🔢 What Do Position Numbers Mean?
When you track keywords in Search Atlas, each keyword is assigned a position number that reflects where your page appears in Google's search results for that term.
- Position 1 is the top organic result — the best possible ranking.
- Positions 2–10 appear on the first page and receive the majority of clicks.
- Positions 11–20 typically fall on page two, where visibility drops significantly.
- Positions 21 and higher receive very little organic traffic and are considered low-ranking.
The lower the number, the better your visibility. A keyword moving from position 15 to position 6 is a meaningful improvement, even though the number decreased.
📉 Why Do Some Keywords Rank Poorly?
Several factors influence where Google places your pages. Understanding these helps you prioritise your optimisation efforts.
- Search intent mismatch: If your content does not match what users expect to find (informational, navigational, or transactional), Google will rank it lower.
- Weak on-page optimisation: Missing or poorly written title tags, meta descriptions, headings, and body copy reduce relevance signals.
- Insufficient backlinks: Pages with few authoritative external links often struggle to outrank stronger competitors.
- Technical SEO issues: Slow page speed, broken links, crawl errors, or missing structured data can suppress rankings.
- Thin or outdated content: Pages that lack depth or have not been updated recently may lose ground to fresher, more comprehensive content.
- Schema markup gaps: Missing structured data (FAQ, HowTo, Article) can prevent rich results and reduce click-through rates.
🔍 Step 1 — Identify Your Low-Ranking Keywords
- Go to Left sidebar → Keywords → Rank Tracker.
- Select your project and review the keyword list.
- Sort by Position to surface keywords ranked below position 10.
- Note any keywords that have high search volume but low rankings — these represent your biggest opportunities.
🛠️ Step 2 — Audit the Pages Behind Low-Ranking Keywords
- Navigate to Left sidebar → Site Metrics (Site Explorer) and open your site in the Site Explorer.
- Locate the URL that is targeting each low-ranking keyword.
- Review the page for on-page SEO completeness: title tag, H1, meta description, keyword usage in headings and body, internal links, and page speed.
- Check whether the content genuinely matches the search intent for that keyword. Ask yourself: would someone searching this term be satisfied by what is on the page?
- Identify content gaps — topics or subtopics that competitors cover but your page does not.
🏆 Step 3 — Analyse Competitors for Ranking Gaps
- Go to Left sidebar → Keywords → Keyword Gap.
- Enter your domain alongside one or two competing domains that rank well for the same keywords.
- Review keywords where competitors outrank you. Pay attention to the pages they use for those keywords and how their content is structured.
- Use these insights to strengthen your own pages with additional depth, updated statistics, better formatting, or improved internal linking.
✏️ Step 4 — Optimise Your Content
Once you have identified gaps, apply the following improvements to each underperforming page:
- Rewrite the title tag and meta description to include the primary keyword naturally and match the page's intent.
- Improve heading structure by using H2 and H3 tags that reflect the questions users are searching for.
- Expand thin content with relevant subtopics, examples, FAQs, or data that competitors are already covering.
- Add or update schema markup for Article, FAQ, or HowTo where applicable to improve rich result eligibility.
- Build internal links from high-authority pages on your site to the pages you are trying to rank.
- Improve page speed by compressing images, removing unused scripts, and enabling caching.
📈 Step 5 — Discover New Keyword Opportunities
- Go to Left sidebar → Keywords → Keyword Magic.
- Enter a seed keyword related to your topic.
- Filter by search volume and keyword difficulty to find terms where you have a realistic chance of ranking on page one.
- Map each new keyword to an existing page or create new content to target it.
⏱️ How Long Does Improvement Take?
Ranking improvements are not instant. After making on-page changes, Google typically takes two to eight weeks to recrawl and reindex the updated page. More competitive keywords can take longer. Monitor your progress regularly in Rank Tracker and continue refining your content based on what the data shows.
💡 Quick Reference — Ranking Improvement Checklist
- Confirm search intent matches page content
- Optimise title tag, meta description, and H1
- Expand content to cover subtopics competitors address
- Add schema markup where relevant
- Build internal links to the target page
- Resolve technical issues (speed, crawl errors, mobile usability)
- Acquire quality backlinks from authoritative sources
- Track progress weekly in Rank Tracker
If you need further assistance, open the chat widget in the bottom-right corner of the platform and type human teammate to be connected with a member of our team.