How to Find Out Which Keywords Bring Traffic to Your WordPress Site (2024 Guide)
Do you want to know which search queries people type into Google to find your WordPress website? Tracking the keywords that bring you organic traffic provides valuable insights into your audience and SEO performance.
By seeing the exact phrases searchers use to land on your site, you can learn what content resonates with your audience, identify optimization opportunities, and make data-driven decisions to boost your search engine rankings and traffic.
In this comprehensive guide, we‘ll show you 5 simple ways to uncover the keywords people use to discover your WordPress site. Whether you‘re an SEO beginner or a seasoned pro, you‘ll walk away with actionable tips to improve your keyword targeting and get more organic traffic.
Why Is Keyword Tracking Important?
Before we dive into how to track keywords, let‘s discuss why monitoring your keyword rankings matters:
See what‘s working (and what‘s not) – Knowing which keywords drive the most traffic reveals your top-performing content. You can then optimize underperforming content that ranks for relevant keywords to get more clicks and traffic.
Discover new keyword opportunities – Seeing the different ways people find your site may uncover new keyword variations to target. You may find high-volume phrases you‘re not optimized for yet.
Understand your audience – The keywords people use reflect their search intent, needs, and how they phrase their queries. This helps you align your content with searcher intent.
Track your progress – Monitoring keyword positions over time shows if your SEO efforts are working. By watching your rankings improve, you can tie your work to measurable results.
Outrank competitors – Knowing where you stand compared to competitors helps you find keyword gaps and areas for improvement to climb past them in the search results.
Now that you know the importance of keyword tracking, let‘s look at 5 easy methods to see the search queries bringing traffic to your WordPress site.
Method 1: Use Google Search Console to See Your Keyword Rankings
Google Search Console is a free tool that helps you monitor your site‘s presence in Google search results. It‘s the most accurate way to see the actual keywords people use to find your site on Google.
To get started, add your WordPress site to Google Search Console if you haven‘t already. It‘s a simple process and our step-by-step guide walks you through it.
Once your site is verified, click on the "Performance" report in the left sidebar. You‘ll see a graph of your organic search traffic over time as well as several tabs of data below it.
To see your keyword data, scroll down to the "Queries" tab. This shows a list of the search queries your site ranks for in Google, along with key metrics for each keyword:
- Total clicks – How many times searchers clicked your site in the search results
- Total impressions – How many times your site URL appeared in search results
- Average CTR (click-through rate) – The percentage of searchers who clicked your result
- Average position – The average ranking position of your site for that keyword
By default, the list is sorted by clicks with your top traffic-driving keywords first. You can sort by any of the columns to see your most frequently searched or highest ranked keywords.
Click on any keyword to see more details, including the pages that rank for that term, a historical view of your rankings, and a comparison to your other queries.
Use the filters to adjust the time period, compare date ranges, or drill down to a specific page, country, device or search appearance (like rich results).
The Google Search Console "Performance" report gives you the most comprehensive view of your organic keyword rankings. Make it a habit to check your data regularly to track your progress.
Method 2: See Keywords Right in WordPress with AIOSEO Pro
All in One SEO (AIOSEO) is the best WordPress SEO plugin to optimize your site for better rankings. It offers a complete SEO toolkit to help you maximize traffic with less effort.
With the AIOSEO Pro plan, you get powerful SEO features including an advanced XML sitemap, SEO analyzer, local SEO module, link assistant, redirection manager and more. But one of the most useful features is the Keyword Rankings report powered by Google Search Console.
The Keyword Rankings report lets you see your top performing keywords without leaving your WordPress dashboard. AIOSEO pulls in your Google Search Console data and displays it in a user-friendly way.
To access your keyword data, go to All in One SEO > Search Statistics and click on the "Keyword Rankings" tab. You‘ll see a report with your top 50 keywords by number of clicks.
The report shows a trend line for each keyword graphing its ranking position over time. It also shows the number of clicks, average position, impressions and click-through rate for each query.
You can easily see your top winning or losing keywords, i.e. the terms with the biggest positive or negative change in rankings. This helps you quickly spot optimization opportunities.
Click on any keyword to drill down and see the specific pages that rank for that query along with their individual metrics.
The Keyword Rankings report gives you an instant snapshot of your top keywords and SEO progress right in your WordPress dashboard. But the Search Statistics feature offers even more SEO insights, like Top Content, Top Countries and more to help grow your traffic.
Method 3: Check Keywords in Google Analytics
Google Analytics is the most popular web analytics tool that gives you detailed data on your site traffic and visitors. You can connect Google Analytics to Google Search Console to view your organic keyword data and tie it to engagement metrics.
First, sign in to your Google Analytics account and click "Acquisition" in the left sidebar. In the "Search Console" section, click on "Queries".
You‘ll see a list of the top search terms driving organic traffic to your site along with the clicks, impressions and CTR for each one.
Since this report lives in Google Analytics, you can view your keyword data alongside other traffic metrics like bounce rate, pages per session and conversions. This helps you analyze searcher behavior after they land on your site.
However, the Google Analytics Search Console report is more limited than the Search Console interface itself. It only shows your top 1000 search queries and doesn‘t offer as many ways to filter, segment and visualize your data.
So while it‘s convenient to access your keyword data in Google Analytics, it‘s best to analyze your full data in Google Search Console for more insights.
Method 4: Use Semrush to Track Your (and Your Competitors‘) Keywords
Semrush is a popular SEO and competitive analysis tool. Its Position Tracking tool lets you track your site‘s daily keyword rankings, monitor your progress over time, and see how you stack up against your competitors.
To use it, enter your domain in the Semrush search bar and go to the "Organic Research" section. There you‘ll see a report of all the keywords your site ranks for in Google‘s top 100 search results.
The report shows your ranking position, estimated monthly search volume, keyword difficulty score, and the URL that ranks for each term.
You can analyze your top performing pages, spot keywords where you‘re ranking just off page one, and identify low-hanging opportunities to boost your traffic.
But the real power of Semrush is competitive intelligence. Enter a competitor‘s domain to see which keywords they rank for that you don‘t. Identify gaps in your content strategy and find new keyword ideas to go after.
The Keyword Gap tool makes competitive analysis easy. Enter your domain plus up to 4 competitors to compare your keyword rankings side-by-side and discover untapped opportunities to gain market share.
Semrush offers tons of other keyword research tools too, like the Keyword Magic Tool which generates keyword ideas and long-tail variations based on a seed keyword.
While Semrush is a paid tool, it‘s well worth the investment to track your keyword rankings, do competitor research, and grow your organic traffic strategically. You can try it out with a free 7-day trial.
Method 5: Uncover Even More Keyword Insights with Ahrefs
Ahrefs is another popular SEO tool for keyword research and competitor analysis. Its Rank Tracker tool monitors your keyword rankings across 170+ countries and helps you visualize your progress.
Enter your domain name and Ahrefs will show you a report of all the keywords you rank for. You can see your position history over time, search volume, keyword difficulty, the URL that ranks, and more.
Like Semrush, you can also plug in a competitor‘s site to see which keywords they rank for. Use the Competing Domains or Content Gap tools to find your top search competitors and spot keywords unique to their site.
Ahrefs‘ Keywords Explorer provides even more keyword ideas based on a seed keyword or URL. Get thousands of keyword suggestions along with SEO metrics to gauge ranking difficulty and traffic potential.
There‘s also a handy "Traffic Share by Pages" report that shows which pages bring in the most traffic for a given keyword. Use it to find your competitors‘ top-performing posts and create better content on the same topic to outrank them.
While Ahrefs offers similar features to Semrush, many SEOs consider its keyword data more extensive and reliable. However, it comes at a higher price point. It‘s a worthwhile investment for serious bloggers, affiliate marketers or SEO agencies.
Tips to Improve Your Keyword Rankings
Once you know which keywords bring traffic to your site, how can you optimize your content to rank higher and get more clicks? Here are a few tips:
Look for "low-hanging fruit" keywords – These are the phrases where you rank on page 2 or 3 and only need to move up a few spots to greatly increase your traffic. Update those posts by expanding the content, building more links, and improving your on-page SEO.
Optimize for engagement and CTR – If you rank well for a keyword but have a low click-through rate, your search snippets may not be enticing enough. Optimize your titles and meta descriptions to grab searchers‘ attention and earn more clicks.
Use the "Middleman Method" – If competitors are outranking you, analyze their content to see what you can do better. Make your posts more in-depth, engaging, and well-designed. Google the keyword yourself and aim to create the best result.
Do fresh keyword research – Your keyword data can reveal new search terms to pursue. Plug your top keywords into a keyword research tool to find related keywords and long-tail variations to incorporate into your content.
Track your progress – Choose a keyword position tracking tool and monitor your rankings regularly. Measuring your results over time is the only way to know if your SEO strategy is working.
By following these tips and keeping an eye on your keyword data, you can gradually improve your Google rankings and get more organic traffic to your WordPress site.
We hope this in-depth guide has helped you learn how to see the keywords people use to find your site. With this data-driven approach to SEO, you can take your WordPress site to the next level and get more search traffic than ever before.
