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Blog > Free Google Rank Checker: Find Your Top Ranking Keywords
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You can use the Google rank checker to find your top keywords driving the majority of traffic to your site.
This tool provides a basic ranking check for free. All you need to do is enter your domain, and it will show you the latest ranking data for your keywords on Google.
There are two types of analyses you can perform with this website rank checker:
With these insights, you can see what's exactly working for you and the discover new keyword opportunities that your competitors are capitalizing on.
While signing up isn't needed, you can explore the data in greater detail for additional ranking keywords by creating a free Semrush account.
Did you know that if you’re not on the first page of Google, 99+% of searchers will never see your site?
To make sure you’re getting valuable traffic, you’ll want to check your position in Google’s search engine results pages (SERPs) and fight for a spot on the first page.
According to the latest SEO statistics, Google gets more than 90% of all search traffic.
Tools like ChatGPT don’t come close – at least, not yet.
And ranking on the first page is super important.
As a first step, I recommend checking your current positions using the tool at the top of this page. All SEO begins from
How often should I check my rankings? As an SEO beginner, checking once a week is enough. This will allow you to review the overall trend without worrying about normal daily fluctuations.
First, scroll up to our free keyword rank checker at the top of this page.
Enter your website domain (or a competitor's domain) and click “View Rankings".
Review your results to see which SEO keywords are currently driving traffic to your site.
These may not be the keywords you expected – but don’t panic.
Let’s run through the columns.
The Keyword column in the Google rank checker shows you the keywords that are driving the most traffic.
Our Google rank checker tool estimates the amount of traffic that each keyword is responsible for, which is displayed in the “Traffic %” column.
Here’s an example of a coffee retailer whose brand name drives more than 68% of its traffic.
This site also gets 1.1% from the commercial keyword “organic coffee”.
Commercial keywords, like a brand name, satisfy searchers who are looking to research products. "Organic coffee" is also a commercial keyword since searchers tend to be looking for a product to buy.
Our free keyword checker doesn’t show you the search intent, but a free Semrush account will provide you that information, so it’s worth signing up to verify the intent.
The “Rank” column shows you the current ranking position in the Google results when someone searches for the keyword.
Remember: the vast majority of search engine traffic goes to positions 1-3. (That means the first, second, and third result, once you scroll past the ads and AI overviews in the search results.)
If you see an arrow next to your ranking, it indicates that there has been a recent change. Green arrows show improvement in the keyword rank, and red arrows represent a decline.
What if rankings suddenly drop? If you see a red arrow, it indicates your rankings dropped on Google. Don't panic! Remember that Google’s systems constantly make small adjustments to rankings.
Your site could move up and down from one day to the next, based on things like how people are engaging with your site.
That’s why there’s no need to check your rankings every day in most cases.
Seeing a consistent fall in your position? If the drop is significant, and gets worse over a few weeks:
SEO isn’t an exact science. There are a ton of moving parts. The trick is to understand why the drop happened so you can course-correct.
“Volume” is a measure of how many times a keyword is searched for in an average month.
Keep in mind that search volume is an estimated value. (I’ve targeted keywords with a volume of “0” and still generated traffic that converted well.)
You can get more clues from the “Search Trend” charts at the end of each row. These charts show you how the volume is changing – super helpful when tracking seasonal keywords and trending topics.
These two metrics indicate how much competition you have.
First, “KD %” stands for keyword difficulty percentage. This metric is most useful for small sites that are still building organic traffic (which means traffic from Google and other search engines).
While starting SEO as a beginner, it’s usually best to focus on low difficulty keywords.
Low difficulty and high volume is the ideal combination.
It can be difficult to find keywords with those characteristics. They are out there, though, and you can use this free keyword difficulty checker to find them.
Moving on, “CPC” stands for cost-per-click. It’s a metric most used in search engine marketing.
The cost-per-click is the amount you would have to pay for a click if you ran ads for that keyword. (The more people are competing for it, the higher the cost.)
While CPC isn’t an SEO metric, it can be handy to know which keywords are attracting the highest bids. This indicates there are brands competing for the traffic from that keyword and consider it to be worth paying for.
Number of results is a simple metric that shows you how many results show in Google’s results when you search for the keyword.
Take this with a pinch of salt!
Semrush is very accurate overall, but the number of websites, web pages, and domains is constantly changing. The number of results column just gives you a general idea of what you’re up against.
Explore competitors’ website traffic stats, discover growth points, and expand your market share.
The primary goal of all SEO is to rank as high as possible on Google. This is what gets you
Before you can rank higher on Google, you need to decide the specific keywords to target. The first step is getting into the head of a customer and ‘speaking their language’.
What would your ideal customer search for if they needed your services?
If you’re stuck, there is an easy way to take a shortcut.
Use the rank checker (top of this page) to check a competing website. See what they rank for.
That can kick-start your brainstorming process.
The actual keyword itself isn’t the only factor. If you’re a beginner in SEO, it’s best to target keywords with lower difficulty first.
For example, specific phrases like "affordable plumber in Chicago" are easier to rank for and more targeted than just "plumber".
Google wants to show users the most helpful content.
Professionals who write and edit a ton of content (like me) hear this phrase all the time. But what does ‘helpful’ actually mean?
Google has a set of standards for its quality for reviewers to follow when assigning a Page Quality (PQ) rating. It’s called the Quality Rater’s Guidelines. And it reveals precisely what Google is looking for in a high quality web page.
The QRG says:
“High quality main content should be satisfying for people visiting the page. High quality main content shows evidence of effort, originality, talent, or skill. For informational pages, High quality main content must be accurate and consistent with well-established expert consensus when such consensus exists.”
So it’s clear that you need to:
The guidelines also state that you should not rely heavily on AI-generated content as a fast way to produce large amounts of content. It might indicate a lack of effort. The QRG says:
“The Lowest rating applies if all or almost all of the main content on the page (including text, images, audio, videos, etc) is copied, paraphrased, embedded, auto or AI generated, or reposted from other sources with little to no effort, little to no originality, and little to no added value for visitors to the website.”
Google also wants to see that your business is directly connected to the type of content that you create. Writing content around a specific topic, or niche, is called building topical authority.
And to demonstrate that your business knows its stuff, you’ll need to show evidence of EEAT.
EEAT stands for expertise, experience, authoritativeness, and trust. Google has created a diagram to explain how trust is supported by the other three factors.
If your content creators are experienced, have known qualifications, or can prove their expertise in another way, people will trust what they say.
For example, a nutritionist who writes about fitness topics is likely to be considered a trusted source of information about supplements.
It would be great if you could write interesting content and instantly achieve a great ranking position.
But quality is not enough on its own.
Once you have good content, make sure Google can understand it. Optimization is the final step in the process.
Content optimization is a big topic. These are just the basics. We’ve got more tips in this guide to improving on page SEO.
Once you’re happy that you’ve optimized your content, go ahead and publish it.
How long does it take to rank on Google? For new websites, it typically takes 3-6 months to start ranking for less competitive keywords. For more competitive terms, it can take 12+ months of consistent effort to achieve a good keyword ranking position.
Content that's outdated loses rankings over time.
There can be many reasons for this, and I touched on some earlier:
To combat this, you can:
Content updates should be part of your SEO maintenance strategy. For more information, you can check out our guide to content audits, which includes a free template.
While I don't recommend checking your rankings every day, you still need to keep a pulse on your search presence to make sure you're able to act fast if your keywords start dropping.
At the same time, rank tracking helps you stay informed about the keywords that are rising on Google for you, so you know exactly what's working and what isn't.
But rank tracking is continuous process. As a result, it's beyond the scope of free tools that can only perform a basic rank check for your domain when prompted.
Instead, you'll for long-term SEO planning, you need paid tools to monitor your search performance.
The Semrush Position Tracking tool is perfect for this. It tracks your positions on Google comprehensively.
In addition to positions, Semrush also gives you a clear picture about the SERP features like AI Overviews and featured snippets that you're currently occupying.
You can also track your rankings in Google AI Mode and AI tools like ChatGPT.
With automatic tracking across the board, I find that it greatly enhances my ability to spot underperforming keywords that I can boost back to the top with a careful content update.
At the same time, I can find my best keywords and optimize them for conversions.
The pages with the highest visibility give you the best chance for converting that traffic into paying customers, so don't hesitate to experiment with adding conversion elements.
Hopefully, you’ve learned how our Google rank checker can help you to get more traffic to your site, so let’s clear up a few questions before I wrap up.
No, you don’t need to pay to rank on Google. You can pay for Google Ads; they appear at the top of results. But organic rankings come from creating helpful content and following a good SEO strategy.
Fortunately, there are a ton. Here are some I recommend you start with:
That said, don’t sign up for a bunch of tools that will overwhelm you. Remember these key SEO tips:
From here, I recommend these additional SEO resources for beginners who want to rank on Google:
Use real-time topic data to create content that resonates and brings results.
Exploding Topics is owned by Semrush. Our mission is to provide accurate data and expert insights on emerging trends. Unless otherwise noted, this page’s content was written by either an employee or a paid contractor of Semrush Inc.
Use real-time topic data to create content that resonates and brings results.
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Written By
Claire Broadley
Freelance Content Editor
Claire Broadley is the Lead Editor at Exploding Topics, where she oversees editorial workflows, SEO strategy, and content quality…. Read more
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