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"I would say we have been able to make huge savings and the team’s productivity and quality of work has improved, as now we are not focusing on looking for ranks, instead, concentrating on the reasons of the swings or in the drops in those ranks."
RankUno is a 10 year old full service Internet Marketing firm, based in Pune, empowering online businesses with cutting edge strategy and impeccable execution to start, build and grow. RankUno blends the right mix of Organic (Natural) Search Engine Optimization, Pay-Per-Click Advertising, Social Media Marketing and Outreach to ensure maximum ROI. Targeting agency clients as well as direct clients, RankUno does it by having verticals in multiple industries and providing a wholesome service to its clients, who are primarily from the USA, from an organic and paid standpoint.
| Type | Public |
| Industry | Digital Agency |
| Founded | 2004 |
| Headquarters | Pune, Maharashtra |
| Area served | India, USA |
| Parent | Rank Uno Interactive Technologies Pvt. Ltd. |
| Website | www.rankuno.com |
The primary focus to implement a solution for our requirements was to save valuable time. Since our clients are large scale in nature, we have to work with a lot of keywords that they are targeting and our business model does not bound us to a limited set of keywords. We do not have a package system where in we optimize 10 or 20 keywords, we work directly with agencies and the quantity of keywords can range anywhere between 10,000 to 20,000 keywords in the first phase itself. With such a large volume of keywords, it is not feasible to ensure clients what the rank is all about as we wanted to automate our ranking creating process.
The second problem area related to our requirement for vertical optimization, whether it is local, video, or images. We are not limited to only organic- we have clients focusing on locals, mobile and paid as well and we were looking for a solution that could help us achieve local rankings. In addition, we knew when we started with RankWatch, that mobile will be a critical element in our service offering.
In the research phase, we had identified multiple solutions but each focusing on individual aspects of rankings but we were in the market for a one-window solution instead.
Our third pain point was to come up with specific insights on how desktop was performing against mobile as that would give us a lot of insights on how to help our clients strategize their responsive design or optimize their mobile websites.
I don’t quite remember all the names of the competitors we evaluated at this moment but RankWatch was chosen after an exhaustive evaluation of multiple varieties of solutions available. We started off with manual rank tracking, but it was obviously quite cumbersome and we could do it only once a month. Moreover, after Google changed its algorithm, it became more aggressive in its policies and there were ranking variation on daily basis, the task became further formidable. Clearly, we were looking for a solution where the rankings can be automatically updated for us. Secondly, we started looking for a stand-alone solution, to give you an example, I don’t remember the name, maybe it was Wordtrackr, and it was a desktop-based application. The primary concern with such a solution is when you add a high volume of keywords, it uses your IP and automatically blocks it when rank calculations are going on. So, when you have 30,000 keywords calculating ranks on a daily basis, Google is bound to ban your IP and you end up getting the CAPTCHA code every time. After about 30 keywords, it would say that there are no rankings found.
We evaluated a bunch of other tools as well, for example, Moz, which has its own ranking tool and a few from Israel and USA who were offering rank calculations but we ended up with RankWatch because of its cost effectiveness and it was pretty much meeting all our needs. Also, the fact that you are based in India meant we got excellent customer support, which was a key factor for us.
In total, we had 5 specific criterias to evaluate any product we tested. These were automation, accuracy, ease of use, transparency and the ability to add multiple search engines
As I mentioned before, we were extensively looking to automate our rank aggregation process. So, that was really high on our priority list. Secondly, of course, if data aggregation was automated, it had to be accurate as well. So that was a pre-requisite to automation. Third, the tool had to be easy to use, which was perfectly illustrated by RankWatch with its excellent user interface. Fourth, we always wanted to have our clients see the reports. We were looking for a possible While Labeling option so that clients can immediately see the data without our intervention. To elaborate, discussions with clients should not be centered on what keywords have moved; instead it should be centered on why they moved. Hence, with clients already aware of the movements, meetings are much more productive. Lastly, as we are tracking on multiple devices and on different verticals, we required a solution that allowed us to do just that and RankWatch is probably one of the few solutions that provides City Specific Rankings compared to other tools, which are not so prospective.
There were definitely some challenges that we faced while implementing your solution. Initially while randomly verifying rankings, we did find some inaccuracies but they were quickly resolved as we had immediately taken up the issue with your support and they were able to fix them.
Trust was a challenge that we faced internally rather than with the platform. Internally it was difficult to gain the trust of the clients and the team because the moment you say automation, people take a step back thinking that it may not be accurate. So, it took us a while to convince the team along with the clients that the solution is accurate as long as the settings are placed on the basis of what you wanted.
We approached this by not opening out the solution to everybody instantly; we ran a test phase with our internal team. We asked them to test it for some months before using it extensively for reporting and other aspects. So, the first few months they were given a free hand to play whichever way they wanted to and we also gradually opened it to the clients as well to see what their feedback is. All the insights I received from our side I shared it with your support team who were able to action upon them.
Even right now there may be 10% of ranking discrepancies, which is expected when tracking such a high volume of keywords. So, no problem over there!
We were primarily looking for it on search engines. It was a random search that we did, plus our criterias were very precise and over time we kept refining them even further.
We started searching for a rank generation tool and then we wanted to look for an automated ranking solution. A tool based in India, definitely would have been a plus point. So, this is how we stumbled upon RankWatch.
I guess it would be your support; we are quite pleased with it so far and the fact that the changes are really proactive. For instance, you came out with the new agency level dashboard recently. I really like it and we were able to use it for our clients really well. So it is not like a solution that gets updated every 5 years; it gets updated every 4-5 months.
Another aspect is the reactiveness with the way feature requests are addressed. Most feature requests I have suggested have been handled quite swiftly. Some new features that we had shared with the support have already been implemented.
Also, I would say the pricing flexibility that we were offered in the beginning of our subscription. Most other solutions are quite rigid with the pricing. So RankWatch have been quite cooperating in that sense.
I would say we have been able to make huge savings and the team’s productivity and quality of work has improved, as now we are not focusing on looking for ranks, instead, concentrating on the reasons of the swings or in the drops in those ranks.
Earlier we used to spend 16 man-hours per month on ranking per project and now this has reduced to 0. Now we are saving at least 16 man-hours a month per project. So, lets say about 100 man- hours a month of work.
RankWatch has been able to enhance our data aggregation- the primary process of any analytics reporting cycle that we do, monthly or a daily, is data collection. and this solution helps us achieve that. So, extracting the data is what I could consider the most enhanced aspect of our business.
No, we are primarily focusing on rank tracking but we are slowly and gradually expanding into other areas of RankWatch as well. Currently we are only using RankWatch for rankings but we will be aggressively using it in more detail.
We are aware of the other features which we have not incorporated them as part of the process but will be using them gradually. These are features we do not expect in a rank-tracking tool but appreciate the improvisation and the revolutionary approach by RankWatch.
