What Are SERPs and Why Are They Important for SEO?

Digital Marketing

A search engine results page known as SERP is the typical list of results that any search engine returns in response to a word or a phrase query that a person continues to search. Each listing present on the SERP includes the linked web page title, the URL linked page and a brief description of that page content. In some rare cases, it also links to points of interest within the website.

Following are the three main types of SERP-

Pages the search engine spider has crawled.
Pages that have been added manually to the directory of the search engine.
The types of pages that appear as a result of the paid inclusion.

Only the information that is the most valuable hits the highest ranking on the website, and the links which do not receive the highest ranking are the less relevant ones.

The search engine users will only look at the first one to three pages of hits. Website owners and web designers use SEO methods to make their sites appear near the top of a SERP.

The SERP features are the elements that appear on Google’s search engine results page.

People make an informational query when they like to explore something. It could be background facts on a topic or a general query. The right content drives searchers to a particular brand. It is very critical to create relevant content to increase your audience.

Benefits of SERP

Google constantly updates and develops algorithms to provide the most precise answer to a user’s query in the shortest period. To stay competitive, a website owner should track all the changes happening and analyze them. They should also adopt new strategies, expand their horizons, and widen their perspective.
Following are some of the benefits of SERP-

Providing detailed results with the use of a typical knowledge graph

A knowledge graph is an element that is displayed in a separate box on the right side of SERP. The primary purpose of a knowledge graph is to provide structured and detailed results for users searching for factual data. If people search for Picasso, the knowledge graph will show brief information about the artist, his date of birth and a short bio and images. It will also provide you with several other links to websites where one is likely to get more detailed information on this query.

Using local pack to influence your business

Local pack appears in response to the local-related queries that the people pose. People searching for local companies often do not need to see their sites. They want their contact details, the opening hours and reviews. If your services or company is listed in the local pack, the users can get all the information they need without taking further action. Everything is a click away for them!

Fewer businesses are featured in a local pack.
How can you get featured in a local pack?
You can get featured in a local pack by-

Optimizing the content of your website for local search.
Get your business listed in the local directories.
Creating and optimizing the Google My business page.

Uses of SERP

Using featured snippets for your business

A featured snippet is a typical block that appears on the top of a SERP. It contains a summary of the answer of the question or the query the user has searched. It also contains a link to the webpage from which it is extracted in the first place.

How can the featured snippet influence your business?

A featured snippet is the element that provides e-commerce websites with a new opportunity to rank for informational queries. If the website is chosen by Google to be displayed in a featured snippet, the posting will be also located above all the organic results on the search engine. This way, your site gets an advantage over other sites.

Making use of site links to boost the SEO

Site links are an element of SERP which display the hyperlinks to websites subpages. This makes it easier for the users to navigate a website. These site links appear only for branded navigational queries.

How do site links influence your business?

Site links provide the users with the relevant results. Users do not have patience and hence, the website that pops up in front of them first, wins.
Site links not only provide you with a good user experience, they also help you build trust around your brand.
By making use of site links, you can also cover more SERP space. You can also become more visible and get more traffic.
The traffic is driven to your internal pages, not just your homepage.
Many people take the On-page SEO services that refer to the practice of optimizing several web pages for improving the rankings of the search engine of the website and earn organic traffic.

What are the features of SERP?

The Google SERP ranking feature includes various images, videos, products and maps that are on sale. It also includes a combination of several elements that are grouped together for catering to the user search. The main reasoning behind the SERP features is to predict the search intent of the user. There is a vast density of information that is prevalent on the internet and if you want to find your name inside an SERP feature you should go beyond the keyword research. Following are some of the features of SERP-

Paid ads

Paid ads are very important because depending on the user’s particular search, these ads can occupy the entire hold half of the SERP upon search.

These ads reduce the number of organic search results that are prevalent on the first page. They also significantly reduce their visibility. These types of paid ads also tend to look similar to the organic SERP results.

Paid shopping results

It is a common notion that if a user decides or makes up his mind to search for a particular product he is interested in, they would often see a row containing several boxes with the pictures of products in need. Each box that is prevalent would offer the name of the retailer selling that particular product or giving a service to their customers, its price and some extra information.

This can be used as a user rating. The most dominant thing about paid ads is that when the paid shopping results appear as an answer to the user’s question, they occupy the topmost section of the SERP. All the results that are low in ranking can be found underneath.

Knowledge panel

The knowledge panel is the segment that occupies the right section of the Google SERP. The knowledge panel contains a mixture of essential information about the topic in question. These types could feature an image and some basic information.

This knowledge panel appears when the user is looking out for or searching for some really well known events, people and locations. The partner companies of Google are Google maps, Wikipedia and Google my business.

Image/video carousel and image pack

The three different SERP features are an image carousel, an image pack and a video carousel. If you want your page to appear in any of these, you should tag the visual media carefully in your posts and online content.

The video carousels are the entities that tend to appear as a search result for the informational ‘how-to’ searches. They contain the video tutorials that come with timestamps. If you want to get your video featured, you should make sure that it is accurate, short and crisp.

Image pack

This type of feature is one of the most important features of SERP and it is displayed for any type of search query that refers to images. However, the main drawback of this feature is that, when the searchers click on an image, they are redirected to Google images, not the website that the image is from. Google uses different algorithms for the images than for the texts.

Wrapping Up

Although there are many additional elements that may show up depending on a user’s search, we have compiled the most important and frequently seen Google SERP features. In order to comprehend how Google interprets crucial SEO data and what factors affect how web pages are shown on the search results page, SERP analysis is a crucial tool.

By pointing out where to enhance your SEO approach, a SERP analysis not only enables you to identify any holes in your own content but also enables you to outperform rivals.