Every year we say the same thing and this year is no different… 2019 was one for the ages here at Rank Ranger with scores of new innovative SEO insights hitting the platform over the course of the year! 2019 wasn’t only special to us due to the depth of SEO reporting we brought to the market but for the series of new free SEO tools we developed so as to offer anyone and everyone access to great SEO insights. 

What do you say we skip the small talk and head right to the new SEO data, reports, and tools we brought to you in 2019?! 

Rank Ranger’s Site Audit Tool: Style, Grace, and Insights!

We kicked 2019 off in style with a new take on running a site audit. On January 16th, 2019 we released our in-house site audit geared towards making running a technical audit of your site easy to do and act upon. We specifically designed the tool to be intuitively easy to use as well as comprehensive. 

As such, getting an overarching understanding of your site’s technical performance, identifying a specific issue, and tracking the resolution of technical problems is entirely straightforward. 

Rank Ranger’s Site Audit tool showcasing an overview of all the content related issues discovered by the crawling of a site

To the ability to track the resolution of issues discovered by a crawl, our Site Audit tool gives you the option to compare two crawls to each other. This enables you to monitor your progress as the tool will indicate the net number of issues resolved (or incurred) per item from one crawl to the next. In this way, you can determine both areas you may be neglecting to address as well as those where your progress is efficient. 

The Site Audit tool showing the total number of issues resolved per warning type from one crawl to the next

The tool also gives you the ability to mark issues as resolved as you work to fix them. Moreover, the Site Audit tool will visually differentiate between issues that you have begun to resolve versus those you have yet to address altogether.  

The Site Audit will ascribe a green outline to those errors and warnings that you have begun to resolve but have not fully completed 

Find SERP Feature Opportunities: The SERP Feature Monitor

A fan favorite, the SERP Feature Monitor is one of the most innovative releases to the wide world of SEO tools in 2019! In a nutshell, the SERP Feature Monitor tells you what SERP features are worth targeting for what keywords. So instead of wasting your time shooting for SERP features in the dark, you’ll know which search terms are winnable in which SERP features at which exact moment in time! 

For example, putting your SEO team on DEFCON 5 in order to grab a Featured Snippet that Wikipedia wins 90% of the time is probably not the best way to allocate your resources. The SERP Feature Monitor literally tells you if this is the case. Just look below: 

The same would be true when creating video content specifically for the SERP when Google doesn’t tend to show videos for that sort of content quite often via the SERP’s Video Box: 

Conversely, the SERP Feature Monitor can tell you exactly when Google might be thinking of shaking up the URLs within some of its SERP features. Here’s a look at some URL patterns within the People Also Ask box that with proper monitoring can be used to your optimization advantage: 

What’s more, is that the tool gives you a look at a URL’s corresponding metadata. Meaning, you can track how a change to a page’s meta-title or description impacted its placement within a SERP feature. That, of course, is invaluable when crafting your own content strategy for SERP feature wins! 

A title change to a page within the People Also Ask box results in a ranking change within the SERP feature 

The SERP Feature Monitor offers these insights (and a lot more) for the following SERP features: 

• Featured Snippet
• People Also Ask 
• Top Stories 
• Local Pack
• Hotel Pack 
• Video Box/Carousel 

Full Above the Fold Rank Insights

 

Last year we introduced a series of beta reports that among other things tells you when your URL appears above the fold. In 2019, we gave these insights a boost by telling you how many results appear above the fold with you at the top of the SERP! Are you alone above the fold? Is the competition above the fold thin? Are there a nice amount of sites sharing the user’s initial purview of the SERP with you? 

Well, with our update to the Above the Fold Rank Insights report, now you know! 

The Rank Insights report showing when a site’s page appears above the fold as well as how many total results appear above the fold for the query

In short, our Above the Fold Rank Insights tells you both the true power of your rankings along with a much more accurate look at how competitive a SERP is for you!

By the way, above the fold rank insights are a… Rank Ranger exclusive! 

Superserious Video Box Rank Insights 

Along with new above the fold data, we’ve given our Rank Insights report the gift of Video Box rank analysis! That is to say, if you create video content and don’t know how your videos are faring on the Google SERP… be in the dark no longer! Our Video Rank Insights tells you exactly how well your videos are ranking within Google’s Video Box (aka Video Carousel). 

By the way, we know that more often than not Google is not showing a video from your domain within the Video Box when that video also appears on YouTube. That’s why you can track both your domain and YouTube channel simultaneously. This way, whether your domain appears within the Video Box or whether your YouTube channel occupies the SERP feature, you’ll know!

The full set of data found within the Video Rank Insights report 

On top of all that, the report shows you top-level information on your Video Box performance. To this, you can track:

• The number of times the Video Box/Carousel appears for the keywords you track
• The total number of instances of your domain’s appearances within the Video Box
• The total number of your YouTube’s channel’s appearances within the Video Box 
• Your overall Video Box market share relative to the competition 

The Search Gap Tool for Advanced Content Analysis 

2019 saw the release of our content gap analysis tool appropriately dubbed the Search Gap Tool. The tool allows you to compare your content performance to any number of your competitors. Accordingly, users are presented with aggregate information that shows how many ranking keywords each site sports. 

The Search Gap Tool comes equipped with a series of filters that makes honing in on the competition pretty much a cinch. To this, you can choose to focus on only those keywords ranking in the top 10 on the SERP or you could choose to analyze any keyword that ranks among the top 100 results. Further, you could use the tool to compare paid keyword performance as well. When analyzing the results we’ve added an option that allows you to compare only those keywords each of the selected sites share in common. 

Utilize the Search Gap’s filters to refine your content gap analysis so as to extract deep insights

In truth, the Search Gap Tool, allows you to unearth content trends that go well beyond a simple content comparison analysis. 

Metric Gauge Widgets for The Widget Obsessed!

If you’ve kept up with our development over the years you’ll know we **** offering you really easy to use and highly visual custom graphs and widgets. We’ve kept this tradition alive with the Metric Gauge Widget! These fellas allow you to colorfully present any and all of the data found within Rank Ranger as user-friendly gauges. 

Metric Gauges showing a data comparison that includes data on Google rank, Google Analytics, and Search Console 

In practical terms, that means that you can create of series of Gauge Metrics to compare and report on anything from your Google Analytics data to your average rank to your Search Console clicks to your Facebook page likes to your Google Ads CTR, etc., etc., etc. 

Of course, in typical Rank Ranger fashion, you can custom design your Gauge Widgets to show whatever color palette, theme, and widget size you’d like! 

2019, the Year of Free SEO Tools at Rank Ranger 

 

2019 was by far our most prolific year when it came to unleashing free SEO tools to the wider search marketing community! Here’s a quick rundown of the free SEO offerings we released during 2019! 

The Schema Markup Generator

 

Like the name sounds, the Schema Markup Generator creates the code necessary to produce the ever-visible rich result on the Google SERP. The process is literally as simple as selecting your desired Schema format, filling out the fields, and copy the code the tool generates. 

Simply enter the required information into the tool’s fields and the Schema Markup Generator will create the structured data code for you on the spot 

We also offer direct access to validate and test the code via Google’s Structured Data Testing Tool and Rich Results Test Tool respectively. 

Currently, the following Schemas are available for code generation: 

• Article
• Event
• FAQ Page
• How-to Page
• Job Posting
• Local Business
• Organization
• Person
• Product
• Recipe
• Video
• Website – Sitelinks Searchbox

Free Site Explorer Data 

 

Looking for quick access to competitor-based website analytics without spending a dime (or even a penny)? Say hello to the free version of our Site Explorer tool!

Use the tool to gain top-level insights into any domain including the site’s global rank and organic traffic. You can also use the tool to drill down into a site’s performance by analyzing its: 

• Top organic keywords 
• Top paid keywords 
• Top organic competitors 
• Top paid competitors 

Top-level domain data along with a site’s top organic and paid keywords as seen within the free version of Rank Ranger’s Site Explorer 

Within these various data categories you have access to metrics such as keyword difficulty, SERP feature presence, traffic, etc. 

Simply put, the free version of our Site Explorer is a great way to survey a competitor’s site (or even your own site) quickly while walking away with some genuine insights at the same time. 

The SERPulator: An SEO Tags Preview Tool 

Certainly the tool with the catchiest name in our free tool repertoire, the SERPulator allows you to preview a page’s meta-title and description. There are essentially two ways you can utilize the tool: 

1) Fetch a URL’s Current Title & Description: You can use the SERPulator to view any page’s title and description.

2) Create Meta Tags Inside the Tool: If you’re looking to first create your a page’s title and description (as opposed to viewing existing tags) you can do so within the SERPulator itself in order to preview how it will appear on the SERP.    

In either case, you can use the SERPulator to not only preview how your tags appear on the SERP but as a method to avoid truncation as the tool shows you both the number of pixels and characters truncated (all things being equal). Of course, since the tool previews your title and description you’ll be able to see exactly where truncation takes place within the copy itself. 

The UTM Tracking Code Builder

Towards the end of 2019, we released a tool that helps you generate custom UTM code. The UTM Tracking Code Builder is an easy way to add custom traffic tracking to your URLs.

Like the Schema Markup Generator, all you need to do in order to create a UTM is fill out the fields out and copy the URL generated! It’s literally that easy. 

Google Ads Data Straight from Google Ads

 

Last, but very much not least, we’ve added a Google Ads integration that offers data directly from Google Ads, not Google Analytics! To do this we’ve added the Google Ads Connection Tool to the Rank Ranger platform. (Look for it under: Tools>Utilities>Misc.) Using the tool generates a data script that allows for direct Google Ads integration. 

Once your Google Ads account is integrated into Rank Ranger, you can use the Insight Graph, Metrics Widgets, or the aforementioned Gauge Widgets to showcase your data. 

Google Ads data displaying within the Insight Graph 

You Ain’t Seen Nothin’ Yet – Rank Ranger in 2020 

2019 was a big year for Rank Ranger development, but it pales in comparison to what we have in store for you in 2020! We already have a queue of reports waiting for a 2020 release and they are…. Well, you’ll just have to wait and see. 

Also, keep a lookout for our big “enterprise SEO” announcement coming in 2020! More than that… we can’t say!

As we always do, we invite you to share your ideas for new SEO tools and reports! We’re quite big on custom development and we want to help you find solutions for your biggest SEO problems. Let us know how we can help you! 

Of course, we can’t let 2019 slip away without thanking our customers, partners, and friends from within the SEO community. We so very much appreciate your support, feedback, and insights. All we can say is thank you and that we appreciate you more than you can know! Here’s to a great 2020!