Watchdog takes monitoring and alerts to the next level. Yes, you may already monitor page performance. You may even have alerts set if positions or traffic drops.
What Watchdog does which sets it apart is alert you when page factors change and what actions to take to regain your losses.
As your campaigns grow and your work compounds, how can you keep track of everything that's been implemented or published?
But what are you supposed to do when you receive one of these dreaded alerts? There's no action, it's just giving you bad news. You’ll put it on your pile of things to eventually look into and move on with your day.. Frustrating!
When Watchdog sends you an alert, it may not be bad news, it may be to tell you your page is doing better than before!
Either way, a Watchdog report gives you the headline but also tells you exactly what factors have changed and will give you a list of tasks to regain your positions and traffic. Now you can focus on building new organic traffic and rest easy knowing your existing traffic is being looked after by Watchdog.
Depending on your plan POP will check for changes in your competitors or Google updates, weekly, monthly, or quarterly.
You’ll then receive an email either telling you everything is ok, or letting you know what changes you need to make to your page.
In your project dashboard, select the page you want to monitor with Watchdog.
In Watchdog settings, select the scan frequency (monthly is usually enough) and if you want individual page reports, a monthly summary of all your pages or both.
Watchdog will now alert you when your SERP position drops due to modifications by competitors or a Google update. And it will give you to-do items to regain your position.
Yes, Watchdog does consume credits. It will consume a total of one credit per Watchdog run. If you are on the Unlimited, or Teams plans, you can run Watchdog an unlimited number of times.
The Watchdog report generates information on recent competitor ranking changes, new related keywords and questions, changes in your score, and changes in your content brief recommendation. With this information, you can get ahead of your competitors, simply by having more information.
Your plan will determine which frequencies you have access to. Basic, Premium, and Unlimited have access to monthly and quarterly Watchdog reports, while the Teams plan has access to monthly, quarterly, and weekly reports.
This video explains how to read Watchdog reports generated by POP.
