What is the value in doing/knowing rank checks?

[imlovinseo]

What is the value in doing/knowing rank checks?

[auke1810]

I agree, rank checking is only one metric you need to follow in order to know if your on track in reaching your goals. You should also track the website goals and business goals you achieve with your organic search results. Your goal should never be first rank but optimized ROI from organic search.

So rank checking is only the first layer you need to keep track off.

[crackingmedia]

Hi, doing rank checks helps you to check the progress of your SEO efforts and also those of your main competitors. The Moz rank tracker doesn't just show you this week's rank but over time it records the changes in the ranking of your pages. There's more info on Moz's tool here: http://moz.com/help/pro/rank-tracker

The majority of people searching will not search past the first page of search results, so if you can get page 1 listings for the keywords you are optimising your pages for then ultimately you will get more clicks through to your site.

Having said that, what appears in the search results is changing a lot and Google's latest Hummingbird update will affect that more. So, rank checking is not the only thing you should focus upon. There are lots of things you need to check and give attention to. Rank checking is just one metric in the toolbox.

I hope that helps,
Peter