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This post is an honest RankIQ Review.
A few months ago, I was connected with a blogger that I really admire so that we could chat about blogging.
I had dabbled in blogging off and on since 2018, and could not figure out how to make it work for me. I always felt like I was missing something, and that something was, for the most part, Search Engine Optimization (SEO).
SEO is essentially just little things you can implement throughout your blog posts that make it more likely your blog posts rank higher on Google and other search engines. The higher they rank, the more traffic you could get to your blog.
So, SEO is pretty important. And I didn’t really know how to do it.
That’s when she told me about RankIQ. I had heard about RankIQ before through its creator, Brandon Gaille.
Brandon Gaille has a podcast called “The Blog Millionaire” and over the years I’ve listened to countless podcasts of his to improve my blogging skills (highly recommend that podcast, by the way!).
Once she recommended RankIQ to me, I decided to try it out. At this point, I had less than 1,000 sessions each month, very inconsistent traffic, and I wasn’t using SEO very well if at all.
Here’s a picture of my sessions in October, 2022:
I have been using RankIQ for over 6 months now, and will tell you all about my experience with RankIQ thus far and my overall RankIQ review in this post.
Quick Navigation:
- What is RankIQ?
- How RankIQ Works
- Pros of RankIQ
- Cons of RankIQ
- RankIQ Pricing
- My Overall Review of RankIQ
- How To Sign Up For RankIQ
Honest RankIQ Review
What is RankIQ?
RankIQ is, according to its website, “an SEO tool-set for bloggers and businesses that run a blog”.
It’s a tool created by self-proclaimed “blogging millionaire”, Brandon Gaille, who has various successful blogs and a podcast all about blogging, like I mentioned earlier.
How RankIQ Works
RankIQ has so many positive qualities and we will cover them in this section.
Keyword Database
For one, RankIQ offers a database of thousands of low competition, high search volume keywords that you can use. You can filter the database by your niche, which helps you find a ton of keywords in your niche to write about.
Once you filter for your niche and you see all of the potential keywords, you can then filter them by competition level (low or high), among other things like domain authority, so that you can be sure to make the right choice when choosing a keyword.
You also have the option to use your own keyword that you searched for and discovered on your own.
Once you choose a keyword, there are two major aspects of RankIQ: Keyword Reports and the Content Optimizer.
Keyword Reports
Once you select a keyword that you want to write about or you have a keyword that you chose on your own, you can click a button that will run a report on that keyword for you. These reports are the bread and butter of RankIQ.
Once the report has generated, it will tell you the content grade (more on this in a second) and the word count that you should aim for when writing your blog post, the competition level, and how long it thinks it will take your blog post to rank if you meet its suggested requirements (e.g. very long or ultra-fast).
Here is an example of what this part of the report looks like for the keyword “what’s personal development”:
Suggested Topics / Keywords To Include In Your Post
Further, when you scroll down on the report, you will see a section that tells you a number of topics or phrases that you should include in your post in order to increase your chances of ranking on Google for that keyword.
Here’s an example of what that looks like:
The more recommended “topics” from the report that you include in your blog post, the higher your content grade will be (getting to content grade soon, I promise!).
Title Analysis
After the recommended topics, the report has a section for “Title Analysis”. This section of the report suggests words to use in your title so that your title is perfectly optimized for SEO.
I personally find this part to be so fun, because there’s a title grader that adjusts as you develop the best title that you can.
Here’s what the title analysis and grader looks like:
As you can see, the title I created for my blog post (“Here’s Why Personal Development Is So Important”) got an A+ grade and is the perfect length, according to this RankIQ title analysis.
Top Ranking Titles
The next section on the report is all about top ranking titles.
Essentially, RankIQ goes and looks for other blog posts that were written on your keyword, and shows you the titles of the top ranking ones.
It will then highlight which ones you can compete with based on your domain authority. You have a better chance of ranking higher than a competitor if your domain authority is above or equal to theirs.
Here’s what this portion of the report looks like:
As you can see, the third title listed (“What Is Personal Development And Why Is It Important?”) is highlighted, meaning this is the one that I have the best chances of competing with because its domain authority is similar to mine.
I also have a good chance of competing with the fifth title listed (“What Is Personal Development”) because it is also highlighted / has a domain authority close to mine.
Highest Graded Content
Lastly, is the “highest graded content” portion.
Here, the RankIQ report will give you the top 3 posts written on your keyword at that time.
The point of this is so that you can go and look at those posts to get an idea or get some inspiration on how you should format or layout your own post when you go to write on the same keyword.
Content Optimizer
The second major piece of RankIQ is the content optimizer. The content optimizer comes in when you actually start writing your post.
First, the content optimizer will show you a content grade (I told you we’d get here eventually!). The more words you include in your post from the suggested topics on your report, the better your grade will be.
Naturally, you will start with an F. As you write, you will want to aim for an A++ every time to ensure that your post, once published, has the best chance of ranking on Google.
Second, the content optimizer will display your word count.
As you can see in this example, I’ve written 9 words in my post on the keyword “what’s personal development” and I’ve used 2 phrases from the list of suggested topics.
You can see that RankIQ will highlight the suggested topics you already used. For example, I used the suggested topics “personal growth” and “personal development journey” when I wrote my first sentence (“I love personal growth and my personal development journey“), so that was recognized and highlighted by the RankIQ tool (see far right).
Again, the more suggested topics you include, the higher your content grade will be.
RankIQ may suggest that you only need a “B” or an “A” grade to rank on Google, but I learned from Brandon Gaille’s wife herself (who also works for RankIQ) that you should always aim for a grade of “A++” despite what the tool recommends.
You want to put your best foot forward!
I usually write my blog posts in Google docs first, and then copy and paste them into the content optimizer to make my final edits and ensure my content grade is an A++.
You can also watch the video on the RankIQ website to hear Brandon Gaille describe RankIQ and how it works himself.
Pros of RankIQ
Here, I’ll share some of the great things I’ve noticed about RankIQ.
PRO: RankIQ is easy to use
The first thing I noticed about RankIQ when I started using it was how easy it is to use.
The user interface is very user-friendly and intuitive. Also, I think it’s fun haha. I love altering my post to get that perfect A++ content grade!
PRO: RankIQ is constantly being improved
I’ve seen a few different updates to RankIQ over the last 6 months. The updates are never anything overbearing or inconvenient, and are pretty seamless.
I appreciate that they seem to be constantly working to make RankIQ better for its users.
PRO: RankIQ does SEO for you
This is perhaps the biggest perk of using RankIQ: the SEO research is all done for you.
As someone who struggled for years to understand how SEO truly works, you can really get away with not knowing much about SEO at all if you use RankIQ.
Just in case, I think it’s good practice to educate yourself any way to ensure that your content is top notch, but ultimately, RankIQ will save you a ton of time you would otherwise spend searching for great keywords and working to write a perfectly optimized post.
With RankIQ, you know exactly what you need to include in your post for your post to have a chance at ranking.
PRO: RankIQ is offered at a great price point
As someone who doesn’t make a ton of money from blogging yet, I don’t mind paying for RankIQ each month.
I pay $29.99 for 8 reports a month, and because I’ve seen results that RankIQ actually works, the money is well worth it to me.
I share my specific results at the bottom of this post!
PRO: RankIQ’s customer service is great
I ran into a glitch with RankIQ a few months ago and emailed their customer service about it. Not only did I hear back quickly, but the response came from Brandon Gaille’s wife, Natalie.
Natalie was super friendly and helped resolve my issue quickly!
Cons Of RankIQ
Here are a few cons that I have noticed about RankIQ.
CON: The reports take a minute or two to generate
When you have your keyword and you run a report on it, the report will take a minute or two to generate.
This is such a minor thing, but in our fast-paced world, I think a lot of us (myself included) are used to immediate results.
Just be prepared to be a little patient!
CON: Keywords from RankIQ’s database may have competition from other RankIQ users
If you select one of the proposed keywords in the RankIQ database, I wonder how many other RankIQ users in your niche have also chosen that same keyword to write on.
I’m not sure if Brandon Gaille removes a keyword once a certain number of RankIQ users have run a report on it, but I would hope so. Otherwise, that keyword has more competition than we realize.
This is something I’m not so sure about. I’m also not too sure how often the database of keywords gets updated or refreshed.
Rank IQ Pricing
At the time of writing this blog post (June 2023), RankIQ prices are as follows:
Lite Plan: 8 Reports – $29 / month (this is the plan that I have)
Standard Plan: 16 reports – $49 / month
Pro Plan: 36 reports – $99 / month
Agency Plan: 80 reports – $199 / month
My Overall Review of RankIQ And My Results
Overall, I love RankIQ.
It’s fun, easy to use, and most importantly… it is working for me.
You saw at the beginning of this post that in October 2022, I had about 800 sessions a month.
Now, about 6-7 months later, I am at about 5k sessions a month.
I have written roughly 85 blog posts with RankIQ since starting to use it in the beginning of November.
Here’s another graphic from Semrush.com that shows the drastic increase I’ve experienced when it comes to ranking for keywords on Google:
You can clearly see the jump in keyword rankings since the end of 2022, when I first started using RankIQ.
Overall, I highly recommend RankIQ if you are someone who doesn’t really know how to do SEO or if you just don’t want to spend the time learning how to do it or doing it in general.
I feel that RankIQ is absolutely worth the money, and I highly recommend it to all of my blogging friends 🙂
How To Sign Up For RankIQ
If you want to sign up for RankIQ, I’d be honored if you used my referral link!
Here is my RankIQ referral link.
And as always, let me know if you have any questions about RankIQ. You can email me at [email protected] or send me a direct message on Instagram.
Good luck with your blogging goals and dreams! And I’ll keep you updated on mine 🙂
This post was all about an honest RankIQ review.
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