The Importance of Tracking SERPs and How To Do It In 2025

One of the indicators by which you can check the effectiveness of the website’s SEO is the position in the search results. If the chosen strategy is effective, you will see the website in the top 5 positions on the organic search results. Conversely, if the site does not increase its position, this is a signal to check whether you have the right SEO strategy.

It is also important to realize that having taken a place at the top of the search results once, the site will not stay there forever. You need to monitor the position of the website to be aware of its success. If you track SERPs regularly, you will notice unwanted changes and take action in time.

What is SERP Tracking?

What is a search engine results page (SERP)? It is a set of websites that a search engine provides to a user in response to their search query. These results are generated based on a series of algorithms that evaluate the relevance and authority of web pages in response to a given query.

SERP tracking includes systematically monitoring and analyzing a website’s position in search engine results for specific search queries (keywords). This process allows webmasters and SEO specialists to understand:

The importance of SERP cannot be overemphasized. If you track competitor SERP rankings regularly, you can adjust your strategy on time or find new ideas for website optimization.

Benefits of SERP Tracking for Marketing Agencies

Here’s a breakdown of how effective SERP tracking can improve an agency’s SEO efforts.

Competitor Rankings Analysis

Of all available SERP tracking features, competitor ranking analysis is one of the most valuable for the marketing agency. It can track how their client’s website is standing against competitors, who are ranking higher, and why. SERP analysis will expose which tactics have worked for others and can reveal new players in the market that may be a competitive threat.

Professional tools, such as the SE Ranking’s SERP tracker, go way beyond in-depth scanning of SERP to collect critical SEO metrics. Agencies outline shared patterns among competitors. This allows them to develop new pages that align with what is going right for the organic rankings of their competitors. 

SERP monitoring gives agencies an edge in refining their strategies so that they may stay competitive. It also serves to identify rising businesses and trends that may directly affect a client’s positioning in the market. This places the agencies ahead by informing them of early strategy adjustments.

Monitoring Organic Search Rankings

Well, monitoring organic search rankings is of prime importance for an agency to know how well SEO has been effective. You can see the keyword rankings in real time using SERP tracking tools, observing the shifts and trends. This gives a good idea of your SEO campaigns to the granular level to show where improvements are needed.

For example, agencies can examine what keywords actually give them better rankings, how those keywords are integrated throughout the pages, and how their placement helps with the ranking outcome. 

Knowing that will enable agencies to refine their SEO keyword strategy so they better target the right terms in the right amounts. Changing keyword placement on high-priority pages may yield significant organic traffic over time.

Understanding Search Intent

SERP monitoring also gives agencies a better sense of search intent, which is now very important in SEO. Search intent means what users are actually looking for when they input a query.

For example, an agency may want to rank for “SEO agency price” with a page showing how much its services cost. But when they start analyzing the SERPs for that keyword, they’ll find that the top results are informational articles about the cost of SEO in general and not service-based pages. In this case, the agency would have to rewrite and provide an extended-length article explaining the costs of SEO to meet search intent.

Identify Drops in Traffic

Other functionalities of SERP tracking tools include alerting agencies when there are sudden drops in traffic and/or rankings. Monitoring keyword performance over time lets them instantly find negative trends that they can investigate for root causes and implement solutions before the issue gets worse. 

That could mean anything from detecting Google updates to increased competition for particular keywords, technical problems such as indexing problems, or site errors pulling down rankings.

Recognizing New Opportunities for Growth

Perhaps one of the most important advantages that SERP monitoring can have for agencies is the potential to find new opportunities. By continuously tracking SERPs, an agency may find newly discovered keywords, trends, or niches that were not considered previously.

For example, if an agency is monitoring a client’s rankings, it may learn who competitors are for new industry terms or recognize types of content like videos or blog posts that top out on a consistent basis. This helps create effective SEO content.

How to Track SERPs?

So, SERP tracking means analyzing and checking the site’s position regularly. Best SEO agencies in the USA know that there is no single correct way to do this because each site is unique and requires different SEO efforts. You can try to use the methods that we have presented below and choose those that will suit you.

Manual Tracking

Tracing the place occupied by the site in the search engine results can be done manually. However, it is only possible for small websites with a few pages, so it’s especially ineffective and time-consuming for agencies.

To do manual tracking, you need to enter incognito mode and open Google. Further actions are quite simple, as you enter your target keywords one by one and check what page and where a link to your website is.

The advantage of this method is the ability to familiarize yourself with the sites that occupy the leading positions. Looking through the websites of competitors, you can study their methods of promotion, be inspired by them for your project, make changes in its development, and improve the SEO strategy.

Another undeniable plus of manual SERP monitoring is a minimum financial investment. Since you do not need additional services, most of the costs will be the salary of employees involved in SERP monitoring.

The main disadvantage of manual SERP monitoring is the large time costs. Requests can be very, very many, and since monitoring is recommended to be performed regularly, the work will be monotonous. This leads to another critical disadvantage—the human factor. The monotony of the work process, employee fatigue, inattention, and blurred vision can cause inaccurate monitoring results. And such results will only distance you from the first positions in the search engine.

Use a Professional Tool

To date, there are many services and programs that can be used to track the position of the website. They all require to pay for use, so this method is more expensive than manual SERP monitoring.

At the same time, the time spent on monitoring will be reduced because the program makes a quick check for all the necessary queries and parameters. In addition, the results obtained will be accurate, and program errors due to fatigue are impossible.

The SERP tracker by SE Ranking provides real-time keyword search results tailored to specific locations and scans websites in the SERP for key SEO metrics. Simply enter a keyword, and it will display the top-ranking content, reveal your competitors and their website traffic, assess the strength of their domains, and highlight the various page features.

This tool covers all the necessary metrics to get ahead of your competitors. You will easily understand if you need to rewrite or update your content, build more backlinks, or work on better on-page SEO.

What’s more, this tool allows for quick, automated reports that you can generate and share with clients or stakeholders. Instead of juggling multiple tabs and cross-referencing data, the whole process is streamlined. That’s why the SERP tracker is particularly valuable for agencies and professionals managing numerous clients at once.

Google Search Console

Google Search Console is an online service that checks the position of a website. You need to go to the “Performance” tab. From there, you can view queries, pages, and other metrics, including average position, impressions, and clicks. Some tips for comfortable work with GSC:

It offers some useful insights into how your site is performing in search. Still, it falls short in the competition department. While it’s good for tracking your website’s keywords and positions, it doesn’t show how your competitors are doing. You won’t get information on SERP features or how your domain strength compares.

How to Use SERP Tracking Data for Project Success in 2025?

SERP rankings tracking is the quintessential tool through which agencies drive project success in 2025. Here’s how to get the most out of tracking SERPs.

Select the Right Keywords to Track

The foundation of SEO is choosing the right set of keywords to target and track. Agencies need to track keywords that matter most to their clients’ businesses. Focus on high-impact keywords driving traffic and conversion, but don’t neglect those emerging or long-tail keywords. Even though their search volumes may be comparatively low, they can serve up highly targeted audiences.

In 2025, search behavior will be further extended to voice search. According to Bold Marketing, 30% of internet users aged 16-64 worldwide use voice assistants each week. According to Yaguara, over 50% of the worldwide population uses voice search daily in 2024.

Agencies should identify and track keywords that match this trend while optimizing how users actually search. SERP analysis tools allow agencies to monitor keyword rankings across different locations and devices for a comprehensive view of search performance.

Adapt Your SEO Strategies

The data of SERP should lead directly to your SEO strategy. One can’t just track ranks; one has to alter the tactics to see what the data says. Say, for instance, that one competitor seems to consistently outrank the client on a particular keyword. Analyze that competitor’s content and see what works: maybe they are integrating backlinks more, using longer content pieces, or optimizing for a different search intent altogether.

In order to precisely meet the current search intent, optimize on-page SEO elements, or even construct new pages based on identified gaps in the current market, refreshing content may be required. Agencies can lead the charge for growth in clients by adapting quickly at the speed of SERP rankings shifts in 2025.

Conclusion

To make the work on the SEO of your website pages productive and enjoyable, you should introduce regular SERP and keyword tracking. So you will have timely access to information about the effectiveness of your chosen SEO strategy. It is easier to solve the problem “on the shore” than when it has already consumed the fruits of your labors. Keep your finger on the pulse by tracking SERPs, and your website will develop and bring pleasure and success.