RankIQ Review for New Bloggers
Updated 11/24/21
RankIQ is a new AI-powered SEO tool created for bloggers. I tried it out at its launch and throughout 2021. This post is to share my experience for new and emerging bloggers to learn how to use it, show the results for my blog, and evaluate if it’s right for you.
Disclosure: This post contains affiliate links. This means that I may receive compensation when you click on a product link or purchase an item linked on this site. Click here for details.
What is RankIQ?
RankIQ is a search engine optimization tool built for bloggers launched in March 2021. The software runs on artificial intelligence to give recommendations for blog post keywords with the best chance of ranking on the first page of Google.
It was created by Brandon Gaille, a top blogger and a host of The Blogging Millionaire podcast. I hadn’t heard of him or his podcast prior to a few weeks before the launch of RankIQ, so I had no preformed opinion about either that might sway me about RankIQ.
What’s SEO?
If you’re a new blogger, you might not know what search engine optimization (SEO) is. SEO is about improving the quality of your website to get traffic from search engines such as Google.
SEO is not only one or a few things. Google uses over 200 factors to rank sites! Some of the main ones are having high-quality content, content that targets the right keywords, fast site speed, and backlinks from other reputable sites.
I didn’t know what SEO was when I started blogging. At that time, many bloggers were trying to grow their Pinterest presence to get pageviews. Pinterest has changed over the years, and it’s now an unreliable way for most blogs and niches to get consistent traffic.
SEO is more reliable. That’s where RankIQ comes in.
RankIQ home page to locate keyword libraries and run reports
How does RankIQ work?
There are a few components and steps to using RankIQ. It’s straightforward once you use it once or twice.
1 | Keyword libraries
Each niche has one or several keyword libraries associated with it.
For example, in the personal finance niche, there are several keyword libraries. One is “Personal finance: how to” where you would find a list of keywords about how to do something in personal finance.
These could be “how to create a budget” or “how to save for a down payment on a house.” Note that these are not actual search results.
There are over a hundred keyword libraries, and the list continues to grow. A few of them are
Arts/Crafts
Blogging
Christian
Disney
DIY
Food
Health
Homeschool
Mom
Organization ideas
Special Education
Travel
Wedding
If you have a rare niche, you can ask if a keyword library for your niche exists before signing up. You can also ask that your niche be added if it’s not already there.
I asked Brandon if this could lead to too much competition for the same keywords. Wouldn’t everyone who signs up for RankIQ want to write about the same keywords?
He’s keeping track of how many reports are run for each keyword. Once it reaches a certain threshold, the keyword is retired.
The keyword results give you a competition score, how many visits you can expect per year for that keyword, and the time to rank to the first page of Google.
RankIQ says it takes 180 days or 6 months on average for a post without the use of RankIQ to rank. I’ve heard that it can take 8 months to 1 year. Ideally, the target keywords from RankIQ will rank faster.
2 | Running reports
You then run a report on any of the keywords or a keyword of your own. Let’s say I write about animal care.
The keyword in the library list may suggest the term “best dog shoes for Golden Retrievers” as a good topic to write about. I’ll run a report on that keyword.
I can also run reports on keywords not in the library. This is great for updating old posts for keywords you’ve targeted in the past.
I could run a report for a keyword I’m interested in like “best dog cookies” because I want to write a post about the best dog cookie recipe.
Once you run a report, you will get an AI SEO report with suggestions for how to create content to rank on the first page of Google including
Suggested grade content – This is the quality of the blog post you should write to rank well. If it asks A++ quality, then you should write a good enough post that the content optimizer gives you an A++.
Suggested word count – It’s going to suggest you write more words than the current top-ranking posts.
Sources analyzed – how many sources RankIQ analyzed to get their results
Competition analysis – links to the top-ranking blog posts for that keyword, their word count, and their content grade
Title analysis – provides a list of top relevant words to assist you to write your title
Content analysis - what topics Google wants you to cover in your article. For those dog shoes, this might be types of dog shoes, shoe size, material, waterproof, adjustable, non-slip, color, etc.
3 | Content optimizer
Once you write your post with the above points in mind, copy and paste your post into the optimizer for a grade, word count, and additional topics to include.
You can watch a video on the RankIQ website to learn more and see another example of how it works.
Price
I used RankIQ in March 2021 when it was in its beta phase and priced at $49/month.
At $49/month, you can run 16 reports, which averages about $3 per report. RankIQ says that is lower than the industry average.
The regular price is $99. I don’t know when the price will go up. As of this writing, RankIQ offers $50 off for signing up, so the price is still $49.
When I cancelled after my second time using it, another offer came up for 8 reports for $29.99 a month.
Pros
1 | It works!
I wrote a few blog posts based on RankIQ suggestions. They are now ranking on the first page of Google or number one for the keyword. I cover this more below.
2 | Easy to use
I watched the tutorial video on the website and got started using it within a matter of minutes. You get keywords right away, which is great for those new to SEO or those short on time.
Brandon said in one of his podcast episodes that he spends weeks (yes, weeks!) each year on keyword research. That might be the case when using the more well-known and more expensive SEO tools Ahrefs and Semrush.
I don’t have both extra weeks and extra money to devote to finding keywords. I want a tool that’s easy to navigate and can help me get starting optimizing my blog posts right away.
You can outline a post in minutes and have a post done in a matter of hours depending on how fast you write.
Beyond that, the website has a basic setup with only a few pages making it easy to navigate:
Home
The keyword library
My keyword library (ones I’ve saved)
A billing page
3 | Keyword libraries
As mentioned above, the keyword library is growing every day. That means you can write about and rank for more and more keywords.
4 | Update old posts
I’ve heard of many bloggers gaining more pageviews by optimizing their old blog posts. This tool can help you to figure out what to add to those old posts that aren’t ranking well so that they show up higher in Google search results.
This is often easier than writing a new blog post because much of the research and writing is already done. It’s sometimes a matter of covering an additional aspect or two of the topic, which will also increase the post length.
5 | Check rankings tool
RankIQ’s has a check rankings tool that works directly with Google Search Console to help you better analyze your blog posts’ performance and target keywords. Some benefits of the tool:
Access to 5,000 keywords
It’s searchable by keyword
Quickly see the rankings of any post on your blog
6 | Price
At $49 per month, RankIQ is inexpensive compared to other SEO tools. The cost is reasonable for a new or individual blogger.
By comparison, Ahrefs is $99/month for their lite version. Semrush is $119.95 per month for their lowest tier. Moz is $79/month when paid yearly.
7 | Customer service
I wrote to Brandon twice, and he and his wife responded answering my questions. If you have any problems, he wants to know so he can fix them. There’s a support option on the screen when in RankIQ making it easy to request help.
8 | Mastermind Facebook group
When you sign up for RankIQ, you have access to a mastermind group with direct access to Brandon Gaille.
Cons
1 | RankIQ may not fit your strategy
RankIQ specializes in finding keywords with relatively high search volumes with low competition. This is not everyone’s strategy for SEO or their blog.
Even if it does find keywords in your broader niche (e.g., travel), the keyword results may not be useful for your niche (travel in the Pacific Northwest).
Brandon stated that if you have a very unique niche and the keyword library does not cover it, he will personally do the keyword research and create a library for your niche.
That said, most of the keywords that came up in my niche’s keyword library are not things I want to write a blog post about.
An example is a food blogger who wants recipe ideas. She might not find a keyword such as “substitutes for onions” helpful because she can’t write a recipe or whole blog post around it.
If you experience this, you can add those keywords to part of an existing blog post or in an FAQ post. Google may pick out your question and answer for their search results.
If I have a very niche site and find only a few keywords that are a good fit for me, I can foresee running out of useful keywords within a month or two.
If I want to continue getting the most value from RankIQ, I might change my strategy a bit to branch out to write about related topics or use the searches to update old posts.
I read that some users found RankIQ to be a good supplement to other SEO tools such as Semrush, but they wouldn’t replace their other SEO tools with RankIQ. That would require paying for two subscriptions at once, which not everyone is willing to do.
2 | Price
You’ll notice I consider the price both a pro and a con. When you’re a blogger in the early growth phase, the cost of $49 a month can be prohibitive. You’ve likely already spent money on hosting, an email service provider, and some other courses and tools.
You want to know if you’re going to get that $49 a month back in ad revenue, affiliate income, product sales, or something else soon. Is it worth it?
SEO is a long-term strategy, more like a marathon than a sprint. It can take 6+ months for a blog post to rise up the ranks in Google, although using RankIQ keywords is meant to get you ranking faster.
Look at writing these posts as laying building blocks for your blog. You’re adding 100 or 1,000+ pageviews a year with each post. You’ll see the cumulative effects of your efforts in the long run a year from now.
In the meantime, you’re not guessing about what to write. These keywords have been vetted for you. You have a much higher chance of your posts ranking than you do when you guess at keywords.
You still have to work to earn that $49 back. You need to have an additional arm to your blogging strategy to bring in that income, whether that’s running ads or linking to affiliate items.
3 | 16 keyword reports
When I used RankIQ, I could run 16 keyword reports per month. Sixteen can be too few, just right, or too many depending on your needs.
It’s too few if you have a team of people who can write up multiple articles a week for you. It’s perfect if you and your team can optimize the allowed 16 searches for 16 articles a month.
It’s too many for someone like me who is a part-time solo blogger. I share more of my thoughts on this below.
Results
I wrote three blog posts – two based on keywords provided by RankIQ and one related to a suggested keyword based on my own interest.
I published or republished them between March and May 2021. I had to take down and republish two of them with slight changes because Google ranked my category page instead of the blog posts.
I report the pageviews of each post per month, but note that they don’t cover full months at the beginning because I started publishing mid-March.
Post #1: This post doesn’t rank #1 for the exact keyword. It ranks #2 and #3 for two similar keywords. This may be because I altered the keyword or post slightly from the recommendation.
Number of pageviews per month:
March – 69 pageviews
April – 350 pageviews
May – 1,308 pageviews
June – 1,972 pageviews
July – 2,281 pageviews
Post #2: This post ranks #1 for the keyword as of July.
Number of pageviews per month:
April – 38 pageviews
May – 857 pageviews
June – 1,485 pageviews
July – 2,652 pageviews
Post #3: This post ranks #1 for the keyword.
Number of pageviews per month:
April – 44 pageviews
May – 114 pageviews
June – 126 pageviews
July – 240 pageviews
One thing to note is that RankIQ focuses on low competition keywords and will tell you how many visits you can expect per year. That is for the keyword itself and likely not all the other keywords your post will also rank for.
The first post above was reported to potentially bring about 1500 visits to my site per year. You can see that I surpassed that in June alone, so the total number of pageviews in a year is much higher.
RankIQ worked for me because it gave me vetted keywords and I mostly followed its recommendations. I won’t know the full extent of its benefits until I write more posts with recommended keywords and give Google more time to rank my posts.
Other considerations
1 | Is RankIQ worth it?
RankIQ is worth trying because it’s effective, easy to use, easy to implement into a blogging strategy, and reasonably priced. It’s available for when you can and want to move on to a paid SEO tool.
If you’re a new blogger and don’t want to or can’t afford to use a paid SEO tool yet, use a free option instead:
Google Search Console
Google search results and suggested searches
Ubersuggest
Some bloggers have great success growing their blogs with these tools. They never feel the need to sign up for a paid SEO tool.
2 | Outsmarting Google?
You might be thinking that people are trying to cheat or outsmart Google. There’s no way to do that.
You still need to blog first and foremost for your readers. They are the ones who will return to consume more of your content because they like what you offer. RankIQ is only one tool to help you toward that goal.
You still need to use your own judgment for content creation.
Do the keywords fit the topic of your blog?
Will your audience want to read about this topic?
Does the blog post still have your voice?
3 | Solo bloggers
I’m a solo blogger meaning that I write all of my blog posts myself. I have a day job and run my blog and other side businesses in my free time.
I don’t have time to write or revise 16 posts a month every month. I’m not at a stage where I want to outsource that work either.
As with most things, RankIQ’s value comes only if you use it. I canceled my subscription because I couldn’t justify spending $49 a month when I don’t use it to its full potential.
Since it’s launch, I’ve signed up for a few months at a time, cancelled when I wasn’t using it, and them signed up again when I was ready to tackle more blog posts.
Overall, RankIQ has been very helpful for my blog and has gotten better since its launch.
If you like what you’ve read in this review and want to see if it will work for your blog, you can sign up for RankIQ to try for yourself.
Have you tried RankIQ or any other SEO tool? What has been the most helpful tool for you?
