How to Check Web Page Ranking in Search Engines

Web-based advertising is exploding. The Internet is a fantastic advertising tool that presents new challenges to those who would like to connect with the large audience that surfs online. If you are running an online business, you should check your Web page ranking in a search engine about once a month.

Instructions

Difficulty: Moderately Easy

Things You’ll Need:

• Internet access
• Computer

The Quick and Dirty Way

1. Find a search engine ranking tool online. Enter “Web page ranking” or a similar parameter in the search engine of your choice, or check out the links in the Resources section.
2. Discover how the search engine ranking tool rates a site. Some search for keywords while others hunt for links to other Web sites.
3. Enter the URL of your site. Most of these online tools require you to enter at least the Web address of the page. You may be required to give the URL keywords as well.
4. Wait for the search engine ranking tool to deliver its results. Some of these tools may take some time to deliver your Web page’s ranking, so be patient.

The Not So Quick and Dirty Way

5. Run a search in the search engine of your choice. The key here is to think like someone who wants to find sites like yours, without using keywords specific to your site.
6. Scan the results page. If you are on the front page, congratulations. If not, you will need to refine your Web site with better content and keywords.
7. Run another search with different search terms. Repeat this process until you feel you have exhausted the possibilities that a typical person would use to find a site like yours.

Tips & Warnings

• What are the URL keywords? Basically they are words in addition to the Web address in the URL that influence how well your Web page will rank on some of the major search engines.
• The good points about the quick and dirty way are that it is quick and dirty. The not so quick and dirty way, although time-consuming, reflects what real human beings will see when they perform a search.
• Search engines are tweaked almost constantly, which affects the way they search for and rank information found on the Internet. Check your search engine ranking about once a month for the most accurate results.