Sounds daft, looks daft but boy is a SERP important! SERP in all its glory – why you should be interested in SERP and what it means for your website activity and the web traffic that visits you. All followed up by some fantastic tips on how to fill the search results with links to your website, using your Google Search Featured Snippet and Rich Results.
What is a SERP in SEO?
White Rabbit likes to cut out as much jargon as possible, to ensure you fully understand all the ins and outs of your website. This can only help you to develop a valuable asset to both yourself and your customers. So here we go with cutting out the BS from a SERP ;-)
What does SERP mean?
SERP = Search Engine Results Page – Well that’s it really, the clue’s in the name. The pages of results generated by a search engine when users search the web for a specific phrase or keyword.
Why is SERP important?
You may well ask and if you don’t know that, I’m a little worried as to what you’re doing here… It’s fairly common knowledge that SERP is important because where your website falls in the search engine results pages, dictates whether you will get much traffic from that search engine and particular search term.
If you are near the top of page one in the search engine results, then you are far more likely to get people clicking through to your website; and in turn buying your product, service or whatever else it is you do with your website.
Read on to find out how you can maximise your impact and chances of getting clicked.
How to fill SERP Real Estate 5 Ways
Taking up as much ‘real estate’ in the search result pages can help you maximise your exposure in Google search results. Beyond your listing in the organic results, you can fill more areas in a SERP with content from and links to pages on your website.
Taking up as much 'real estate' in the search result pages can help you maximise your exposure in Google search results. Share on X
1. Get the most from Organic & Local Search Results
As you can see from the screenshot below, filling the above fold content of a localised SERP can be easy with just Organic Results and your Google My Business Listing (and search ads if you’re into that kind of thing).
Having two pages ranking in the top spots for the same search term can have a major impact on your CTR. This is known as ‘keyword cannibalisation‘ and can have a negative impact on pages further down the search results.
In addition to this capturing and expanding the local pack side panel; prominently displaying your brand name, reviews and logo. As well as filling the user’s screen, all this is helping to cement brand awareness and trust. Add products and posts to your My Business listing and see how far down the side of the SERP you can fill with your content.
TOP TIP: Adding an ‘Appointments’ link to your GMB will expand your side panel further and increase the chances of a user clicking through to your website.
Ask us about other ways to maximise the impact of your Google My Business listing and Google Maps page.
2. How to add Google Snippet Links & Rating Stars
As with most of the pages and posts on this site, you’ll see the review rating stars in google organic results; these are added to your site and page’s Google Search Snippet using structured schema data.
What you may also see in some search results (depending on the search term and relevance) are the shortcut type snippet links. These links shown below some of Google’s search results, called Site links, are meant to help users navigate directly to the most relevant section of your page. The systems analyse the link structure of your site to find shortcuts that will save users time and allow them to quickly find the info they’re looking for.
It is possible to control and encourage Google snippet links; by adding a Table of Contents with the right schema data to each of your posts and pages, that you want to show snippet links in Google organic search results.
3. Using eCommerce Google Search Rich Snippets
Product pages on your eCommerce website can hold additional schema data that can trigger additional links to your website that appear in the Google Search Snippets. Product attributes are the key to this, as well as the obvious Price, Availability and Rating / Reviews; you can also include attributes such as Main category that can appear in your eCommerce Google Search Snippet.
4. Branded Social Profiles & Pages in SERP
Creating your own company page on the major social platforms will definitely help with filling SERPs for branded search results. Facebook, Twitter and Instagram posts and pages can often feature heavily in search results. Make sure you have a presence on each of these and it could fill another slot in the organic search results.
5. Position Zero: Local Google Search Featured Snippet
Similar to social platforms, the major business directories can also feature on localised search results. Get yourself signed up to Yell, 192, Tripadvisor and Cylex in your area at the very least. For a whole bunch more business listings to get exposure and backlinks, check out our post on Free Business Directories.
Google has recently rolled out new Localised Featured Snippets which include local directory listings for your search topic; we have seen these highlighting our client’s listings on sites like Yell and 192.
TOP TIP: As a minimum requirement for your directory listing to appear in search results, you will usually need a few reviews from customers. There may be other eligibility criteria and requirements to be met (depending on the platform).
Stand out with SERP Emojis
As well as the above tips on increasing the size of your listing in organic results and improving your presence in general on the SERPs, you can use other techniques to stand out. One of the hottest tips at the moment is using Emoji in SERP 🔥
How to improve SERP Rank
There are many ways to improving your SEO (Search Engine Optimisation), this will move your website up the SERP positions and increase CTR. Backed up with the steps you’ve taken above to improve your Google Search Featured Snippet & Rich Results. To put it simply, the more opportunities you give a search engine user to click through to your site, the more times you’re likely to get a site visit or interaction with your website.
See the other White Papers and Tutorials on our blog for more information; or make contact today to discuss your needs and how White Rabbit can help.
Follow the White Rabbit on social media to get updates of new White Paper and Tutorial posts. Use the links in our website footer or at the very top of the page to find us on social media.
Founder and strategic mind behind White Rabbit. Associate Member of the Chartered Institute of Marketing, focused on serving clients with a creative and ethical business model. Digital philanthropist giving time to support charitable groups, projects and organisations; that revolve around the arts, wildlife conservation, local community and heritage crafts.
