Many of you have been asking us how you can track your rankings in Google.

I’ve known of a number of free tools, but typically you have to enter one keyword at a time, and then the tool only shows you the search results at that one time. They don’t let you track rankings over time—which is what matters.

Good news: I found this neat, free tool that you can use to track up to 10 keywords for your website which is more than enough for most therapists.

That tool is called Serpfox.

(The below video walks you through how to setup Serpfox for your private practice website.)

Our (Free) Favorite Website Ranking Tracking Tool

All you need to do is visit Serpfox.com, then click on “Sign up” in the top right hand corner. From there you’ll create a free account to track up to 10 keywords. Once your account is created, simply add the URL of your therapy website to the tool, then add up to 10 keywords that you want to track.

Next, select which search engine you’d like the tool the search. We usually recommend focusing on Google.

You also have the option to choose what country, state, or city you want to see search results for. If you’re in the United States, you won’t need to update the Country option. Also, make sure to choose city and state where your practice is based.

Make sure to select Mobile tracking results. Why? Because Google uses mobile-first indexing, so if you rank well on mobile you tend to rank well on desktop.

When you save all your selected options, Serpfox will search the search engine(s) you chose. The neat thing is that you can sort the results by highest to lowest ranking, lowest to highest ranking, and a number of other options.

Know Your Keyword Volume

You also have the option to search keywords by volume. I want to caution you: don’t worry if it says there’s no search volume for your term or that it’s really low.

For instance, we know we get quite a bit of traffic for the keyword “adwords for therapists.” People find us all the time and have us assemble adwords for them, even though Google reports that there’s not a lot of search volume for the keyword. But we can see we’re getting traffic from the keyword.

No tool is perfect. What Serpfox is good at is tracking rankings, not necessarily volume.

So, don’t worry about volume, though it can be interesting to see.

If the volume for the keyword is 140, that’s a higher term than some other keywords. For instance, “counseling websites” gets searched a lot more than “websites for counselors,” so we focus on ranking for “counseling websites.” In this instance, Serpfox’s volume metric was useful. (We also made sure to use other tools to double-check the keyword’s volume!)

Another nifty feature with Serpfox is that you can see what the rankings look like over time by just clicking the graph icon.

If your rank goes down for a keyword, you might want to write another blog post about that topic to bring it back up.

Are Your Efforts Bearing Fruit?

Overall, Serpfox helps you see how you’re website is doing. Just keep in mind that it takes time to collect the ranking data. Typically, Serpfox becomes helpful after a number of months, since you’ll then understand just how well your site is performing.

It’s not your rankings on any particular day that matters, but your rankings over time.

And thanks to Serpfox, you can see if all your efforts with blogging, SEO, and social media are paying off over time.