Audience research
How to set up rank tracking for Edinburgh and Glasgow SEO teams
How to configure rank tracking for Edinburgh and Glasgow SEO teams, with city-level location profiles, Scots and Gaelic keyword groups and local demand by sector.
What to take away
- Set one location profile per city. A single United Kingdom or Scotland profile averages two different query mixes and hides both.
- Use en-GB as the base language, then separate groups for Scots (sco) and Scottish Gaelic (gd).
- Split keyword groups by city, sector and district before reading positions.
- Report weekly for seasonal Edinburgh clients, monthly for steady services, and always include local pack results.
Configure location, language, device and window
The biggest misread is location. A tracker left on United Kingdom often reports from a national data centre, which is not what a user in Leith or Partick sees. Create separate location profiles for Edinburgh and Glasgow.
Default that misleads
- Location
- United Kingdom
- Language
- English only
- Device
- Desktop only
- Reporting window
- Monthly average
- SERP features
- Organic only
Value for Scottish projects
- Location
- City level: Edinburgh and Glasgow as separate profiles
- Language
- en-GB base, plus gd and sco groups
- Device
- Mobile and desktop tracked separately
- Reporting window
- Weekly for seasonal work, monthly for steady services
- SERP features
- Local pack, maps and reviews included
Semrush rank tracking segments positions by location and device, so one keyword set can be reported per city. Rank tracking: Track your positions on search | Semrush features covers the segmentation settings in detail.
Rank tracker settings to check
- Set location to city or region
- Check city-level targeting support
- Add Scots and Gaelic language
- Track mobile and desktop separately
- Use weekly or daily windows
Language comes next: en-GB as base, then gd and sco as their own groups. Device and reporting window follow, with weekly tracking for seasonal clients.
Edinburgh demand is seasonal and finance-led
Edinburgh demand clusters around accountancy, legal services, short-term lets and festival hospitality. Track "independent financial adviser Edinburgh" and "mortgage broker Edinburgh" apart from "pension advice Scotland". Local SEO rank tracking for UK results explains how to keep city and national positions in one report.
Get real volumes before you set targets. Google Keyword Planner filtered to Edinburgh, Semrush keyword research filtered by location, and Search Console's region filter all report city-level demand.
August lifts accommodation, events and hospitality queries. A monthly average hides that peak, so set a weekly window from late July to early September for clients selling to festival visitors.
Glasgow demand is fragmented and sector-led
Glasgow demand spreads across design, marketing, venues, trades and local retail, often carrying district names such as Finnieston, Shawlands and the Merchant City. One agency may serve construction, hospitality and professional services at once. Group keywords by client sector first, then by city.
Large keyword sets suit this pattern. STAT handles big sets and daily tracking for agencies running many SME clients, and STAT Search Analytics - Overview - Moz sets out the tracking options.
District-level queries matter more here than in Edinburgh. A Finnieston restaurant and a Shawlands tradesperson compete in different result sets, so give each district its own group.
Teams working across devolved markets face similar choices about which SERP features to segment. Cardiff and Belfast SEO teams tracking cross-border SERP features shows how that comparison is done without merging the markets.
Scots and Gaelic queries need separate groups
Scots is a Germanic language spoken across Scotland. Scottish Gaelic is a Celtic language, with most speakers in the Highlands and Islands and growing use in education and public services. English-only trackers treat both as misspellings.
Example queries to track: Scots forms such as "Glesga", "Embra", "hoose" and "cannae"; Gaelic terms such as "sgoil" (school), "taigh-òsta" (hotel) and "Gàidhlig". Put them in groups labelled sco and gd, never inside an English average.
A query an English-only tracker flags as a spelling error is often the correct spelling in Scots or Gaelic.
Volumes are small. They still matter for public sector, education, tourism and cultural clients, where the query language signals the audience.
Example: a six-step setup for a two-city agency
The order below applies to Semrush, STAT or any tracker that accepts city-level location and language settings.
Configuring Scottish rank trackers
- Define separate Edinburgh and Glasgow locations
- Build keyword groups by intent and sector
- Set language and device options
- Choose weekly or monthly reporting window
- Validate data sources before reporting
- Review and adjust quarterly
A six-step setup for a two-city agency
- Create separate location profiles for Edinburgh and Glasgow. Never merge them into one Scotland profile.
- Build keyword groups by city, sector and district. Use Finnieston and Shawlands for Glasgow, Leith and Morningside for Edinburgh.
- Add language groupsen-GB as base, then sco and gd on their own.
- Enable device and SERP feature tracking, including mobile, local pack, maps and reviews.
- Match the reporting window to the client, weekly for seasonal work and monthly for steady services.
- Validate sources and review quarterly. Check that the audience you claim matches the settings you use.
Before you report, test that your evidence holds. SEO tools measurement mistakes that weaken your evidence lists the errors that most often undermine a rank report.
Small agencies handling client data inside shared tracking projects fall under UK data protection rules. ICO advice for small organisations sets out the duties that apply before you add city profiles to a live account.
Common questions
Does Scottish rank tracking need different tools from England?
No, it needs different settings. The same trackers work once you set city-level location, add gd and sco groups, and match reporting windows to Scottish seasonality.
How do I track Gaelic queries when my tracker allows one language per project?
Run a separate project for Gaelic. Set the location to Scotland and the language to gd where the tool supports it, then keep those keywords out of your English averages.
Why do Edinburgh and Glasgow positions differ for the same client?
The query mixes differ. Edinburgh demand leans towards finance, professional services and festival tourism, while Glasgow demand spreads across creative services, trades and district-level retail searches.
