What is the SERP?
The Search Engine Results Page (SERP) is that page you see when you’re searching for something on Google, Bing, Yahoo or one of many thousands of search engines out and available. If you are not on the SERP, then people can’t find you. It’s like not being listed in the Yellow Pages as a business back in the day when phonebooks meant something. People needing your services can’t find you and will find someone else. If you’re not on the SERP, you’re invisible. Your phone doesn’t ring. You get no email. You get no new business.
What is the make-up of the SERP?
The SERP is typically broken up into three or four sections. Each section is determined by the search engines company as to where you rank on that page. Unit rank on page number 14 being, and page number 10 google. The ranking on Google will have much more impact on your business and the ranking on Bing, and both are important. Some search engines offer advertising placement and some do not. Some allow you to buy your way to the top, and some do not. Duckduckgo.com, for instance, does not allow advertising.
Since Google is the most important search engine results page, we’re going to stick with Google as the example of how to get ranked and how to be found in each of the sections of the SERP.
The first section shows registered licensed companies that answer the question you’re asking. This is a new section for Google that doesn’t apply to all businesses. It’s only those types of businesses that Candy verified through licensing. The registration process is long and tedious, and in the end you’ll be offered to pay for your placement in that section.
The second section are your ads. These can be purchased from Google at what is referred to as pay per click pricing. Pricing changes based on where you are, and who else’s advertising against you for a competitive marketplace. In the world of roofers, if all roofers new how valuable these clicks were, then add would be hundreds of dollars per click. Right now they’re dollars per click. They are a bargain.
The next section, the one with the map, is referred to as the Google 3–pack. Google uses its own measures for which three roofers are the most important in a Geo-targeted area. This area is usually determined by where the users are located using either GPS for mobile or your IP address for desktop access.
The fourth section is what’s referred to as search engine optimized (SE0) rankings. These rankings have literally millions of rules that determine whether or not you will be ranked. If Your ranking in this area it’s typically because Google finds you both relevant and appropriate for the search term used in the search bar.
If, as a marketer, you can be ranked in all four areas, then the probability that somebody will click on you is extremely high. On that page if you are found four times somebody is likely to buy the time to read your name the fourth time think that you are the right business for what they have going on. In the legal business ”Accident lawyer” as a search term will have whole teams of people designed to rank those keywords because of the value of that a keyword is so high costing tens of thousands of dollars per month to maintain those rankings.
The value of the keyword is directly related to the value of the new business that can be acquired through a successful search and phone call by somebody looking for your business. This is referred to as the “lifetime value” of a customer, which can be found in another post.
