Looking for a better way to track keyword movement for a bunch of small sites

About three months ago, I took on five local business clients, all in different towns. My old method was just checking their main keywords in a spreadsheet once a month, but that fell apart fast. Last week, I spent over six hours just copying and pasting ranks from a free checker for all of them, and I know I missed stuff. It's a mess trying to see what's actually working for the plumber in Dayton versus the cafe in Springfield. I need a system that doesn't eat a whole day. Has anyone set up a simple dashboard or found a tool, even a cheap one, that can handle tracking for multiple small clients without getting crazy complex?

3 comments

3 Comments

abby_fisher5h ago

Totally feel that pain, my spreadsheet for three bakery clients looked like a toddler's art project. @sandragrant is right, it's just noise without a clear picture. I started grouping keywords by service page instead of just tracking "best cupcakes" and "wedding cakes" separately. What's your biggest headache right now, the data collection or making sense of it all?

the_sage11h ago

Six hours on a free rank checker sounds like my own personal hell from last month. I was tracking "emergency locksmith" and "best pancakes" for two different clients and my spreadsheet just turned into colored cells with no real story. I ended up just staring at numbers without knowing what to actually tell them.

sandragrant8h ago

Honestly @the_sage, that sounds like the worst kind of data salad. No wonder you just blanked out staring at it.