Today I want to talk about my favorite keyword rank checker for Amazon Niche Website Affiliates: Microsite Masters. I have been using Microsite Masters since the day it launched. I actually do remember meeting the founder at the Affiliate Summit West years ago. My affiliate business consists of a large number of Amazon affiliate websites. Currently I have about 400 websites that I need to track rankings on and this has presented quite the unique challenges sometimes.
Managing a large number of affiliate websites can be challenging. Hosting, website updates, backups and uptime monitoring are just a few issues I have encountered over the years. I plan to talk about all of these in more detail on this website soon. For now I want to focus on the unique challenge of finding a good website rank checker.
How do you know if the Microsite Masters SEOP rank tracker right for you?
The important factor when deciding on a Google keyword rank checker is that it works for your unique business. Every affiliate business is different and might have very different needs for rank tracking. For example if you have only one large affiliate website you mainly care about the amount of keyword you can track in your plan. If you have a local affiliate or lead gen site you probably want a rank tracker that has local features. However if you have a larger website portfolio the most important factor is how many domains can you track with your rank tracking tool. So before you decide on a rank tracker make sure to look at your business model and see if it is a good match. I would also look down the line to see if it makes sense long term once your business expands.
If you fin a good rank tracker you probably want to stick with it, so you can compare your data easily over the years. If you switch rank trackers every year it will add another level of complexity to comparing ranking changes over longer timeframes.
Top Keyword Rank Tracker Deciding Factor for me
When I was looking for a keyword rank tracker that would work for me I realized very soon that there are not many options out there that accommodate tracking of many domains – or even unlimited domains. And this why I finally decided on Microsite Masters and have used the tool for almost 10 years now. Microsite Masters was the only tool I found that allowed me to track unlimited domains for a fairly low price. Additional most of my domains were EMDs, so I only needed to track a few main keyword for each site.
In the SEO rank tracking business it seems everyone is focused on keyword tracking and not domain tracking, so I would say this is definitely what makes this rank tracking tool unique.
Now that I have discussed my main factor for using the Microsite Masters search engine ranking checker let’s have a look at the features and also I will show how I use the tool and what I mainly look at.
Detailed Microsite Masters Review
Features Walkthrough
Dashboard
On the Dashboard you can find a quick overview over all your projects, websites and rankings. It’s a quick and easy way to see how rankings are developing.
Project Wizard
This where you setup new projects in 3 steps. Give it a name, enter domain and select options and add your keywords to track.
Manage Projects
This is where all your projects are listed. You can select each project to see ranking information for al your keywords inside that project. You can then analyze keyword rankings over time for each keyword and also see which page on your site ranks for the keyword and see who else rakings in the top 10 and how top 10 positions have changed overt time. All these are very powerful features and really allow a very detailed analysis for each keyword.
Each Keyword View has 3 sections: Ranking Graph, Ranking Analysis, Ranking Table, which really helps with get a good idea on how rankings are developing.
Here you can also add ranking alerts and notes, as well as switch to a detailed view of the top 10 competitors for the keyword.
View Keywords
This provides an overview over all the keyword tracked in your account.
API
Here is your API information (I have not used this feature – so can’t speak on it)
Create Reports
This is a great feature if you need to create white label reports for clients or business partners. I haven’t used this feature much but it is definitely useful and it’s very easy to customize the reports.
View Scoreboard
Another easy way to check performance. Shows best and worst performing keywords daily for the whole account
View Rank Alerts
Here you can see all your rank alerts. I haven’t setup any because I check my rankings every other day, but this can be a useful feature for clients or to monitor a campaign if you don’t log into your account that often.
Review Notes
Here you can see all your notes. If you work with clients and want to document your link building and onpage work this is very helpful. I haven’t used this feature much and currently don’t have any notes. You can add notes for each keyword separately.
Import CSV
Here you can add projects in batch.
Manage Projects Access
Here you can add users to access the accounts and select which user can see which projects.
Submit a Ticket
This takes you to their main contact form where you can submit a support ticket. I have had mixed success with their support and have to say this is a clear week point of this tool. Support can take a while to get back to you and the ticket system is not as professional as it could be.
Interface / Usability
In my opinion the overall interface of this keyword position checker is very easy to navigate. The tool is user-friendly and everything is easy and intuitive. Checking serp rankings is quick and easy. All in all I really like the simple and clean interface and it is less confusing to me than other rank tracking software. I also like how easy it is to look back in time and see ranking changes over time and compare your rankings to your competitors.
Biggest Pros
- track unlimited domains/pages
- daily ranking updates
- easy to analyze rankings over time
- competitor analysis for top 10 rankings
- dashboards for quick and easy overview
Cons
- No free or low cost plan
- Lowest plan tracks only 1500 keywords
- Email support not always responsive / no live chat or phone support
- Look and feel is basic but hasn’t been updated, so the design is a little aged
- Sometimes technical issues take a while to be fixed
Price
For the Microsite Masters Google rank tracker pricing is starting at 49.95 per month. There is no low cost entry plan available and this is a big minus in my opinion. If you are just starting out or don’t have a lot of revenue from your affiliate sites I would not recommend this tool to keep cost low. However as soon as you have more than 10 websites and generate at least a $1000 in revenue per month I would invest in Microsite Masters especially if you plan to build out more websites. This way you will have historic ranking data available as soon as you can afford it.
Reliability
Overall Microsite Masters has been reliable for me over the years. However there were a few instances over time when the tool had technical issues with search engine rank tracking and didn’t track rankings correctly for a while. This was very frustrating, especially since support was slow to respond and it tool a while for the team to fix the issues. I would say this has been the biggest frustration over the years. However, I still value my long term data and in the end everything was always working correctly again, so I was ok with dealing with these issues for a little while, especially since I couldn’t find another tool that would allow me to track unlimited domains for such a low price.
Support
The support is the other negative factor of Microsite Masters. The only way to contact support is through email through their support form. This can be frustrating, since you have to wait on them to respond by email and this can sometimes take a few days. I wish they would add a chat support feature as well. Additional their social media accounts are not being updated, and if you contact the company throughs social media they are not responsive. My advice would be for them to also start utilizing their social media accounts an start responding to customers there as well.
Final Verdict
All in all I still love this tool because of the amazing amount of features, the flexibility for reporting and the option to track unlimited domains. This is the perfect rank tracking tool for any affiliate marketer with a large amount of websites to track. Their unresponsive support is a big drawback, and I hope they will improve on this. If Microsite Masters can improve their support and maybe modernize the tool design I think this would be the perfect keyword tracking tool. For the moment it is still the best rank tracking tool for me and I would advice anyone who is a serious affiliate marketer to consider it for rank tracking.
