Struggling with SEO? You NEED to Read This RankIQ Review!

RankIQ Review – Is This The Best SEO Tool For Bloggers?

In this RankIQ review blog post, I am going to answer a burning question many of you have – is RankIQ a good blogging tool to invest in?

What Is RankIQ

There’s no doubt about it – RankIQ has gained a ton of popularity in the blogging community over the past couple of years.

For starters, it addressed a serious need within the blogging community and did it pretty well, if I do say so.

Furthermore, I’ve heard from other bloggers that it took some guesswork out of what they were doing.

But what is RankIQ actually designed to do?

The main headline on their website reads: “Write Blog Posts That Rank #1 On Google’s 1st Page.”

I find this headline a little misleading as it insinuates that everything you write with this tool will rank on the first page of Google.

If you know anything about Google SEO, you’ll know the Google algorithm is constantly changing, thus modifying what content shows on the first page.

That means you can have an article ranking on the first page one day and then not the next.

Yes, it can be incredibly frustrating!

But I’m not saying this to suggest RankIQ is a lousy tool. I think their copywriters could have done a better job.

How I would describe RankIQ is the tool designed to help you target competitive keywords in your niche, write SEO-optimized content, and take the guesswork out of your writing.

Who Is RankIQ For

It’s important to state right from the get-go that I firmly believe that whether you’re a beginner or a seasoned blogger, you should absolutely be focusing on optimizing all of your content for SEO or search engine optimization. (Don’t know what that is? I’ll explain it in a minute!)

That said, I think this tool is ideal for any blogger, beginner or experienced, so long as your niche is covered in their keyword research library.

(Not sure if your niche is included in their keyword research tool? Don’t hesitate to contact RankIQ directly, as their keyword library constantly evolves to help as many bloggers as possible.)

What Is SEO – Search Engine Optimization?

When I started blogging, I would shy away from learning search engine optimization because it seemed like it would be so complicated.

Good news – it doesn’t have to be, especially when it comes to the writing!

For the purposes of reviewing RankIQ, I am going to focus on what is called “On-Page SEO.”

At its core, on-page SEO involves optimizing what your reader can see to make it search-engine friendly.

This includes things like:

Including your focus keyword in your blog post title.
Having ample headings to break up your text.
Sprinkling relevant secondary keywords throughout your content.
Writing relevant image descriptions.
And so on.

The reason we must do this is so that Google can rate the quality of your content when they crawl your website.

For every keyword or search term, Google has determined what they believe the user intent is behind that and provides first-page results accordingly.

The more aligned your content is with that user intent, the better your chances of ranking high in Google.

Now, full disclosure: that’s an overly simplistic explanation, but I wanted to keep it simple so you can better understand the role RankIQ plays in optimizing your content for SEO.

*If you would like to learn more about search engine optimization and how to use it to grow your blog traffic organically, I highly recommend t his course.

On a side note, I go into more detail about on-page SEO and other important steps to follow when publishing an article in this ultimate blog post checklist (which includes a FREE printable of the checklist).

Our Number One Goal As Bloggers

If you want to grow a blog that brings in sustainable organic traffic, search engine optimization should be a part of your strategy.

This means creating comprehensive, trustworthy, well-researched, and SEO-optimized content.

This is where RankIQ comes in!

How RankIQ Can Help You Achieve This Goal

RankIQ can help you achieve this goal in a few different ways. I’m going to break them up individually so you can easily find what you’re looking for.

Content Research

How often have you sat at your desk, scratching your head, trying to decide what to write?

You don’t want to waste your time writing something no one wants to read.

Conversely, you don’t want to write about topics that are too competitive in your niche.

RankIQ is a convenient tool for this part of your blogging workflow!

They have an entire keyword library for various niches filled with keyword ideas you can potentially rank for on your website.

Each keyword includes:

A competition number indicating the difficulty.
The estimated yearly search volume.
An estimated time to rank. (For example, average, fast, ultra-fast, etc.)

RankIQ content research process through their library of keywords.

As you find ideas that pique your interest, you can either run a report on the keyword, which I only recommend doing if you’re 100% going to write that content piece or add them to your keyword library for later.

Now, I don’t recommend running reports on every keyword you find because you are limited in how many reports you can run per month based on your pricing plan.

When writing this blog post, the lowest tier plan gives you eight monthly reports.

Instead, I recommend saving your keyword ideas to your library and then doing a Google search for that term to learn more about Google’s user intent, thereby helping you decide if you want to write that content piece or not.

If you want to write the blog post, you can run the report from your “My KWs” tab in the top menu.

Writing SEO-Optimized Content

Now, it’s important to note that when writing this RankIQ review, they do not do any of the writing for you.

Instead, you can:

Write the content elsewhere (such as in a Google Doc etc.) and paste it into the content optimizer tab of your RankIQ keyword report.
Write the content directly in the content optimizer tab of your RankIQ keyword report.

Optimize your written content for Google via RankIQ.

Truthfully, it doesn’t matter if you write natively on the platform or elsewhere. The magic is in how it grades your content.

Here is a breakdown of everything you’ll find in that content optimizer.

Grade – The first grade you’ll see is what your current content is ranking, and the grade in the brackets is what you should aim to achieve based on the competitor’s content.
Word Count – This compares the target word count it recommends you achieve to what you have written.
A text toolbar to help you write your content, similar to what you’d find in a document editor. The most important thing from this toolbar is to make sure you’re using the heading option to include headings for SEO and improved readability.
The open space is where you can write or paste your content.
Keyword Tracker – This list on the right-hand side of your screen shows you a variety of secondary keywords you can include in your content to increase your grade (point 1), thereby increasing your SEO optimization.

All these things in the content optimizer tab will help you write content optimized for Google SEO in that it includes a good variety of secondary keywords and is near the recommended length.

Optimizing Your Headline

Lastly, under the SEO report tab of your keyword report, if you scroll down, you’ll find a spot where you can brainstorm headline ideas for your blog post.

RankIQ SEO Report for each individual keyword.

RankIQ will then analyze your headline and provide a grade based on that keyword.

This can be really helpful to ensure you’re choosing a headline that gives you a good chance of ranking in Google.

However, I will note this tool could be better, as it only looks at the keyword itself and the length.

Be bold in testing different titles and combining this tool with other headline analyzers to get the possible results.

After all, your headline is one of the most essential parts of your blog post.

It helps people decide if they want to read the content or not.

The Advantages Of RankIQ

There are many advantages to using a tool like RankIQ as a blogger.

For starters, if you use their keyword tool, it really helps you focus on writing content that has the best possible chance of ranking.

No, it’s never guaranteed that it will rank.

But wouldn’t you rather spend time writing a content piece that has the potential to be found in search instead of one that doesn’t?

Next, as I’ve mentioned a few times throughout this post, it helps take the guesswork out of your writing.

You can use the keyword tool in the content optimizer tab to help you outline your content, sprinkle the keywords into your writing organically as you go, and give you talking points that you hadn’t even considered.

RankIQ secondary keyword recommendations for content.

Finally, it’s a low-cost way to get some help with your writing.

The Disadvantages Of RankIQ

To answer the burning question from the beginning of this blog post – is RankIQ a good blogging tool to invest in? – my answer is a resounding yes!

However, that does not mean there aren’t some disadvantages that you should be aware of.

I feel it is imperative to mention all of these things to help you get the most out of using RankIQ to improve your search engine optimization.

RankIQ Does Not Look Up The User Intent Of A Keyword

And truthfully, they shouldn’t because this is something that is constantly evolving with Google’s algorithm updates as they learn more about the users.

In my opinion, it is your responsibility as the blogger to always look at the user intent of a keyword to decide if a topic is worth writing about.

For example, if you find a keyword all about renewing your mortgage, but when you Google it, all you get in the search results are calculators from financial institutions, you probably shouldn’t do anything with that keyword, even if it says the time to rank is ultra fast!

Remember, RankIQ is a tool and should be used as such.

That doesn’t mean you shouldn’t do your own homework too.

It Doesn’t Cover All Aspects Of On-Page SEO

As I mentioned in the on-page SEO explanation further above, there are many aspects to optimizing your blog post for SEO that don’t happen in RankIQ.

This includes things like optimizing your images, writing a meta description, and so on.

These are all things that have to be done in your website editor.

So, don’t think you can write great content in RankIQ, and it is guaranteed to help you rank. (This is part of why I don’t love their slogan, but that’s okay!)

Instead, focus on using RankIQ as the tool that will help you optimize your written content, and then make an effort to learn how to do those other things.

It Isn’t Free!

When you’re just starting out a blog, you’re likely trying to keep your costs down, and understandably so!

So, it’s absolutely worth noting this isn’t a free tool, though they do have a free trial so that you can test the tool out for yourself.

The lowest-paid plan is currently $29 USD per month for eight keyword reports.

That’s not chump change!

However, if you have room in your budget, I highly recommend this tool.

You Can’t Use RankIQ As A “Traditional” Keyword Tool

If you’ve ever used other keyword research tools such as Ahrefs, UberSuggest, SEMrush, etc., you’ll know that typically, you can search any keyword you can brainstorm and get some information on it.

RankIQ does not do this.

The RankIQ library is filled with keywords they’ve already researched and deemed as good quality keywords, but you won’t find every keyword under the sun.

To check if they do have a keyword, you can do a filter search in the filter menu bar of the keyword library.

But, if the keyword isn’t there, it’s because:

Their algorithms have yet to find the keyword.
Or, potentially, their algorithms deemed this keyword as unlikely to rank.

If you do a lot of keyword research to help outline your content ideas, you will still have to pay for an additional keyword research tool like one of the ones mentioned above.

It Doesn’t Take Other Important SEO Factors Into Consideration

I’ve mentioned this a few times already, but seriously, Google is constantly updating its algorithms.

This means that occasionally, there will be new best practices to follow when writing your content. (This is where being a part of an authoritative SEO group or course can be beneficial.)

Sadly, RankIQ can’t measure all of these things in the writing.

RankIQ is really only designed to ensure you’re capturing good keywords and getting a good length.

Here are some examples of what I mean:

Many SEO experts agree that you should have your focus keyword in the first sentence of your blog post.
During a recent Google Algorithm update, Google themselves expressed that bloggers should be focused on things like not burying the lede, creating user-first content, and demonstrating EAT (expertise, authority, and trustworthiness).

Again, this is where understanding the other elements of good on-page SEO comes in handy so you can combine those strategies with the RankIQ tool.

Using RankIQ For Existing Content

Okay, with all of that out of the way, I want to address one more item before I wrap up this RankIQ review, and that is how you can use this tool to optimize your existing content.

Perhaps the most significant pain point of updating existing content is the possibility that RankIQ does not have your keyword in its library.

That’s why I am going to break this tips section up into two parts.

How To Optimize Existing Content When RankIQ Does Have The Focus Keyword

Suppose the blog post that you’re updating is in this camp; woohoo! This will make your life so much easier.

In this case, you’re going to follow the same steps as you would for a brand-new blog post.

Run a report on the keyword.
Copy and paste all the content from the blog article into RankIQ.
Do a quick Google Search to understand the user intent, topics that should be included, etc.
Update your content accordingly to improve your RankIQ score and align with the current Google SEO trends.
Update this content on your actual website and make any other changes needed.

And voila, you’ve just used this tool to help you update your old content so it can perform better!

How To Optimize Existing Content When RankIQ Does Not Have The Focus Keyword

Now, this is where it gets trickier.

First, you’ll need to decide if this content is worth keeping on your site.

If you’re a seasoned blogger, you may have some old content that you wrote before you knew what SEO was, and that doesn’t bring you any traffic.

You’ll have to decide if this content is worth keeping or not.

You can also use a keyword research tool, such as Ubersuggest or SEMrush, to look at the keyword data to help you make this decision.

If you decide that the keyword is worthy of staying on your website because it brings you good traffic from Pinterest or YouTube, or maybe your keyword tool shows it as being good, meaning

RankIQ doesn’t have it yet, you can do two things.

Optimize the existing content based on the other current SEO trends you know. Sometimes, making subtle tweaks that are more aligned with the current SEO best practices is enough to boost the results.
You can also force RankIQ to run a report anyway. To do this, go to your reports tab in RankIQ, type the keyword into the search bar at the top, and then click “Run Report.” Now, my only caveat in doing this is the data they give you may not be 100% accurate as they don’t have that keyword in their library. However, it’s still a great tool to provide you with plenty of other keyword options.

Creating a custom keyword report in RankIQ.

RankIQ For Bloggers

So, there you have it, my complete RankIQ review for bloggers.

As I said above, yes, this tool is a worthwhile investment for bloggers who have room in their budget to spend money on such a tool.

Just be aware of what things RankIQ can’t help you with so that you can find other workarounds and the knowledge needed to leverage your written content for search engine optimization even better.

Have a question about RankIQ?

Don’t be afraid to comment below or send me a message!

RankIQ Review – Is This The Best SEO Tool For Bloggers?

RankIQ Review – Is This The Best SEO Tool For Bloggers?

What Is RankIQ

Who Is RankIQ For

What Is SEO – Search Engine Optimization?

Our Number One Goal As Bloggers