Whether you're an SEO professional, a Google Business Profile listing manager, or an agency professional working in any other digital marketing or digital marketing-adjacent role, one critical aspect of client reporting and business listing optimization that you shouldn't overlook is local rank tracking.
As an agency professional, understanding and effectively utilizing local rank-tracking tools can have a significant impact on your clients' success and help you build stronger, more long-lasting relationships with clients.
Why Is Local Rank Tracking Important for Agencies?
Local rank tracking is the process of monitoring the search engine rankings of a business for specific keywords within a specific geographic area. It allows agencies to assess their clients' visibility in local search results, identify trends, and make data-driven decisions to improve their digital marketing strategies.
But using a local rank-tracking tool doesn't just contribute to the success of existing clients — local rank-tracking can (and should) also be an indispensable part of agency sales strategies.
For example, agency sales professionals can incorporate local rank tracking data and report images into their cold outreach emails, providing visuals that leads can easily understand and instantly demonstrating the potential value of white-glove agency services. This greatly increases the chances of converting leads into prospects, and prospects into clients.
How Local Rank Tracking Contributes To Client Success
Enhanced Visibility
Local rank tracking helps agencies understand how well their clients' businesses rank in local searches using different relevant search terms. By tracking these keyword rankings, agencies can optimize their clients' business listings to appear higher in search results, resulting in increased visibility among their target audience.
Competitor Analysis
Local rank-tracking tools can also provide valuable insights into competitors' rankings, enabling agencies to identify areas where their clients are falling behind or outperforming others. This data empowers agencies to develop more effective strategies and seize opportunities to outrank competitors.
Performance Measurement
Local rank tracking allows agencies to track the impact of their business listing optimization efforts over time. By monitoring keyword rankings at regular intervals, agencies can assess the effectiveness of their optimization strategies, identify areas for continued improvement, and demonstrate the value of their services to clients.
Tips for Using a Local Rank Tracking Tool Effectively
Choose the Right Tool
There are numerous local rank-tracking tools out there, so it's important to know what to look for to make sure you choose the right one.
For starters, you should ensure that the local rank tracker you use offers a flexible credit system that allows you to adapt the tool to your budget. You should be able to adjust various scan settings, such as the scan radius, the keywords, and the scan frequency, to get the exact data visualization you want, while getting the most out of your budget, too.
The local rank-tracking tool you use should also offer plenty of different reporting options, like competitor reports, trend reports, keyword reports, and location reports. The more reporting options you have, the more value you can provide for your clients. Of course, you want to be able to share these reports with stakeholders in a professional way, so the ability to white-label reports is also something to look for.
Lastly, you don't want to be running manual local rank tracking scans for all your clients all the time, so the local rank tracker you use should offer various ways to set up automatic recurring scans. Look for features like bulk scans (to run simultaneous scans for multiple locations, keywords, and geographic areas) and campaigns (ideal for setting up recurring scans for multi-location businesses in similar locations).
Select Relevant Keywords
Identify the keywords that are most relevant to your clients' businesses and target audiences and use these to run your local rank-tracking scans. Some of these keywords should come directly from the categories that clients' Google Business Profiles use, while others should be location-specific, and yet others should be other common search phrases that people use to find their businesses.
For example, include a few branded keywords with different variations of your clients' business names, a few more general search terms related to the goods or services that your clients sell, and a few geo-specific keywords with variations of the geographic location names in them.
Pro Tip: Choosing a local rank tracker with a keyword suggestion feature can save you some time here!
Set the Right Scan Areas
Local rank tracking is most effective when you're scanning the right geographic area. In general, you should scan for keyword rankings in smaller radiuses for businesses in more densely populated areas, such as urban centers, and scan larger radiuses for businesses in less populated places, such as rural areas.
Of course, every client is different, so you'll have to experiment a bit to find the perfect radiuses for each client's local search rank tracking scans. But these general guidelines are enough to get you started — from there you can narrow or expand scan radiuses as needed.
Generate Detailed Reports
Regularly provide your clients with detailed reports that showcase their keyword rankings, improvements over time, and competitor comparisons. These reports should be easy to understand and visually appealing, highlighting the value your agency brings to their business (using a local rank tracking tool with lots of reporting options makes this easier).
Make sure to take advantage of historical data stored in your local rank-tracking tool to identify trends, measure progress, and evaluate the effectiveness of search ranking optimization strategies, further demonstrating the value of your professional services to clients.
Key Takeaways
Local rank tracking is an essential practice for agency professionals seeking to drive success for their clients. By understanding the fundamentals of local rank tracking and utilizing the right tools effectively, agencies can gain valuable insights, track search ranking optimization strategy progress, and make data-driven decisions to improve their clients' visibility on search engines.
Remember to choose the right tool, select relevant keywords, set the right scan areas, and generate detailed reports to use a local rank tracker effectively. With these tips in mind, you'll be well-equipped to navigate the world of local rank tracking and deliver exceptional results for your clients.
Meet Local Falcon
Local Falcon is the perfect local rank tracking tool for agency users, as it provides all the features you should be looking for in a local rank tracker — and much more!
No matter how big your agency's budget is, Local Falcon offers the flexibility needed to maximize it, while also allowing you to exponentially scale your local rank-tracking efforts as you grow your business.
Try Local Falcon now to start gaining more local rank-tracking insights and providing more value to your clients today!
