Quote:
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The best tool you can use in this regard isn't what Hirst suggested (sorry, Chris, for a change you're not totally right. ) It's whatever site stats you have for your site.
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My comment was a little tongue in cheek
The biggest issue with checking "ranking" for a measure of quality or success in optimisation attempts is, it is just pointless and outdated. 3 or 4 years back when datacentres were synched up once a month or so, you could take it that what you were seeing, the vast majority of users saw exactly the same SERP. Now the results for any given search will likely be different from two computers in the same room on the same network.
We have got;
Continuous rolling synchronisation,
Multiple datacentres with load sharing systems,
Multiple machine racks in each DC also on load sharing,
Localised systems (.co.uk, .de , .be, .in etc) each filtering/resorting results.
Local search results.
Personal search parameters.
And with many more features to be added I'm sure.
So what you see for one search is probably
NOT what another SE user sees.
What Adam suggests is right on the mark.
Use the things at
your disposal to examine how SE users got to your site, then use that info to capitalise and convert on those phrases and words. This is known as "the long tail" of search.
As you work on this "real world" info more phrases will start to appear working for you.
Then you can use the month on month increases in conversions as your measure of how well your optimising is working, not some vacuous and precarious "ranking" that could easily disappear overnight.