An Honest Review of Rankiq from a Blogger: Should You Subscribe?

Are you considering subscribing to RankIQ but you're just not sure if its worth it for you? Will it really produce those epic results? Let's talk about it here in my honest review of RankIQ!

Jump to:

• What is RankIQ?
• What's Included in Your Subscription?
• How Much Does RankIQ Cost?
• Is it Better Than Other SEO Tools?
• Have You Seen Results?
• Advantages of RankIQ
• Disadvantages of RankIQ
• Is RankIQ Worth It? Should You Subscribe?
• Comments and Ratings

What is RankIQ?

RankIQ is an SEO tool for bloggers developed by founder Brandon Gaille of The Blogging Millionaire podcast. RankIQ aims to help you find keywords with low competition and high search volume. Before we get into whether or not the tool is worth it, let's do a quick overview of the main parts of the tool, which is everything you'll get access to with your subscription.

What's Included in Your Subscription?

Keyword Library

Within RankIQ, you will have access to the keyword library where you can search for keywords related to your niche. The library is constantly growing, currently there are over 400 niches, here's a complete list of all of them, and over 300,000 keywords available.

*Note: I've blocked out keywords and certain data from the images.

My Keyword Library

Once you have found a keyword that interests you, you can save it to your own personal list of keywords. You can reference this list at any time or download the full list so you can import it into another tool for sorting, such as google sheets or airtable. From here you can also run a report or see if you've already done so, indicated by the checkmark.

Reports

When you're ready to write a post on a keyword you've selected, you 'run a report. This is when RankIQ will analyze the data from the top posts and return a detailed AI SEO report. You can use the report to make a content brief or outline for your post. The report includes:

• Suggested "grade" and word count to use as a guide for writing your post.

• Content analysis including the most common topics and LSI phrases that google wants you to cover in your post.

• Title Analysis that includes the most frequently used words in the post titles of pages currently ranking on top of the Google results. You can use this to help you craft your title.

• Competition analysis showing you the word count and content grade of the top posts on the topic. You can look through these posts to see how they have been structured.

Content Optimizer

Within the reports section, you'll also find the content optimizer. This is where you can input your draft copy for RankIQ to analyze. The optimizer will give you a "grade" and tell you how long your post is. You can then assess if you need to input more keywords or add more length to your post.

Check Rankings

There is also a section where you can connect your google analytics to track rankings of your keywords.

How Much Does RankIQ Cost?

Currently, RankIQ costs $49 USD per month which allows you to run 16 reports. After you've signed up, you can downgrade your plan to 8 reports per month for $29 USD if you don't think you can use that many reports. These prices may increase in the future as they are being advertised as 50% off.

There are also higher tiered plans but for the average blogger, 8 or 16 reports per month is likely plenty.

Is it Better Than Other SEO Tools?

This question is hard to answer because RankIQ is unlike any other SEO tool. Here's a quick breakdown on it:

• If your goal is to easily find keywords that you have the potential to rank for, then you will like RankIQ.
• If you get overwhelmed easily with other tools, you'll probably like RankIQ as the keyword selection is much smaller.
• On the other hand, if you enjoy going down rabbit holes sifting through endless keywords, then this is not the tool for you.
• Currently, RankIQ can't replace some functions found in other tools, like competitor gap analysis.

RankIQ is meant to be used in a different way from the other research tools. The purpose of RankIQ is to take the effort out of finding low competition, high volume keywords and then help you to optimize your post for that specific keyword.

While you can run a report on any keyword phrase you wish, you only have access to a hand picked selection of keywords in the keyword library. These keywords are chosen by the team at RankIQ for being low in competition and high in volume.

Keysearch is the other keyword research tool that I use frequently. In my experience, comparing the two is like apples to oranges. If you take a keyword from RankIQ and input that into Keysearch, the results will look different because they are not calculated using the same algorithms.

From my experience, RankIQ is useful but doesn't negate the need for other tools. In fact, you may find it helpful or even necessary to still have access to another tool like Keysearch to use in conjunction with RankIQ.

Have You Seen Results?

Here's a snapshot comparing my analytics from February 2022, when I first signed up for RankIQ until now, August 2022. Compared to the previous year:

As you can see overall my metrics have greatly improved! I'm up 131% in sessions, and up 160% in pageviews. This is promising to me. In this time frame I have focused solely on producing content that was thoughtfully keyword researched and selected, mostly from the RankIQ library, as well as updating old posts.

Advantages of RankIQ

• The Price is Right: The price is good for just about any budget. You pay on a monthly basis and can cancel or pause your account at any time.
• Saves Time: Everything that RankIQ does, you can technically do on your own through hours of research and combing through google results. Or you can log in to RankIQ and let it do the work for you. It truly does save you a lot of time researching keywords.
• Ditch the Overwhelm: The limited keyword database is less daunting to use compared to other keyword research tools. It only includes a limited amount of topics which are "guaranteed" to rank.
• Get Inspired: The keyword database is great for finding topics to write about when you're feeling stuck or uninspired.
• Topic Discovery: Having a limited database helps you easily uncover topics you may not have thought to write about or search for with other tools.
• Content Optimizer: The content optimizer is very useful for keeping track of which words you have already included in your post and if you need to add more.
• Improve rankings on old posts: The content optimizer is also helpful for updating old posts! Run a report on your old keyword, then use the optimizer to help you determine what you're lacking, fill out your post, and add in missing content.

Disadvantages of RankIQ

• Limited Database: While this is also an advantage, the limited keyword database also means it may feel like there is not a lot to choose from at times.
• Your Keyword Isn't There: A topic you had in mind to write about may not be in the database at all. This could be because it's a novel idea or because the competition is too high or volume too low. (You can still use one of your reports on this keyword if you wish though.)
• Competition: The more bloggers that sign on to use the tool creates more competition within our blogging community since we are all searching the same limited database and effectively using the same keywords. Even though reports are limited to three runs per keyword before being removed from the library, three people writing on the same topic is still too much competition to land high on the first page of google in some cases.
• Domain Authority: If you're a very low Domain Authority (DA) blogger, it can be discouraging when a higher DA blogger writes a post on the same topic and immediately ranks higher because of it. Especially if you spent a lot of time on the post and tried to create the best content you could. (Yes, I know DA is not a "ranking factor" but first hand experience shows this can be an indicator of success.)
• Search Volumes: This is a minor complaint, but RankIQ displays search volume differently than every other SEO tool. It is provided as a range for how much search volume you can expect to receive over the course of one year from the topic. (Most other tools show monthly search volume.) The range looks confusing and it can be hard to quickly wrap your brain around it since we are so accustomed to working with monthly search volumes. This difference also makes it hard to compare when cross-referencing with other tools.

Is RankIQ Worth It? Should You Subscribe?

This is hard to answer because everyone is on a different path and in varying stages of their blogging journey. I personally really enjoy using the tool, even with the few disadvantages outlined above.

The nice thing is that you can try RankIQ out, even for just one month, to see how you like it. The $50 investment is minimal compared to some other tools and I like that you don't have to sign up for a full year.

I am personally glad I gave it a try and have yet to pause or cancel my subscription. I have found several 'golden nuggets' within the tool and have used the optimizer to improve rankings on some older underperforming posts.

If you're on the fence and have a spare fifty bucks, I'd say just try it! You never know if it will resonate with you until you do! You can cancel at any time with the click of a button, it's very simple.

If you decide to try it out and you found this article helpful, I would be honored if you used my affiliate link! <-- Just click the link and sign up over on RankIQ!

Do you have any more questions about RankIQ? Drop it in the comments and I will do my best to answer!