Rank Lightning is an SEO tool that has been created by established digital marketers Ronald Osborne and Owen Elkjaer. The objective behind Rank Lightning is to streamline SEO efficiency and results. Because we all know that performing search engine optimization requires several different tools. In this Rank Lightning review, I will review the tool and it’s features to uncover if it really is the best local SEO tool.
Table of Contents
Features Of Rank Lightning
Rank Lighnting is focused on being an all in one SEO management tool. Enabling its users to research, create, and monitor their SEO campaign from within the tool. Unlike most SEO tools, you need to have one tool for one task. The founders of Rank Lightning wanted to change that. Below is a list of all the features that Rank Lightning currently has, along with the planned features on the company's map,
Project Management
When you perform an SEO campaign, you need to have several different spreadsheets and tools to monitor the performance. As an example, you will have all of the keyword research in a Google sheet, and the keywords tracked in another keyword monitoring tool. The amount of backlinks required to be built. This is a terrible waste of time and resource management.
Rank Lightnings project management tool is unlike any other on the market. You will enter your information into the project management system with the domain level to begin with, such as language and location of the project. Then Rank Lightning enables you to break down the project to a page level layout. This is an amazing feature because most pages created by an SEO are solely focused on ranking for only one or a handful of terms.
Depending upon which plan you have chosen will determine how many projects you can have active. The lite plan has two projects, the pro plan has 15, and the premium plan has 40. Another great benefit of the project management system is that it helps you run reports faster and easier. Key points of data like the location, page and keyword to be researched can be input at the click of a button. Making this feature a huge time saver for SEOs.
Keyword Research
The keyword research feature in Rank Lightning has three different methods you can research your keywords. The tool utilizes an in depth level of research, such as using an existing project's location or previously saved keywords. The output display of the keyword data in Rank Lighnting is intuitive and easy to interpret. Here are the three methods you can perform research from within the Rank Lightnings keyword research tool,
Known Keywords
The known keyword research allows you to enter up to 300 keywords at one time. This is such a handy feature. If you have all the keyword research completed and you want to know exactly the data and CPC insights of an exact keyword.
Keyword Ideas From A Few Keywords
If you don’t know the exact keyword you want to rank for but you have some idea, you can use this feature. You enter 10 keywords that you want to use as inspiration and Rank Lightning will produce up to 1000 keywords for you to select from. This is an incredibly handy feature for anyone just starting in SEO and don’t know what their target keyword should be. A roofer might thing that the roofing keyword is better than the roofer keyword. But, if the roofer doesn’t perform SEO keyword research accurately, they could be hurting their rankings and bottom line. This is a brilliant feature.
Keyword Ideas From A Site
If you have a competitor's website you can easily place their information into this feature and Rank Lightning will gather up all the keywords this website is ranking for. This can be a great feature to start from when performing keyword research.
Overall the keyword feature in Rank Lightning is excellent. You can easily export the data and you can add each keyword into the appropriate project. That makes it seamless. The only thing that is missing is the ability to look for historical data. However, Rank Lightning has stated that historical data is not far away.
Competitor Analysis
The best feature of Rank Lightning is the competitor analysis. This amazing feature combines everything an SEO needs to see into one easy to understand format. To use the competitor analysis you will need to input the target keyword and the corresponding page you wish to rank for that keyword. Here is a detailed layout and explanation of the competitor analysis results page,
Data Snapshot
At the top of the competitor analysis, you will see the target keyword, the location, and the page you are targeting. There are two additional boxes that will show the keyword data itself such as the search volume and trending data of that keyword, along with a SERP feature snapshot. You can see if their are ads being run along with the people lso asked and related searches. You can also open up that SERP to see where the data is coming from.
Map Pack Analysis
You can see at a glance the top three results of the map pack. You will see their total review and the ratings. Rank Lightning then shows you the median and average to help you assess the difficulty of trying to rank in the map pack.
Keyword SERP Analysis
The keyword SERP analysis is where the magic happens. At a quick glance, you can easily ascertain where your performance is lacking. You can see your current position in the organic results along with your top competitors. You can easily identify if you require more referring domains or backlinks. Along with additional information such as traffic estimations, word count, internal links, and much more.
The huge benefit of this feature is that you can customize the results. Let’s say you have someone performing parasite SEO, that shouldn’t be included in your competitor analysis. With Rank Lightning, you can deselect that competitor and select someone more appropriate to help you identify the accurate points in your SEO campaign that require work. You can also toggle on and off the median and the average results of your competitors.
Domain Level Analysis
Yes, it is true that Google ranks pages and not websites, but if that were always the case, why do people perform parasite SEO and other methods relying on the authority of a domain? This is because domain authority matters. With Rank Lightning, you can see how your domain compares with your competitors. You might have more links on a page level, but if your competitor has 600 more referring domains than you do, you still have some work to do. This is the only SEO tool on the market that enables you to see all of this fantastic data so quickly.
Google Business Profile Analysis
The Rank Lightning Google Business Profile Analysis tool or (GBP Analysis) has many of the same features as what is currently on the market, however, the ability to evaluate where a Google Business Profile is lacking is unmatched!
The GBP analysis tool can perform all of the following features that are found in the local map analysis market,
- Run up to 10 keywords
- 13 by 13 geo grid search
- Schedule scans
- Export a live link to track map ranking performance
- Export PNG of map results
- Competitor analysis
Competitor Analysis Within The GBP Tool
To rank well in the Google map pack, you need to be at the same level and slightly superior for Google to reward you. This is the genius of the Rank Lightning GBP competitor analysis tool. You will run your geogrid. Then, the tool will filter by average rank across your geogrid. Not your single location. This a feature unique to Rank Lightning. Once you have your list, you can select as many competitors as you would like and run the reports. You will see where your GBP profile is lacking.
The results displayed are all the critical ranking factors that Google considers when evaluating who takes the top spot in Google Maps. You will see the median and average results of your competitors compared to your GBP. This makes it extremely easy to understand where you need to increase your GBP ranking factors.
Pros And Cons Of Rank Lightning
There are a lot of pros to RAnk Lightning. However, there are also a couple of cons that do need to be considered.
Pros
- Built by digital marketers and businessmen
- Founders have a solid history of business success
- The tool has features that make it unique and saves SEO agencies time and money
- Reports are easy to understand and act on
- Affordable for all the features offered
- Detailed roadmap for the future
- 7 day satisfaction guarantee
Cons
- Doesn’t have historical data currently (it is in the roadmap)
- Requires a dashboard to see how a domain is performing (coming in June)
- Needs backlink analysis
Rank Lightning Roadmap
While there are a few features missing, the team at Rank Lightning have put together a solid roadmap that only further conveys they have put some serious thought into their tool. Here are a list of features that they say should be live in 2024,
- Historical data
- Backlink analysis
- Keyword tracking
- Google Search Console Integration
- Onpage optimization tool
- Automated backlink building
- Keyword and backlink gap
- Website plugin
- Reporting
- Topic map generation
- Complete project management system
Seeing this level of planned features shows an extreme commitment to the Rank Lightning tool.
Cost Of Rank Lightning
Rank Lightning’s team wanted to create the best performance geogrid tool and make it the cheapest. There are three different pricing structures for Rank Lightning, one for everyone's budget, and are detailed below,
Lite Plan $47
The lite plan is perfect for small business owners and beginners to SEO. This comprehensive package includes everything you need to achieve SEO results. The great thing about the team behind Rank Lightning is that they didn’t reduce access to main features because this is the base plan. They allow everyone to analyze the data that will help them rank. The lite plan includes,
- 20, 000 credits/month
- 190 9x9 map scans
- Up to 2 projects
Pro Plan $97
The pro plan is perfect for a freelancer or small agency owner. You have the flexibility to manage 15 projects and report all from within the tool. The pro plan features are,
- 45.000 credits/month
- 450 9x9 map scans
- Up to 15 projects
- GBP Share Link
- Rolling credits
Premium Plan $197
The premium plan is ideal for larger agencies that have dozens of projects they want to manage from within Rank Lightning. Multiple users is the focal point of this plan. The premium plan features are listed below,
- 100.000 credits/month
- 1000 9x9 map scans
- Up to 40 projects
- GBP Share Link
- Rolling credits
- Multiple users
Affiliate Deals
Rank Lightning is offering 25% to all affiliates for the life of the client that signs up. That is an extremely competitive and attractive offer for many affiliate marketers.
Final Thoughts On Rank Lightning
Rank Lightning is ahead of its time. This level of competitor analysis and simplicity hasn’t been created in the SEO industry. While several improvements to the tool and many more features need to be rolled out, it is easy to see that the team behind Rank Lightning has a high level of expertise and commitment to its success. Rank Lightning can be considered the best local SEO tool.
