Leverage these 11 SERP features now to Improve Your Rankings!
Introduction:
Google’s search engine results pages (SERPs) continue to evolve dramatically. Keeping the consumer’s interest in mind, Google has converted from a search engine into an answer engine. They have recognized that their users would rather be presented with immediate answers than having to go through a page of links to get their questions answered.
While this is great for the Google consumers, it presents a new challenge for Website owners. Not only do they have to compete with Google ads but a whole multitude of advanced SERP features are now competing for the ever-important user attention. Read on to understand the key SERP Features and how they can be leveraged as part of your SEO Strategy.
Now, what are SERPs, their meanings and Implementation technique?
To Improve the Search Results and Browsing experience Google SERP has introduced the following search result types:
- Location Based
- Reviews
- Accelerated Mobile Page
- Sitelinks
- Knowledge Panel
- Question Based
- Top Stories
- Video Carousel
- Ad-words Top/Bottom
- Shopping Ads
Let’s start understanding about each SERP and how to implement these features.
- Location Based
Location Based Search results appears for every business. But the Business categories like hotels, food, shops, Stores, etc. get a lot of benefit through this feature.
You might have search for: “pizza near me”, “barber shop near me”, etc.
For these queries the search results are like:
“Pizza near me”
“Barber shop near me”
So, these are the location-based searches. But how do you make your website effective for these kind of search results – through Google My Business profiles.
If you have, then you should:
-Update your NAP [Name, Address & Phone Number]
-Check for user reviews and answer their questions
-Put regular updates about your product/service with their information
-Keep updated pics / Videos
These are some of the to-do list for keeping your GMB updated.
- Reviews
Reviews we can call it as an online “Word of Mouth” platform. Online users take necessary decisions based on the reviews only. So, it’s better to maintain your good reviews.
- Accelerated Mobile Page
*Statista data on number of smartphone users in India
*Economic times article on age group spending their time on mobile devices
source: economictimes.indiatimes.com/
*Google Trends data to measure the Interest in
From the above reports (Statista & Google Trends) and the news article by Economic times, the insight is, we should not neglect mobile phones while designing our online marketing strategy. That’s a must thing to survive in this digital world.
How to optimize my website for efficient mobile searches?
Due to this, Google has introduced the term “Accelerated Mobile Page”. You must design some of your webpages, only for Mobile. Which you think are the most important. So, whenever a user searches for products/service related to your business on the Mobile, you should be prepared for an “AMP”
AMP Page looks like this in Mobile:
So, these are the AMP pages example. The encircled “Lightning Bolt” icon tells searchers that these pages are faster than the other normal pages in the mobile. Avg time a person waits on the mobile for the webpage to get uploaded is ~2 -3 sec. Post which they cancel the loading and start checking for other pages.
- Sitelinks
Sitelinks comes below the description of the webpage. Its helps traffic to navigate to other links of the site. This feature can show up to 10 additional sitelinks depending on the SEO hygiene
There is a difference in between Google Ads sitelinks and Organic Sitelinks.
For Google Ads sitelinks we can decide our own sitelinks but for an SEO sitelinks decision is not in our hand. This is fully based on site’s structure data, sitemap submission, internal links structure.
For this, your website needs to be well optimized.
- Knowledge Panel
Knowledge panel comes on the right most position of the SERP and provides the information about the topic you searched for. This result will come only for the famous places, business, etc.
- Question Based
When you search for any query on the search engine, along with the search results the “question list also comes”. You can check this list under “people also ask” section. You will get a deep idea on what your target audience is searching for
And,
Q&A on Google
What to do with this kind of questions?
-You can write blog articles on answering the questions
-Use these questions and utilize on social media
-Use of these questions on your daily updates on “GOOGLE MY BUSINESS” account.
- Top Stories
Top stories are the articles related to the search queries. They appear in the middle position of the
first page. Rather than going for the news section separately, you can check out the relevant articles for your use.
- Video Carousel
Video Carousel mainly comes in the second half position of the search results. These are the videos relevant to the searches you made online.
Twitter SERP results comes on the last position-first page of the search results.
- AdWords
These results don’t come under organic rankings. These are paid ads. Google Search Engine has left top 4 and Bottom 4 positions for the ads on first and second page
Refer below table to implement some of the SERP results for your website:
| SERP Feature | Some of the techniques |
| Location Based | Optimize Google My Business Account, Improve Local SEO |
| Review | Ask your customers for online reviews
Positive, Negative Reviews are welcome Keep analyzing and improving your problem areas. |
| Accelerated Mobile Page | This is specifically to optimize mobile search results. Make your web pages Mobile friendly: Improve page load time, implement AMP |
| Sitelink | Submit sitemaps to search console
Make every important page SEO friendly Improve Internal Linking |
| Question Based | Check list of Questions on Quora, People also asked for section
Start building content on these topics Publish articles on Quora Keep answering QnA on Google consistently |
| Top Stories | For Articles, News, Blogs start publishing on Google News app. Keep focus on High Quality content and comply with Google News Content Policies
|
Conclusion:
It is important to keep an eye on the evolving SERP features and continually improve your website structure accordingly for better SEO and User Experience. Finding opportunities within organic results and SERP features to optimize and encourage clicks to your website will play a vital role in bringing in a healthy flow of website visitors. After all their attention is your currency.
Blog disclaimer: This is a professional weblog, and we have invited experts to share their thoughts, expertise , perspectives and knowledge. The opinions expressed here are purely representing their personal views and not those of any institution, employer or company.
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