What Is SERP and How Does It Impact Your Business?

What is SERP

Whenever you’re searching for the answer to a question you have regarding a certain topic or a specific product, service, or establishment nearer your location, Google spits out a page with millions of results. These results consist of web pages that match your search query in seconds.

In the digital marketing realm, this page is known as a SERP (search engine results page) and is a frequently used indicator of how visible your webpage or business’s homepage is on the internet. 

This is important whether you’re running a small mom-and-pop coffee shop or a large-scale backend software development company. Prominence and success on web engines’ SERP is essential for reaching new clients every single day – especially in a constantly digitizing world. This is where BRANDefenders can help. 

In this deep dive, we’ll take a look at what exactly SERP is, its potential impact on your website, and a couple of ways you can utilize its features and improve your web page’s online visibility. And when you’re ready to improve your ranking on Google, reach out to BRANDefenders to learn how we can help you. 

SERP: An Overview

Search engine page results are essentially the byproduct of what you tell Google – or whichever search engine of your preference – to search for. These SERPs include features such as organic search results, paid Google ads, video results, knowledge graphs, and featured snippets.

SERP will always be unique for every individual search query – no matter if the same keywords or search queries are typed in. Search engines will always look to enhance the browsing experience for the user. 

These enhancement factors will typically include the searcher’s geographical location, browsing history, and more. While two SERPs consisting of the same query may appear identical at first glance, there will always be a couple of differences between the two.

The higher your company’s website ranks amongst the ten or so blue links on an individual SERP, research and common sense suggest that it’s likelier searchers will click on your webpage. Of course, the more specific an individual search is within a specific niche or industry, your website will be bound to show up higher on the SERP.

Nevertheless, there are three main areas of a SERP that you need to understand.

Organic Results

Organic results appear on a SERP after the paid results, and the order of which is determined by the search engine’s algorithm. Here is where professionals trained in SEO (search engine optimization) such as BRANDefenders would come into play. They specialize in optimizing web content to ensure that your site appears higher on organic search results.

Sometimes, you’ll also see a box of information pop up on the right-hand side of a SERP; this is known as a knowledge graph, which synthesizes data from various sources related to the query on the SERP to provide a concise answer.

Paid Results

Paid results, on the other hand, have been purchased to occupy the top spots of a SERP through a pay-per-click (PPC) model. These ensure more searchers will see your content, thus virtually guaranteeing higher click-through rates (CTR). 

Nonetheless, on competitive keywords and search terms, search engines such as Google will place paid advertisements at the bottom of SERPS, meaning that bidding on these keywords won’t exactly slingshot you to the top if your website’s SEO value isn’t very high.

Featured snippets (FS) will display a short section of content or video pulled up from the source material, providing the searcher with a preview of the contents of your website. According to reports, featured snippets get 8% of all clicks and appear on many search results pages. The information displayed on a featured snippet includes many types of content, including: 

  • FAQs
  • Bulleted or numbered lists
  • Video segments
  • Tables
  • Plain text 

Featured snippets are often seen as a double-edged sword by SEO experts. On the one hand, they can push organic search results down just a tad bit more, which can mean losing a potential customer thanks to the featured snippet garnering most of their attention.

On the other hand, if your website is SEO-savvy and publishes high-quality content, showing up as an FS (also known as Position #0) will automatically increase organic CTRs – after all, it’s the first thing one sees on a SERP, even above the paid advertisements.

SERP’s Effects on Your Website

The listed SERP features, amongst many more, directly impact how visible your website is online and, as a result, how many new clients or potential visitors you can gain throughout a specific period. Fewer people seeing your website means lower impressions, lower CTRs, and fewer conversions. 

Google’s featured tools and links make up the top of a search results page, and the first five results get nearly 70% of all clicks. This means that if you don’t implement any search engine optimization tactics into your website, you’re reducing your webpage’s competitiveness on keywords or search queries.

Soliciting the assistance of a digital marketing firm such as the likes of BRANDdefenders ensures that your business or brand hosts a webpage that is rich in SEO content, thus fortifying its online presence and turning more impressions into greater revenue streams. 

Without further ado, here are five ways you could seek to improve your website’s placement on SERPs.

4 Ways to Improve SERP Performance

1. Long-Tail Keywords

Long-tail keywords essentially consist of short phrases and keywords relevant to your topic that receive high amounts of traffic on search queries; it’s a way of selecting a target audience through specific keywords you want them to search for.

For example, if you’re in the insurance business and you were to search for “best car insurance”, you’re bound to get millions of results on Google from hundreds of different car insurance companies nationwide. 

On the other hand, if you make your search more specific and call upon the assistance of SEO specialists such as BRANDefenders, they’ll give you a list of long-tailed keywords that you can utilize to separate your website from other competitors. Something like “cheapest car insurance in (city, state)” would probably generate more traffic by including it in your content.

In other words, employing long-tail keywords within the content your website is publishing is a great way of making the multimedia you’re pumping out more visible online.

2. Consistent, Quality Content

We’ve already established how implementing long-tailed keywords into your content can improve your website’s performance on SERPs, but pumping out consistent and quality blog pieces and videos, amongst other work, is just as important.

A great understanding of SEO also helps out in this instance, as you’ll need to do some more digging on the current state of SERPs you want to show up on to guide the content you want to publish. If you’re not sure of what to post, contact the team at BRANDefenders for guidance. 

Targeting featured snippets is a great way to get started. By identifying what phrases, keywords, structures, or questions show up on the FS, you’ll be able to use the knowledge you gain as a reference to create your own content. 

For example, if there are questions being answered on a given snippet, write answers under subheadings containing the same question that are more concise and better in quality than what’s already on there. Consider including long-tailed keywords within the answers as well.

3. Original Media & Images

When it comes to improving your website’s SEO, using original images and media is a far better alternative to supplementing your content with already existing media. Firstly, it goes without saying that using images related to your content would do wonders for search engines to pay attention to your content.

Another tip to keep in mind is that using high-traffic keywords when naming your images also helps with elevating your website’s position within a given SERP. Inserting alt tags consisting of said keywords on the images linked to your website will allow Google to see the content depicted on an image and grant your website higher placements.

4. Harnessing The Power of Social Media

Sharing your articles on your website or businesses’ social media accounts is also a great way to generate greater traffic and improve your website’s online visibility, especially if your Instagram or Twitter accounts have a decent following. If you don’t even have a social media page, to begin with, what are you waiting for? 

Nonetheless, if you’re not thrilled about the hassle of posting online regularly, there are multiple resources and platforms in which you can set a predetermined schedule for posting your website’s content that best aligns with your target market’s online activity. Digital marketing companies such as BRANDefenders can also help out with these activities.

Closing Thoughts

Improving your SERP performance is a long and complex process. SEO and digital marketing specialists like the BRANDefenders can help you achieve your website’s goals and raise its online visibility.

Follow this guide to get started with improving your search engine result page rankings, and don’t hesitate to reach out to an expert when you’re ready to get the best results. 

Like This Post?

🍪 Cookie Policy

We use cookies to enhance your browsing experience. By continuing to use this site you agree to our use of cookies. To learn more about how we use cookies, please see our Cookie Policy.