Gizmos Week: Free Monitor for Google

This week I am sharing some of my favorite software gizmos from my Web-marketing toolbox.

Today’s gizmo: Free Monitor for Google, by Cleverstats
Tasks: Check your keyword ranking on Google
Cost: Free
Get it here: www.cleverstat.com/google-monitor-query.htm

Checking how you rank on Google can be like checking the hot stock you just bought. But why actually go through the trouble of entering each of your keyword terms and finding where your rank…there is a better way.

Free Monitor lets you enter a number of different URLs, then keyword phrases that you want to check for that URL. Then press the search button and it checks all the keywords for you. Slick!

It gives you green arrows when your ranking improves and dreaded red arrows when you sink. In the right-most pane you can review the results for that keyword, in a condensed form, showing who is ahead or behind you. The only downside is that you can’t print-out the results…I use screen shots instead.

Just today I’ve run into some problems with Google giving results out via this tool. Cleverstats does recommend registering with Google for an API key (there is a menu item which takes you to Google’s API page), which then made the tool work (but not perfectly). I assume this is just temporary and still heartily recommend this program.

But just like checking a hot stock (or other behaviors), don’t get carried away. I usually check just once a month.