SERP stands for Search Engine Result Page and often refers to the results of a Google search, although it is really any search engine.
In this short blog post, we'll go through the most common questions we get at Contitude about SERP.
What is my SERP ranking?
SERP ranking is about the position your website appears in when someone types a specific search term into a search engine. Finding out is not easy. Search engines such as Google change the SERP all the time and it is unique for each person who searches for a term. A common mistake is to try to find out your SERP ranking by searching for a term in Google yourself and then trying to find your own page in the SERP. However, given that you yourself have likely been to your own site many times, Google will think that this is a good result for you and therefore rank your page higher for you than for other people doing the same search.
How do I find out my SERP ranking?
There are many different SEO tools available today to help you get an idea of your SERP ranking, e.g. Ahref, SEMrush etc. These tools are really good for keeping track of your estimated improvement or degradation in ranking on specific keywords but only give an estimate and unfortunately not exact results.
To get your real SERP ranking, you need to use the tools provided by the search engine, in Google's case, Google Search Console. In Google Search Console you will find data directly from Google, although it is not as nicely presented as in the SEO tools, it is the most reliable and you will get an average SERP ranking. However, Google Search Console does not show search terms that have very few searches. You will therefore always see a difference between the number of total clicks and the sum of clicks on all search terms.
What is a SERP feature?
A SERP feature is a result in a search engine that does not look like a normal result. There are many different examples of SERP features and you've probably seen many of them already. Getting a SERP feature is really good and increases CTR (Click-Through-Rate). Getting a SERP feature is a combination of structured data that you can create yourself and Google's own ranking and judgement on whether your feature should be displayed.
Some of the most common SERP features are listed below:
Featured Snippet (Instant Answer)
The Featured Snippet is by far one of the most common SERP features and you've most likely come across these before.
See the image below for an example of a Featured Snippet.
If you manage to get a Featured Snippet, you'll go straight to the top of the search results. Unfortunately, there is no shortcut to getting a Featured Snippet, it's all about answering a specific question in the most concrete and clear way possible. The tip that we can give to succeed with a SERP Feature is to have a headline with a precise question and then directly under the headline answer the question as clearly as possible.
FAQs
This SERP feature is really useful and where you can influence a lot yourself. The image below shows an example of an FAQ in a SERP.
Having an FAQ in your SERP results makes it easier for users to determine if your page answers the question they're looking for answers to. Plus, you can include more questions than just the one specifically searched for.
To get an FAQ, you need to add code to the page you want an FAQ on.
See below for example code:
https://developers.google.com/search/docs/data-types/faqpage
Important to remember is that the questions you answer in your FAQ should also be answered on the page you add the FAQ code to. Ideally you should have the same structure on that page i.e. you have a heading as the question and then answer the question underneath. Then you are most likely to get the FAQ through as a SERP feature.
Sitelinks
Sitelinks is an interesting feature that you probably have seen before as well. In most cases, this will only appear if the search is for a brand or a search that is exclusively about a particular website.
In order to achieve this, it is important to generate a lot of traffic to your website and that there are many direct searches on your brand.
You can also get a search box to search directly on your website. It usually appears in conjunction with the other links and requires the implementation of some code. Here you can find more information about it:
https://developers.google.com/search/docs/data-types/sitelinks-searchbox
Want to know more about SERP? Book a meeting with us!
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