Features of search results and SERP

Most modern Internet users who want to find the information, goods or services they need use search engines. This can be Google, Yandex, Bing, Opera, Yahoo and many other options. In response to a user request, the system generates a page with search results, that is, Search Engine Results Page or SERP for short. There will be 2 main components here: advertising and organic results.

Advertising results are blocks with contextual advertising that will be placed at the very top of the page, that is, above the organic results. These are ads that were paid for by advertisers, that is, traffic was purchased. Along with the main ones, there are also additional advertising blocks. They are placed to the right of the main results. All other results that you will see on this page are already organic results. These can be sites, maps, pictures, videos. Also, the most popular search engines, such as Google and Yandex, will also display tips for users — queries similar to those asked by people, as well as short answers to them that do not contain a commercial component.

Despite the apparent simplicity, the entire process of forming a search results page, that is, SERP, is quite complex from a technical point of view. And here it may seem that the resource owners cannot influence its results in any way. But this is not so. If you delve into this issue in as much detail as possible, understand how everything is formed, then you can perform a number of simple measures that will allow you to personally influence this process and learn how to make your sites not only move to the top of the search results, but also reliably hold the positions they occupy. We will dwell on these issues in detail in today's review.

Distinctive features of search results

Modern search engines are constantly being improved, their functionality and capabilities are expanding, since the focus here is already on maximum satisfaction of user requests and improving their interaction experience. Here, everything is aimed at ensuring that people can quickly obtain the information they need, and the most relevant, high-quality, and informative information.

As a result, additional components called SERP functions are also issued in response to certain user requests. Their importance lies in expanding the search results within a specific user request. That is, to obtain the most complete information on a specific topic, a modern user no longer has to enter a large number of requests. Thanks to the modern transformation of search engines, you get quick access to the necessary data even without viewing the site page itself.

And thanks to the diversification of the format function, search results have long gone beyond the classic search indicators, which has opened up new opportunities for working with targeting for Internet marketers, as well as business in general. And if you want to benefit from modern search results functions, you need to be well versed in how organic search engine optimization works, understand the features of digital marketing. And here you need to be well versed in the following aspects:

• Increasing the number of clicks. Some users believe that modern SERP functions that are directly responsible for user queries can have a negative impact on organic traffic to their site. Unfortunately, there is some truth in this, since search engine functions that involve directly displaying short answers on the search results page reduce the number of clicks on the site. And this parameter is often taken into account by search engines when determining the position of a resource in the search results. But here everything is not so sad, since the visibility of selected fragments can stimulate users to click on the site, which will ultimately lead to increased brand recognition and authority.
• Attracting the attention of the user audience. Due to the fact that selected fragments from your site will occupy the top positions in the search results, they will attract the attention of the audience and divert it from clicking on competitors' sites, including those whose rating in the search results will be higher than yours. If you establish yourself as an expert in this niche, you will be able to create a more authoritative and solid image around your company.
• Availability of voice search. Many voice search results will match the selected fragments. If you perform a set of activities aimed at optimizing your content for such fragments, you can significantly improve the voice search results. In turn, this will also contribute to increasing brand awareness and trust in the target audience.
• Obtaining information about the preferences and behavioral factors of the user audience thanks to advanced search results functions. If you analyze the features of the SERP in accordance with a specific user request, you can identify those types and formats of content that are most popular with the user audience and, based on this information, make adjustments to the marketing strategies of the business.

With this simple knowledge, which has become the basis for content creation strategies, you can create materials that will certainly be highly appreciated by the user audience. Such that will combine the most correct presentation of the material, a sufficient number of visual elements. This is something that will not only improve the convenience of working with your online presence for the target audience, but will also have a positive impact on the visibility of the resource in search engines, will have a positive effect on the formation of brand authority and increase its success in the online environment.

What is a search engine results page

To make it clearer what a modern SERP page is, let's take a closer look at its additional blocks using the Google search engine as an example. We would like to immediately draw attention to the fact that all of them will relate to organic results, but at the same time their appearance will differ from the classic feed, which in itself will attract the attention of the user audience, provide them with quick answers. In particular, the SERP will also contain:

1. Places. These are local results. They will be displayed when the user is interested exclusively in local products, that is, local goods or services. For example, if you decide to see what hotels are in a certain locality, the search engine will give you a block with a map, which will show all the local hotels, as well as photos, contact information, reviews, the official website of the hotel and related information. All this will be relevant for any other services, such as restaurants, beauty salons, libraries, businesses, etc.
2. People also ask. This is a block with recommendations. It will contain information about the questions that the user audience asks most often. In most cases, it will be presented as a list. But if you click on the corresponding question, a window with a short answer to it will open. That is, thanks to this, you do not have to go to the site in order to get the necessary information. We would like to draw your attention to the fact that such a solution will be convenient only if there is no need to delve into the topic. That is, the block with recommendations is worth using for those who would like to know what a particular term means or get any other brief information.
3. Featured Snippets, also known as highlighted fragments. Here, a short answer to a user's question is also provided or the most relevant information is displayed in accordance with a given topic. Highlighted fragments will also be displayed above organic results and eliminate the need for users to go directly to sites to find out information that interests them.
4. Images, that is, pictures. This is everything that will provide users with a visual display of the answer to their queries. That is, after a person enters a query containing the prefix "photo" or a name that has a graphic display, the search engine will issue a corresponding block with pictures. Alternatively, if you write the word "London", the first thing you will see in the search results is pictures of the city, the most famous attractions, popular objects, etc.
5. Knowledge Card. This is a knowledge panel where there will be basic data about a company, a particular product or person that will be useful for a person. Alternatively, if you need to find out who Albert Einstein is, the search engine will initially show his photo at the very top of the page, provide brief information about his occupation (theoretical physicist, creator of the Theory of Relativity), his date of birth and date of death will be written next to it, and links to the most useful materials from the point of view of the search engine will be provided. In this case, these can be facts from the life or professional activity of the scientist.
6. Video. This block will provide videos that are directly related to the user's request. Most of this will be content from the YouTube video hosting service, less often - Dailymotion, Vimeo. In principle, results from other sites may be present here. The most illustrative example in this case will be the provision of videos with the cooking processes of the dish that the user is currently interested in. Moreover, there will be more than one video here, which opens up quite a wide range of options.
7. News Box. This is a block of news directly related to user queries. The most relevant information on the relevant topic will be displayed here. This will be especially convenient in the case of data that can be updated and changed over time. Thanks to this, the user will not have to waste time getting acquainted with outdated data, since the search engine will show him the most relevant and new information.

The possible options for SERP formats do not end there. Depending on what key phrases a person enters, the search engine can also recommend posts from Reddit, X (Twitter), a selection of relevant products from different online stores, a carousel of books, films, music albums in accordance with the genres, actors, authors, singers specified by the person. That is, along with classic contextual advertising and organic results, a modern search results page will contain a huge amount of additional information. This is what will allow a person to quickly get acquainted with the search results, evaluate their usefulness for themselves and understand the need for a deeper dive into the topic.

That is, the first thing I would like to say about SERP is that modern technologies make the user's work on the Internet as comfortable, fast and convenient as possible. But there are many points here that resource owners should take into account first of all.

Nuances of SERP formation

The SERP page will be formed by the search engine based on its built-in algorithms. Various factors are taken into account here. But in any case, the process of its creation in response to a user request will be the same:

• The system receives a key request from the user. As soon as the corresponding phrase is entered in the search bar, the algorithms are launched and the selection of the most relevant answers begins.
• Here the search engine works through all the options that are in its built-in database — index. That is, these are all the sites that the bots have checked and allowed to be issued.
• The ranking process is launched, where the system determines the order in which the results will be displayed to the user. Internal algorithms are also used here, as a result of which the highest quality resources from the search engine's point of view are in the first positions.
• The formatting stage, within which all results are provided in the most optimal format. Along with the organic search results, there will also be advertising blocks, pictures, videos, and all the formats we talked about above.
• Result output. At this stage, the user receives a fully formed SERP with those blocks that the search engine decides to add in order to provide the user with the most voluminous information.

But we would like to draw your attention to the fact that the process of SERP formation is quite dynamic. That is, even if you enter the same query several times within the same search engine, you can get completely different search results.

Factors influencing search results

We have already mentioned above that going through the indexing stage is a mandatory event that allows a site to get into search results. But the position on the SERP page that a particular resource will occupy is already determined at the ranking stage. And here different factors are used depending on whether the resource gets into organic or paid search results. With organic here everything is more or less clear, since here the quality of the site, its saturation with key queries, etc. are taken into account first of all. To dive deeper into this topic, we suggest studying such an issue as competent SEO-optimization of the site.

Now we will dwell in more detail on paid SERP results - advertisements that are configured and paid for by the advertiser. In this case, the paid advertising block in the search results will be formed on the basis of a number of parameters:

1. Relevance of key queries present in the content. The advertiser will need to specify the keywords and phrases by which the system will display his ad. And here it would be quite logical to choose keywords that match the phrases that the user enters when searching for the relevant product.
2. Budget allocated for advertising. Here the advertiser needs to specify the total budget for the advertising campaign, that is, the amount that he is willing to allocate in general, as well as the price per click. It is on the basis of this rate that the system will choose which ads will be displayed and which will not. Here we get a kind of auction in which the ad with the highest bid wins. That is, you cannot set too low prices here, since there is a chance that your ads will not be displayed by the system at all. This is very important in highly competitive niches.
3. The quality of your advertising materials. Search bots analyze and check not only those materials that are included in the organic search results, but also paid ads. Here we are talking not only about the advertising content itself, but also about the relevance of the ad to the landing page, the features of the wording, the presence of incentives to perform the target action. That is, the better your ad is, the higher its chances of getting into the paid search results block.

That is, the “paid - got an audience” option will not always work in practice. You need to approach the creation of ads creatively and professionally in order to get a quality product at the end.

Why is it important to analyze SERP

How Google and other search engines determine the rating of sites is a big secret. In addition, the capabilities of bots are constantly expanding and changing today. But despite all this, SERP analysis allows you to understand how everything is arranged and works. At the same time, marketers always rely on the topic, key queries, while SEO specialists are interested in getting a perfectly optimized site at the end, which will be highly appreciated by the search engine itself. But still, the analysis of search results will allow everyone to understand what materials and in what format will be more interesting to the relevant target audience, to identify a circle of direct competitors in order to subsequently analyze their work and, perhaps, adopt the most proven and effective practices.

That is, by performing a SERP analysis, you will be able to:

• Make sure that you have correctly selected the list of key queries. This is what will help you subsequently prepare the highest quality and most relevant content for your audience.
• Confirm the correctness of the search goals. Each person goes to the search engine in order to find answers to their questions and solve the problem that has arisen. And here it is important to ensure that your content fully corresponds to these queries. So the search engine will be able to see that your material corresponds to the user's intentions and add it to the search results. To do this, you just need to study the materials that are displayed in the search results in response to queries that will be relevant to you. Based on the information received, you will be able to make adjustments to your own website development strategy, thereby increasing the efficiency of your work.
• Perform a comprehensive analysis of competitors. Here you can compare your pages with those of your competitors, understand what solutions they used in practice to get to the top of the search results and adopt proven and effective methods. Here, it is also worth considering the competitiveness indicator in the niche. Perhaps, it is worth betting not on high-frequency, but on low-frequency keys. This is what will help you rise in the search results and make your site as visible as possible to the target audience.

What we get from using SERP: main advantages

SERP analysis is what will provide you with the most effective, productive work with the site, and will improve the indicators. This solution has a number of significant advantages:

• the ability to identify those key phrases that were not present in your semantics, but in practice showed excellent results, improving the organic visibility of the resource;
• understanding competitors, their goals, evaluating the results of their work, as well as the ability to adopt their methods and tactics, which in the end can even help you get around them;
• improving the site's position in the search results: you will clearly understand what mistakes were made earlier, you will be able to eliminate them and ultimately get the most effective strategy;
• monitor all the innovations that occur on the search results page and, based on this, understand what changes have occurred in the bot algorithms, which will allow you to make appropriate adjustments to your developments;
• flexibly adapt to the current goals of the user, which will help increase engagement and loyalty on the part of the target audience;
• develop the most effective concepts content that will be able to attract organic traffic to your resource.

That is, by paying due attention to the analysis of the search results page, you will receive really valuable information for the subsequent development of your own business on the network. You will have at your disposal working and effective methods that have proven themselves in practice.

How to properly perform SERP analysis

To properly analyze SERP, it is necessary to systematically implement the work within the following stages.

1. Collecting key queries.
2. Personalization of SERP.
3. Analysis of the closest competitors.
4. Determining opportunities.
5. Optimization of existing content.
6. Testing and monitoring the results.

What needs to be implemented in each specific case will be discussed below.

Collecting key queries

To increase the efficiency of collecting relevant key queries, use the following recommendations:

1. Run a search for relevant keywords that are directly related to your business or the site itself. Here, you should pay attention to everything related to the goods and services you provide, the audience you are targeting, and other nuances related to your brand as a whole.
2. To automate, systematize, and thereby simplify the work of collecting semantics, use specialized tools. The modern market offers a wide variety of relevant services. As a result, you will simply have to sort out the most suitable options for yourself based on the developments obtained at the previous stage.

SERP Personalization

Personalization of the search results page is performed at the next stage and involves the implementation of the following work:

1. Run a SERP analysis for each key request. You can also use the relevant services to implement these tasks. This way, you can understand which pages at the top are ranked for a particular key. Here it is also important to evaluate the backlink profile and domain authority.
2. Determine the user's target intent, that is, what problem they would like to solve with the help of your site. This can be understood by evaluating the search context and the entered keywords.
3. Analyze the search results for the keywords you selected to determine the sites that ended up at the top of the search results. Then you just need to check all these sites to understand the working strategies and, perhaps, adopt some of them.

Analysis of the closest competitors

Analysis of competitors will allow you to understand what mistakes you made in your own strategy and find ways to solve them. At this stage, you will have to:

1. Using specialized tools, analyze the backlink profiles of the sites that ended up at the top positions in the search results.
2. Identify those sites that link to the resources of your competitors and what anchor text is used here. The information will allow you to create your own database of services for launching backlinks.
3. Carefully study the content presented on competitors' sites in order to determine its type, presentation features, as well as other aspects that can also be used to improve the positions of your resource.

Determining Opportunities

Now that you have maximum information about your closest competitors, it's time to analyze your own resource and understand the main reason for its low positions. That is, you will have to:

1. Find keywords and phrases that your competitors used, but you did not. This way, you will be able to make adjustments to your own content.
2. Find keywords that you have, but your competitors do not. This is important in order to try to expand the sphere of your own influence, thereby attracting more organic traffic.
3. Identify those features of the search results page that would be optimal for your business to focus on. Here it is important to evaluate which of the SERP functions will be relevant for your site.

Optimization of existing content

Having a fairly impressive base of developments, you will just have to implement all your ideas into reality, that is, adjust your own materials, namely:

1. Make changes to the text content, headings, meta tags and other elements of your pages, filling them with key queries.
2. Check the content of articles and related materials, making sure that it fully meets user requests, that is, has value for your target audience.
3. Adjust the structure of the articles to make them easier to perceive. It may be necessary to add additional subheadings, lists, include visual images, if relevant.

Testing and monitoring the results

Before launching the updated site, test it to make sure that errors and inconsistencies have been eliminated. To do this, you need to:

1. Test the site using specialized tools, using various strategies. Be sure to track and record all the results so that you can ultimately compare and choose the best resource option for launching on the market.
2. Monitor the rating for key queries at specified intervals. Make changes if necessary and be sure to evaluate the effect obtained. If the adjustments do not provide improvements, it will be necessary to perform a deeper analysis and find the cause of insufficient indicators.
3. Adjust strategies, constantly test new ideas. This is what will improve your performance and keep them in high positions.

Tips and recommendations for SERP analysis

To perform SERP analysis as easily, simply and effectively as possible, use the following recommendations:

• Use advanced analytical tools. There are quite a lot of services on the modern market that will help you do this work. Alternatively, you can use Moz, SEMrush, Ahrefs or other similar solutions. In terms of their operating principle, they are very similar to each other, so here the question is more about individual preferences. As a result, you will receive an impressive set of data on the basis of which you will be able to understand the competitive environment in detail, get a rating of keywords, incoming links, organic traffic indicators and a lot of other parameters.
• Make sure to monitor changes that occur over time. This will allow you to identify certain patterns and trends, and promptly determine changes in the work of search algorithms. This way, you will be able to constantly maintain the high efficiency of your own strategy and bypass other companies working in your niche.
• Monitor the ratings of your closest competitors. This way, you will be able to understand what methods and tools helped them achieve high positions on the search results page. Here, it is imperative to evaluate key queries, the content of the content itself, and the link mass.
• Analyze the main impressions of the SERP function. Here, you will constantly need to devote time to understanding how algorithmic content contributes to increasing the rating, pay attention to featured snippets, knowledge cards, etc.
• Monitor the situation that is developing on the search results page, identify changes. This is what will allow you to constantly stay up to date with current trends and not miss important changes that can affect the site's rating.

Also useful in your work will be tools that allow you to parse data, that is, collect important information from competitors' sites, scan the search results page. For programmatic access to SERP, it is optimal to use the SERP API. Third-party services that allow you to automatically collect the information you need to get the most complete and clear picture of the state of the search results page, competitors, etc. will also come in handy.

Let's summarize

SERP analysis is what will allow you to get a fairly large amount of information that will be useful for optimizing your own site, improving its position in search results. But here you will have to implement a fairly impressive amount of work and you cannot do without specialized tools and services. But we would like to draw your attention to the fact that most of the solutions that you will need have a number of regional restrictions. This means that you will not be able to use all of them in practice. But this problem has one effective solution - mobile proxies from the MobileProxy.Space service.

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