The Ins and Outs of On-SERP SEO

On the twelfth day of Christmas iThinkMedia gave to me on-SERP SEO… Our Junior SEO Executive, Anthony Madden, takes us through the latest developments in on-SERP SEO.

Google has rolled out updates to the SERP that is changing the search landscape. It’s caused quite a stir within the SEO industry, and could quite possibly change the way we do SEO forever.

What is on-SERP SEO?

On-SERP SEO is all about enticing click-through on the SERPs and displaying information users and businesses care about most. It’s about utilising the SERP to drive people to a site in a different way to traditional SEO.

How to on-SERP optimise

Schema

Google cards use schema markups and an old-school organic result is hardly going to appear on page 1 on mobile. Cards is a new way users can find the content they are searching for. It’s a far more user-friendly and sleeker look to SERPS. If your content appears as a card, you are part of Google’s new SERP strategy. Ensuring you have content on Google cards could be a very powerful on-SERP SEO strategy going forward.

{Image credit: Screenshot}

Create on-SERP brand awareness

This is something that is a common SEO strategy for e-Commerce sites, but it’s suddenly become even more important now. If transactional searches are now mostly paid, or within Google’s own ecosystem, find a new way to bring users to your site through Google.

Google Cards and Discover is Google’s new vision of making blog content more enticing for users. If the purpose of your business is selling products, create useful guides and content.

If users are coming through to your site from Cards or Discover, then not only are you creating brand awareness, you now have an opportunity to sell products to users that are on your site.

If you’re creating great content and have deployed schema markup, there is a good chance that Google’s new services will push that out to users.

On your GMB profile, include business photos. Showcase business information that users and you care about. Create relationships, respond to reviews.

Study keywords with a high click-through rate

This could give you an indication of which keywords have a good organic results page. Don’t waste too much time competitively trying to rank for keywords that have a low click-through rate. If there’s a search term with a great amount of MSV that you could rank for, but is competitive to rank for, the click-through rate should be a strong dictator on whether or not it’s worth targeting. You can study keyword click-through rate using AHREFs.

When traditional, entice the click

In some cases where traditional organic results appear, or in other cases where a user has scrolled further down to see a traditional result, Title Tags and Meta Descriptions need to be enticing and great to read for the user.

Google Posts

Google Posts allows businesses to communicate and broadcast news and information on their business to users. This is seen within a GMB profile. A GMB profile is trigged from a local search or within Google Maps. Not only are Google Posts a great way to communicate with customers which can entice the click, they can also boost local rankings according to Darren Shaw.

Conclusion

Google’s new search changes open up huge opportunities for marketers. It closes off avenues that many people in SEO have worked so hard at, but in exchange, it has opened up new lanes for exposure. It’s a time where strategies will have to adapt and change in the jungle of SEO. It really isn’t all doom and gloom for the industry.

Tweet Honcho_Search and share your thoughts on on-SERP SEO. Have an awesome Christmas!