Can I run a report on a keyword that is not in the Keyword Library?
You can run a report on any keyword phrase by clicking on the "Reports" link in the main navigation at the top of the page. Just enter your keyword and click the "Run Report" button.
If you are running a report for a keyword that is not in the library because you are updating old posts on your blog, please listen to Brandon's 4-part podcast series on updating old blog posts that covers how to classify your post and identify which ones are losing traffic:
Below is a copy of a post that Brandon posted in the RankIQ Facebook group to answer the question of how to determine what past posts to update and how to go about it. The Facebook group is a treasure trove of information to help users rank.
"Here are my recommendations.
Updating posts is about covering a topic more comprehensively with the end goal of keeping the visitor on your page longer so that you can make more ad income and improve your rankings.
The safest path to updating old posts is to add more content to the tail end of the post. You keep the original post and title intact by adding it to the tail end. Mathematically speaking, a post that only adds new relevant content to the end will not lose rankings based upon that. This is because the click-through rate and time on page will not change because the title and original post are the same.
The additional content will only increase the time on page and help you rank for additional long-tail words.
By adding more content to the tail end, you will also increase the ad income for the post. I added additional content to all of my list posts with traffic last year, and I instantly increased my ad income by 20 to 50% on each post. 30 to 90 days later, my posts started to gain a couple of spots in the rankings, which gave me an additional bump in traffic and ad income.
Whenever you go into update a post, I also recommend breaking up any long paragraphs into short ones. That will increase engagement and ad income.
List Posts
For a list post that leads with a number, you should start off by opening an incognito window and searching for the target keyword phrase. Look at the first page of Google results and identify the largest leading number on a page title. The best practice is to have 10 more than the highest number. If the largest number is 17 (17 Best Gardening Tips), then you should expand your post to have at least 27. At that point, you will run a report with RankIQ for “gardening tips” and look for topics that you have not covered, which can be turned into tips. You will add the 10 extra tips after the original 17 tips.
How to Post
The growth hack I prefer is to add a section at the end for frequently asked questions. After running a report with RankIQ, you can identify any topics you did not cover and convert them into a sub-section under the FAQ section at the tail end of the post. You can also find more questions by searching on Google for the target phrase and clicking into the People Also Ask section in the Google results.
Individual Recipe
The FAQ works with individual recipe posts. You can also add sections for best sides and/or wines to pair with the recipe. A stand-alone list post can be created for the "__ best sides for _____" (ex: 21 Best Sides for Flank Steak), which is teased in your recipe’s side dishes section. In that case you would list the first three best sides for flank steak, and you would have a call-to-action that reads “See All 21 of the Best Side Dishes for Flank Steak.” This will decrease your bounce rate, increase your time on page, and give you another easy list post to rank for.
The takeaways and extra tips…
#1 Adding content to the tail end is the safest way to update posts.#2 The goal is to keep the visitor on your page longer to make more ad income and improve your rankings.#3 You should invest most of your updating time on posts that get traffic.#4 If a post is getting zero or next to no traffic, updating it will not make much difference. In most cases, the blog post is either targeting an out of reach keyword or the intent is not informational. You are better off focusing your time on writing a new post on a low-competition keyword than writing more content for a post that is getting zero traffic.#5 While the best practice echoed by most SEO experts is to leave posts ranking #1 to #3 alone, that concept is hard to apply and understand for most bloggers. Most posts getting traffic usually have at least one keyword ranking #1 to #3. If you want to be conservative, then I recommend NOT UPDATING the posts that produce the top 20% of your Google traffic. When identifying these posts you should look at the sessions or page views generated from Google search over the last 12 months. If you only look at the past 30 or 90 days, then your seasonal post traffic outside of this date range will not be included.#6 The remaining posts that produce the lower 80% of Google traffic will be reviewed, in order, from most traffic to least.#7 You do not need to update every post. Review each post compared to the competition. If you have the most comprehensive post on a topic and it already has an “A” content grade, then you do not have to add more content."