, including:

• You'll struggle to generate enough organic traffic.
• Your website will continue to experience a high bounce rate bounce. When you don't know how your keywords perform in SERPs, you'll have a problem creating content that serves the user intent.
• A decline in traffic means fewer leads, low conversions, and dwindling sales.
• Your competitors will have an edge.
• You'll struggle to rank for targeted keywords.

What is the Best Rank Tracker Software?

Rank tracking tools come in many forms, each with its unique features and capabilities.

The best ranking tracking software should offer the following:

Location Support – Rankings vary from location to location. I recommend choosing a rank tracker that serves multiple countries, depending on your target market.

Language Support – You're better off with a rank tracker tool that supports multiple languages if your online business targets a location with more than one official language.

Multiple Device Support – Any rank tracker worth your attention should seamlessly allow you to toggle between desktop and mobile ranking. Keep in mind that desktop and mobile rankings vary.

SERP Tracking Functionality – Choose tracking software that'll allow you to check non-traditional search results like top stories, carousels, and featured snippets.

Daily Updates – Regular ranking updates are crucial in helping you identify potential problems quickly. Invest in rank checking software that lets you set the frequency of ranking updates as per your plan.

That said, here are my picks for the best ranking tracking software:

1. SE Ranking – Best Overall

SE Ranking has more than 500,000 users. It has served over 12,000 small and medium-sized businesses. On top of that, 4,000+ agencies use this rank tracker to develop their client's agencies.

The tool comes with incredible features that any online business owner or marketer trying to discover opportunities to outrank their competitor will find helpful.

Highlights

Backlink analysis - SE Ranking is arguably one of the best rank tracking software if you want to analyze backlinks pointing to any website. It allows you to check metrics like Google index status, Domain Authority and trust, Alexa ranking, and more.

Keyword rank tracking - SE Ranking is a pretty decent keyword tracking tool that you can leverage to every search term driving traffic to your website.

Keyword research – With a database of over three billion keywords, SE Ranking, offers SEO-boosting nuggets, including keyword difficulty, search volume, and related terms.

PPC competitor tracking – This function allows you to snoop on your competition's PPC campaigns and keyword rankings. That way, you can leverage the provided pointers to generate some ideas. 

Website audit - SE Ranking site-auditor highlights SEO issues on a website that need attention, including non-indexed pages, lengthy page URLs, SSL Certificate or Wildcard SSL (unlimited subdomain) mismatch, and more.

Social media management tool – You can use this tool together with the keyword research function to manage your brand's Twitter and Facebook accounts.

Pricing 

SE Ranking is available in 3 pricing tiers structured as follows

Every package comes with a 20% discount – at the time of writing this.

SE Ranking offers a 14-day free trial. 

My Take

SE Ranking is one of the cheapest rank tracker with well-thought-out SERP optimization features.

I particularly like the 3 billion keyword database, making it easy to find low competition keywords that can rank quickly in Google and other search engines. 

In addition, the platform supports white label reporting, which is an excellent feature for rebranding clients. And then there's the backlink monitoring feature that allows you to toggle swiftly between active and lost links. Totally worth the price!

2. SEMrush – Best for SEO Professionals and Digital Agencies

Created in 2008 by Oleg Shchegolev and Dmitry Melnikov, SEMrush boasts a massive user base of over 7 million people, making it one of the most popular SERP tracking tools on the market.

SEMrush promises to help you find out what your target audience is searching for on Google. It can also provide data to enable you to adjust your content's technical aspects to improve your Google rankings.

Digital agencies get access to power-packed tools that work in tandem to help them boost their client's marketing efforts. SEMrush is used widely as agency rank tracking for enterprise companies.

Highlights

Competitor research – Notable features include your competition's domain overview and organic traffic analysis. You also get to see your backlink and keyword profiles fair compared to your competitors.

Project management – This feature helps develop a keyword rank tracking strategy while analyzing a range of other elements like search engine results and social profiles.

Highly advanced reports – You get to run in-depth reports that you send to your clients or partners. The reports include options for scheduling, branding, and labeling.

A fully-fledged content marketing platform – Here, you can audit your content and that of your competitor. This feature allows you to track your posts with pre-designed SEO content templates.

Local SEO listing management module – With these features, you can track local keyword ranking and other things like local heatmaps.

Pricing

SEMrush is available in 3 pricing tiers structured as follows:

You can also pay annually to save up to 17$ of the plan price

SEMrush offers a 7-day free trial for Pro and Guru plans

My Take

SEMrush is among the newest rank tracking software and a great tool if you need a tool to help you fine-tune your content marketing efforts.

It is also an excellent rank tracker for a small or mid-sized digital marketing agency with a decent budget. 

I'd recommend SEMrush if you manage a rapidly scaling brand or anyone who runs an online store.

3. Wincher – Best For Low Budget

Wincher has my vote as one of the most accurate rank tracker out there.

The tool comes with various functions that help you with rank tracking and search engine optimization (SEO).

Apart from tracking thousands of keywords across multiple websites, Wincher also updates the keyword data daily.

What's more, this rank tracker can help you keep an eye on your SEO strategy compared to your competitors. That way, you can know where your business stands in SERPs.

Highlights

Local tracking – Wincher can track over 10K local locations across 180 counties – and the list keeps growing. That is more than enough for a small business owner.

On-demand data update – This rank tracking software updates all the data every 24 hours.

Competitor tracking and automated alerts – You get to see your competition's traffic for keywords based on their search volume and average position.

Keyword research tool – Wincher also comes with keyword research features, apart from being a rank tracker. That way, you can target specific search terms and optimize them based on your business.

On-Page SEO – Wincher's on-page SEO checkers allow you to see how well you've optimized your webpage for specific keywords. It also gives you an SEO score with tips to fix issues and rank higher.

Multiple-user support – Unlike many SEO tools, Wincher offers multiple-user functionality without additional costs, irrespective of your plan.

Pricing

Wincher is available in 3 pricing tiers structured as follows:

Wincher offers a 14-day free trial. You can save $30 on the subscription by using the code WELCOME30.

My Take

Wincher is a decent rank tracking tool that offers everything you need to stay on top of your website's KPI.

Compared to other rank tracking tools, Wincher has a defined target audience and goes out of its way to deliver remarkable features.

And, for what it has to offer, this rank tracker is a total bargain. I vouch for it if you're trying to rank and draw traffic to your website.

4. SERPWatcher – Best for Regular Updates 

Made by Mangools, SERPWatcher is an advanced rank tracker that bundles a plethora of features for accurate and fast monitoring of your site's search performance. 

Unlike most rank checking tools, SERPWatcher allows you to customize rank notifications to track multiple locations and devices in one project.

You can even integrate it with Google Analytics, Google Search Control, and API.

Highlights 

Multiple projects rank tracking – You can run desktop and mobile rank tracking for thousands of keywords. Most importantly, you can set SERPWatcher to give ranking reports hourly. 

Google algorithm updates tracking – If there's a Google update, this rank tracker will mark it in the ranking trend, complete with a layout message providing the name and the details of that update.

Intuitive user interface – The beginner-friendly dashboard makes it easy to navigate the features. 

Multiple integrations – Apart from the GA, GSC, and API integrations, SERPWatcher also supports Slack, email, Zapier Webhook, and push notifications to create additional automation.

Keyword labeling – You can set distinct labels and segregate your keywords, saving time with your keyword research process. 

Other notable highlights include keyword ranking data and the ability to identify keyword cannibalization problems. 

Pricing 

SERPWatcher is available in 3 pricing tiers structured as follows:

• Basic - $29.90 per month
• Premium - $39.90 per month  
• Agency - $79.90 per month

Choosing annual plans allows you to save up to 40%

You can track up to 10 keywords with SERPWatcher in the tool's 10-day free trial.

My Take 

SERPWatcher is the to-go-to rank tracking software if you want regular updates to help you keep up with your website's KPIs regularly. 

As stated, you can customize the tool to give your daily ranking reports.

With what it offers, SERPWatcher is ideal for marketers and agencies that want to monitor SERP rankings proactively.

 It is also a great rank tracker to analyze and compare performance data as well as manage multiple clients from a white label dashboard.

Try Out SERPWatcher

5. Advanced Web Ranking (AWR) – Best for Tracking Local Searches

Advanced Web Ranking is a powerful rank checker tool that lets you accurately check your website's performance for any locale, search engine, or device.

As the name suggests, it comes with a set of advanced data segmentation tools, reporting options, and insightful performance metrics.

Advanced Web Ranking has 24,000+ users in over 170 countries.

Highlights

Localization – When compared to other tools, Advanced Web Ranking performs brilliantly when it comes to delivering localized rankings with unrivaled precision.

White-label reports – Available for all subscriptions, this service allows you to replace AWR labeling with your brand's name, logo, and domain info.

Unlimited access to AWR's workflows – You can invite multiple users to AWR's workflows at no extra cost. That way, your team can access specific projects they need to work on wherever they are.

Ability to filter information – AWR's user interface lets you view only what you want to see by filtering info based on your keywords or project goals.

Access to detailed ranking data – AWR gathers data from over 3,000 search engines and can even isolate user statistics based on a specific location.

Pricing

Advanced Web Ranking is available in 4 pricing tiers structured as follows:

• Starter - $49 per month
• Pro - $99 per month
• Agency - $199 per month
• Enterprise - $499 per month

To get started, you can take advantage of Advanced Web Ranking's fully-fledged 30-day free trial. You don't even require a credit card.

My Take

Advanced Web Ranking is the best keyword rank tracker on this list if you want to monitor your local SEO efforts accurately.

The tool can generate in-depth yet easy-to-understand reports that can be used at all levels of your business by technical and non-technical teams. 

Advanced Web Ranking is ideal for digital agencies, SEOs, and freelancers.

Try Advanced Web Ranking

6. Moz Pro Keyword Rank Checker – Best for Keyword Research 

Moz is renowned for making top-notch SEO tools, and their rank tracker is no different.

This end-to-end rank tracking solution covers crawling, web page optimization, and keyword management.

 Moz metrics are respected across the board and have become an industry standard even for SEO professionals using other rank tracking tools.

With all that and a relatively nice pricing structure, Moz Pro is an easy pick for the best rank tracker tool if you're into keyword research.

Highlights

Unmatched research capability – Moz Pro can analyze keywords by search volume, generate and save keyword lists and export the data to CSV files. It can check keyword difficulty and help you create a global SEO strategy too.

Rank tracking – The tool allows you to check the ranking performance of any website for a set of keywords that you want to track.

Website crawling – This tool highlights technical SEO issues on your website, including faulty redirects, missing title tags, and response code errors. 

On-page optimization – With this feature, you can identify opportunities to improve your page optimization score and get content suggestions to boost your search engine rankings and drive more traffic.

Link research – Moz Pro's link explorer offers a comprehensive assessment of your site's backlink profile. That way you can know where to improve your entry links.

Other highlights include custom SEO reports covering site crawl date, search ranking, and links. You also access Moz free SEO tools, including MozBar, Domain Analysis, MozCast, Online Presence Checker, and Link Explorer.

Pricing

Moz Pro Keyword Rank Checker is available at $179 per month.

However, you can take the software for a road test through its 30-day free trial.

My Take

Moz Pro Keyword Rank Checker packs a host of features to help you improve your search ranking.

While it comes with a lofty price tag, it is an all-in-one platform that can benefit every business, small or large.

That said, Moz Pro is one of the best rank tracker tools if you're on a tight budget. It is ideal for SEO-focused agencies and in-house marketing teams.

Try Out Moz Pro Keyword Rank Checker 

7. SEO Powersuite – Best for SEO Professionals

According to its official website, over 500,000 SEO experts use, and site owners have used Powersuite. Further, it is the SEO tool of choice for 30% of SEOs in the world.

SEO Powersuite combines four tools to help you improve your content, run backlink campaigns, optimize your website and track your progress.

Highlights

Site structure analysis – This allows you to fix all of your website HTML codes issues and, by extension, conduct a structure-level analysis for your site.

Content analysis – You get a detailed analysis of your website's content, enabling you to work out a proper strategy for content optimization.

Domain strength – This gives you an overall overview of your website based on factors like backlink characteristics, indexing, social media status, and more.

Business keyword research tool – With this feature, you can add your web page and examine ranking data for the keywords showing up on organic search results.

Seed keyword discovery - SEO Powersuite allows you to pull out seed keywords using Google Analytics and AdWords accounts linked to your website.

On top of that, the rank tracking tool enables you to build a keyword map and set up rank preferences from a list of over 570 search engines.

You can also use the software to find keywords that hold the most value for your business.

Pricing

SEO Powersuite is available in two pricing tiers structured as follows:

• Professional - $299 per year
• Enterprise - $699 per year

SEO Powersuite doesn't have a free trial.

However, there's a free-forever version, but without some premium functions exclusively available in Enterprise and Professional tiers.

My Take

SEO Powersuite is an excellent Moz Pro alternative, especially if you're on a tight budget.

In fact, one of the reasons for Powersuite's popularity is the affordable price tag.

Because SEO Powersuite covers the fundamentals for SEO campaigns and has an intuitive user interface and pro-level functions, it is a great fit for newbies and SEO experts alike. It is one of the top choices among the SEO rank tracking systems.

Try SEO Powersuite

8. Serpstat – Best Budget Rank Tracker

Founded by Oleg Salamaha, Serpstat doubles as rank tracking software and an all-in-one SEO platform. It is one of the best cheap rank tracking tool in the market.

It has steadily transformed from a keyword research software into a growth hacking suite with a host of helpful features to track keyword rankings, help you run PPC campaigns, and tackle technical SEO.

Highlights

Competitor analysis – This allows you to dive deep into your competition's PPC and SEO campaigns, including the AdWords that generate traffic to their website.

Competitor's top SEO terms discovery – You get access to every keyword that any website, including your competitor, ranks for.

Content marketing ideation – Serpstat lets you search for questions and phrases your target audience is searching for, enabling you to create content that will drive visitors to your website.

Site audit tool – This rank tracking solution can help you quickly detect issues with your website, like 404 pages. It even categorizes the issues into high, medium, and low priorities.

Reports and infographics – You can view all your reports on the super-responsive dashboard, including your campaigns and the success you've achieved.

Other highlights include backlink analysis, on-page SEO audit tool, API, and white label reports.

Pricing

Serpstat is available in 4 pricing tiers structured as follows:

• Lite - $55 per month
• Standard - $119 per month
• Advanced - $239 per month
• Enterprise - $399 per month

Annual subscriptions can save you up to 20% of these prices.

You can also contact Serpstat if you're a big enterprise with specific needs not offered by the four plans.

Serpstat comes with a free trial plan with a limited number of queries.

My Take

Serpstat is a solid rank tracking solution that also comes with the benefit of an SEO suite.

It is competitively priced too, so if you're looking for an affordable keyword tracking software, you can go wrong with this one.

Serpstat is great for marketing teams, agencies, in-house SEO, and PPC specialists.

Try Out Serpstat

9. AccuRanker – Best for On-demand Rankings

AccuRanker has my vote if you're in for a tool that can handle daily rank checking.

The software is designed to provide daily and on-demand tracking for your keywords on Google and all major search engines.

According to its developers, this ranking tool is fast and one of the most accurate rank tracking tools out there.

Highlights

Google Analytics integration – AccuRanker can connect to your GA account for seamless and quick keyword tracking.

Automatic monitoring – This tool can track ranking and update the results automatically. You can even filter the report by device, making it easier for you to sort through the results.

Automated reporting – AccuRanker comes with an automatic reporting function that lets you create insightful reports for your clients with a few clicks. And the beauty of it is that you can customize these reports using a simple, pre-designed drag and drop system.

Data export – This feature lets you export ranking data in several formats for an in-depth analysis.

Share of voice – This exclusive function lets you view the top 20 target keywords for your website and that of your competitors. That way, you can gauge how well your content marketing efforts are paying off.

And, like other ranker tools on this list, AccuRanker offers SERP features that you can use to see where you rank for your target keywords.

Pricing

AccuRanker is available on a subscription basis.

Pricing starts at $99 per month for 1K words.

There's a 10% discount if you pay for a one-year subscription.

You can test AccuRanker via the 14-day free trial.

My Take

AccuRanker is one of the best rank tracker solutions for e-commerce businesses, brands, agencies, consultants, and SEO professionals, that receive keyword ranking updates, monitor search results, and analyze landing pages.

Its automatic features can save hours, especially if you have to create customized reports for your clients.

Try Out AccuRanker

When Should You Use a Rank Tracking Tool?

The best time to use a keyword rank tracker is at the onset of your marketing campaign.

When starting a new campaign, you'll want to establish goals that'll help you reach the right target audience, making it essential to track your keyword positions as early as possible.

Understanding how your keywords interact with any search engine can help guide your content creation process.

Rank tracker tools can do more than monitor your keyword rankings, though. You can also use them for keyword analysis and, by extension, identify the keywords to target.

Here's what I mean.

Let's say you have an article titled "10 ways to improve productivity" that has attracted a significant number of clicks. In such a scenario, it would make perfect sense to check whether the targeted keywords were "better work ethic," "improving productivity," or "productivity tips."

With an accurate rank tracker, you can quickly determine which keywords or phrases connected to productivity generated the clicks. You'll then want to target them more effectively.

Keyword Rank Tracking Software FAQs

How do I check my keyword ranking?

The most straightforward way to check your search engine rankings is to use keyword rank tracking software.

If you don't have a budget, you can start with Google Search Console. However, as your website grows, I recommend investing in a paid keyword tracking tool.

Why?

Because the more keywords you have on your website, the more you'll want to conduct an unlimited website audit, and you can hardly do that with a free rank checking tool.

While there are many keyword rank checker tools on the market, be sure to choose one that meets your tracking needs the best.

Is rank tracker free?

Well, rank tracker is free to use. The daily updates are free as well. However, you can only use the free version for 10 keywords.

When you exceed that number of keywords, you'll need to pay $15 for 100 keywords. Tracking 500 keywords will cost you $50, while 1,000 keywords go for $100.

For 2,500 keywords, the price increases to $200 and $375 for 5,000 words.

In my opinion, this is a reasonable pricing structure, but then again, it all boils down to your specific needs and budget. If you're looking for a completely free tool to track rankings, you can always use Google Search Console.

What is SERP rank tracking?

As the name suggests, this is a process that allows you to monitor your website's position on search results.

You can monitor your site's position in local or global search queries. You can also monitor your mobile and desktop rankings for these keywords.

The idea behind rank tracking is to optimize your SEO campaign to help boost your website's overall performance.

Of course, you'll need a rank tracker tool to monitor your website and target keywords.

What is the best rank tracker?

The thing is, the best keyword rank tracker is the one that meets your unique tracking needs.

Put differently, where there are many rank trackers out there, the choice of one over the other primarily depends on your requirements.

Remember that these trackers come at different prices, so your budget could also determine the tool you end up with.

That said, Wincher is the best rank tracker. Compared to other tools, it boasts innovative features that most users will find helpful. 

What are some key metrics to track?

When using a rank tracker, you should keep an eye on the following metrics:

Your keyword position – Your keyword's position primarily depends on where your website is ranking in search results.

Search volume – You're better off tracking monitoring terms and phrases with high volume searches. These will give you a better idea of what you need to do to reach the top. You shouldn't neglect keywords with fewer search volumes, though.

Visibility – The higher your website's visibility, the higher your keyword rankings in SERPs are.

The Bottom Line

Rank tracking is essential for monitoring your business's performance in search results. Regular tracking ensures that you're consistently fine-tuning your strategies to stay on Google for your target keywords.

And, with the rank checking tools reviewed here, staying on top of your ranking metrics shouldn't be challenging to do.

All you need to do is choose the best rank tracker software for your unique needs and budget.