How do I properly look up my Google rankings?

As a business owner you might wonder how you can easily figure out where you are ranking in search results for a given term. There is actually a certain way of doing this to prevent seeing a personalized result, or cached result. Most users will have never searched or interacted with your company before, which makes it very important for you to check your rankings in the same way that they will be served to your potential customers. Before we get into exactly how to properly check your rankings, we need to take some time and consider a couple of things.

1. The query that I am looking up
2. The Geographic location

Considerations for a Search Engine Query

More commonly refereed to as a “Keyword” the search query is the keyword or phrase that you typing into the search bar. To check rankings make sure you are very specific with what query you are checking as even small things like punctuation can affect the rankings that are presented.

How do I know what my Geographic location is set to?

Within the Google search engine you will see a button labeled “Search tools”. This is found right below a search after a query is sent. It will show what your geographic location is set to. In most cases it will be set to the current location you are searching from. If you change this location it will likely affect the results displayed from your query, especially specific terms or services that aren’t specified by location. For example if you search “Plumber” your result will likely differ depending on the city, state and even country that you have your location set to. To be accurate, make sure this is set to the users that you are targeting and feel free to change it to the other nearby areas to see how you are ranking in those locations.