What Are SERP’s- Why Are They Important For Your Success

 

The Internet is an indispensable resource for any business today. Not only for businesses but for us also, it is one of the essential things. It’s because of the internet we get anything delivered at home, we can keep in touch with everyone and can stay tuned with the happenings of the world. Now, whenever you search for anything on the web, you get many results, and you are most likely to click on the topmost result.

These results are shown with respect to your query on the search engine, and they are known as SERPs (Search Engine Results Pages). All these pages are in the results because they contain something that matches your search query.

Now, in the following sections, we will study various aspects related to the SERPs. Let’s begin!

 

What are SERPs made of?

Whenever you look for something on Google or any other search engine, you get various results. Now, if you have noticed that the top results on the page are ads, below these ads are the results that we usually look for.

 

Now, based on this, let us understand the types of SERPs.

 

Paid results

The search results on the top of the page are ads; they are known as paid search results. These results are high in the raking because Google gets paid for them by the advertisers. Though, Google takes into account other factors like the relevance of the ad and CTR before placing it. These results work based on Pay-Per-Click.

 

Organic Results

These results are those mentioned just below the paid results on the Google page. These results are not paid, and the only way to rank among these results is by SEO optimization. We will discuss SEO in the next section.

 

Apart from these two types, there is a third type of SERP named SERP features.

 

SERP features

The SERP features are those results that directly deliver the exact thing that you are looking for, for example, if you search for “Robert Downey Jr age” on Google. It will show a direct result on the top of the page. This result is one of the various types of SERP features. We will discuss all the SERP features in this article.

 

Link between SERPs and SEO

As mentioned above, most of us will always click on the top 3-4 results on the Google page related to any query. This clarifies one thing that if you want a lot of traffic on your website, you need to be in the top Google results. But sometimes, being on the first Google page may not be enough for you. There are many reasons for that:

 

 

• Most of the users click on the first 3-4 results on the results page. If you are not in those 3-4 results, you will not receive enough traffic.

• Paid ads take away the traffic from your website. If you manage to get in the top 4 results, you will get traffic but not as much as desired.

• Some of the user queries have such a format that the direct result of those queries is displayed on the Google results page itself. Due to this, the users don’t need to click on the SERPs.

 

 

Hence, the SEO depends highly on SERPs. If you want to land among the top Google results, you need to be smart in all ways. In the following section, we will learn how you can get ranked high in the Search Engine Results Pages.

 

How to be in the SERPs?

Being in the SERPs may seem easy but needs a lot of hard work and smart work. The methods that you need to undertake vary based on the type of SERPs you want to be in. Let’s talk about what you can do.

 

• To be in the paid ads results: As described above, these results are on the top of the Google results page. The results on the top are of those people who have bid the highest on some specific keywords for each click. Google gets paid for each click. To be in the top results, you need to have a deep pocket.

 

• To be in the organic results: Not even Google can stop you from being in the organic results, provided you have done everything right. The search engine uses hundreds of parameters to filter out the best results for top places. Among those parameters, one is the number of quality backlinks to your website. If you have those backlinks, you have a high chance of being in the top results.

 

Other than this, you can focus on making the title, URL, and snippet of your website or webpage more optimized and as per user intent. You will have a chance of being in the top results if Google indexes your webpage.

 

• To be in the SERP features: SERPs have the possibility to increase the traffic on your website, all that matters is your approach towards the aspect.

 

What are the various SERP features?

The sole purpose of a SERP feature is to provide information to the users without making them click on a link. The benefit of this goes to the search engine most of the time. The various SERP features in which you can try to appear are:

 

Knowledge Panel

This is a SERP feature that displays information about the major subject of the query. For example, if you search for “Samsung”, it will display a knowledge panel on the right side of the desktop. This knowledge panel comes from trusted sources like Wikipedia, Knowledge Graph, etc.

 

• To appear in the Knowledge Panel, the information about your website or firm needs to be in the trusted sources. Your firm can also appear among the competitors of the major subject, in this case, Samsung.

 

Image Pack

These are the images that display on the top of the main webpage apart from the images section. Clicking in these images will directly take you to the Google images tab and will also display the image source. 

 

• It is possible to be in the image pack, provided your website has images related to the query. You will get traffic on your website only when the user clicks on the image source.

 

Top Stories

This SERP feature displays the recently shared blogs, articles, news, and videos related to the query. For example, searching for “CoronaVirus” displays news and articles with a thumbnail, title, timestamp, and publisher.

 

• You have a high chance of ranking in these results, provided your site is indexed in Google News.

 

Videos

This SERP feature shows videos related to the user query. For example, searching for PUBG gameplay, you will get videos posted by people on Youtube. The video will display the name of the channel but will not go on its website on clicking.

 

• To be in the top video results, the videos should be optimized. You also need the VideoObject schema markup on your webpage if your video is posted on your website and not on Youtube.

 

People Also Ask (PAA)

These are the questions that are searched by people related to a query. Let us take the example of PUBG gameplay when you search it on Google. The PAA questions are “Is PUBG online game?”, “Can I play PUBG for free?” and many more. They reveal answers when clicked on along with their source.

 

• Your website link can be in the PAA section if your website has the answer (mostly come from third-party websites)  to any of the questions in the PAA section though it will not lead to much traffic on your website.

 

Knowledge Card

These are the SERP features that contain answers to very specific questions. Taking the same example again, searching for “Robert Downey Jr age” will give you a knowledge card on the top of the webpage with the accurate answer.

 

• It is highly unlikely to be in the knowledge card SERP feature as the information is derived from legitimate sources like Google Knowledge graph, data partners, etc.

 

Shopping Results

This SERP feature shows the paid results based on the queries of the users related to the products. For example, search for the “best headphones” will offer you a list of headphones to choose from. 

 

• There is no way to get in this SERP feature results than paying money to the search engine.

 

Tweets

These are the results extracted from twitter that were recently posted related to the query. For example, searching for “Rajiv Makhni” will provide you recent tweets from twitter.

 

• You can appear in the tweets provided it is made from the official twitter account of your brand.

 

Sitelinks

Lastly, site links are the SERP features that are additional links related to your website and appear just below the primary link. This helps users in finding the desired content fast and easily. It also boosts the traffic on your website.

 

• Sitelinks are attached to your website, so Google will show the site links when users will search for your website. For example, search “TechCrunch” on Google, you will see the site links mentioned under the primary website link.

 

Final Words

In a nutshell, we can say that appearing in the top spots of the SERPs is not a walk in a park. There is a butt load of factors that you need to consider while planning to get traffic to your website. You need to optimize the web pages, take a look at the deciding factors, and even spend some money to get things done. Getting organic traffic is tough but can be done. Moreover, you focus on building the quality of your website, and you may even appear in the SERP features.