As a German SEO copywriter, I know that without SEO monitoring, you will never know how hard your website is working for you. Your content may be great. But without monitoring it, you can’t be sure how well it’s REALLY performing. In this article I will show you what you need for content monitoring, which tools are suitable – and how you can use them to permanently improve your content (for the German market and in general). Let’s get started!
SEO without monitoring = driving without GPS
Imagine you’re on a hike. You have a destination, but no Google Maps and no road signs. You just walk along and hope that you will find the right direction.
Along the way, you might discover beautiful landscapes. But in the end you will get lost, take forever, and waste a lot of time and energy. Maybe, you will never even reach your destination. #XFiles
SEO and content marketing without monitoring is just like hiking without a map.
You don’t know whether your content is well received and where that leaves your website. You can only hope and guess whether your content will bring the desired results.
And hoping and guessing is not a good strategy.
With the help of a monitoring tool, you always know which keywords you are ranking for and for which you aren’t. On this base, you can create an SEO report in which you can determine the necessary measures.
This will save you time and get you to your goal faster = your website will be found on Google.
The foundation: A solid SEO content strategy
Before you start monitoring, you need a SEO content strategy that contains the most important keywords, is aligned with your business goals and the search intent of your target group.
Only then can you monitor and optimize the right content.
(I explain how to create such an SEO strategy in the article “Content Strategy for SEO ‒ in 5 1/2 Steps“).
You can only monitor the success of your SEO copy once you have determined which keyword set your website should rank for. Through SEO monitoring, you can see exactly how your content is performing for those important keywords.
In the case of monswap-solutions.com, for example, it looks like this:
- My #1 keyword is “german seo copywriter”.
- Other important keywords include “german seo”, “german content writer” or “german copywriter”.
- I also want to rank for my services with keywords such as “seo for hotels”, “german website translation” or “german blogger”.
In the long term, content monitoring will save you time and resources and allow you to make targeted improvements to your SEO content. And create or edit content in such a way that it appeals to your target group.
5 top tools for monitoring your content
One of the most frequent questions I am asked in my consulting work is: Which tools do you use for SEO monitoring? Of course, there are countless tools worldwide that you can use for monitoring.
Here are five software tools that have proven useful for me as an SEO copywriter in Germany.
Sistrix: The SEO monitoring all-rounder
Sistrix is my favourite when it comes to content monitoring. (And for keyword research as well, by the way).
You can use this tool to continuously check the visibility of your website: It shows you which URLs rank for which keywords – and how your rankings are changing.
You can also use it to create clear reportings that contain exactly the information you need. Even branded with your own logo if you wish so.
Month after month, you can use this analysis to celebrate victories, recognise weaknesses and make targeted improvements to your SEO content.
I particularly like Sistrix’s “traffic estimate” which points out the value of organic traffic on your website:
How many visitors have you brought to your website through SEO? And what would the same traffic cost if you were to place adverts for it?
With this figure, you can perfectly estimate the ROI of your website and justify budgets for your SEO measures.
Mangools: Simple, low budget, effective
Simply paste your keyword set into Mangools’ SERPWatcher – and sit back. It is a wonderful tool if you want to monitor your rankings on a daily basis.
(By the way, looking at this tool is the first thing I do each morning).
Every week, every month, every quarter, the tool will automatically send you an SEO report that you can use to keep track of how your content is performing.
Even more monitoring tools: Ubersuggest, SEMrush & Ahrefs
In addition to the better-known tools Sistrix and Mangools in Germany, there are other (international) SEO suites that you can use to monitor content performance:
- With Ubersuggest you can research keywords and find content ideas.
- SEMrush offers detailed insights into competitive analysis and helps you with optimising your SEO strategy.
- Ahrefs is particularly strong when it comes to analysing backlinks and monitoring keyword rankings.
I use those tools to monitor and effectively improve my clients’ SEO efforts.
So which one is best for you? It all depends on what else you want to do with it apart from content monitoring and SEO reporting.
Hang in there! Use data to drive your website
SEO is not a sprint, but a marathon. So keep at it and check your data regularly. Only with monitoring and reporting can you keep an eye on the data situation and ensure that your website remains successful in the long term.
I am happy to support you in this.
What clients ask me about SEO monitoring …
What is SEO monitoring?
Monitoring content means that you continuously check and analyse all copy and image content on your website: static pages, blog posts, landing pages.
This will allow you to identify the pages that are performing well – and those that are not (as much). This way, monitoring allows you to continuously improve your website.
How does content monitoring work?
You can use SEO tools such as Sistrix or Mangools for content monitoring.
These tools keep track of your website: They show you how each of your pages is performing and which of them are bringing in how much traffic.
This way you can see how your website is performing for your keyword set – and where there is still room for improvement.
Is it even possible to measure the quality of website copy?
Yes, it is absolutely possible to assess the quality of content.
You can do this by monitoring the performance of your website content. Use monitoring tools to obtain exact data: visitor numbers, time spent on site, interactions, bounce rate.
This data shows you whether your copy is being well received – or should be optimised. That way, you always keep track of your content and can improve your website strategically.
What benefits do you have from content monitoring?
Monitoring can help you to optimise your website more effectively. You can see which content is performing well and which is not:
In other words: Which blog post does people read? Which landing page do people click on most regularly?
This insight allows you to make targeted improvements and constantly improve your SEO strategy – saving you time, resources, and budget.
What mistakes should you avoid in SEO monitoring?
The biggest mistake up front: not doing it at all. So do it. Set up your SEO monitoring.
And avoid the following pitfalls if possible:
- Checking too rarely: A common mistake is to look at your monitoring tool too infrequently. SEO data changes quickly, almost in real time. If you only check your data once a year, you will miss important developments.
- Wrong metrics: Which KPIs are really important for your content marketing: visibility, click-through rates, certain keywords, competitor performance? Set up your tool precisely for those metrics – that way you can draw the right conclusions and work with them.
- Frequent tool changes: If you change reporting tools or providers frequently, your reports will no longer be easy to compare. This makes it difficult to identify trends. A case of comparing apples and oranges. You can do that, but it’s useless.
The important thing is to start monitoring your content in the first place.
Then the monitoring tool can work and collect data. And you can fine-tune the KPIs bit by bit.
