Optimising for the SERP

Louise says: “To give your site the best chance of driving traffic and visibility, you need to be optimising for the SERP and not just for your keywords.”

How has the SERP changed recently?

“We’re not that far removed from the days of having paid listings at the top and organic listings underneath. The organic listings were pretty standard and the URL and metadata were all that you saw.

More recently, we’ve seen the introduction of lots of different types of formats and features. We’ve seen Knowledge Graphs, featured snippets, FAQ rich results, reviews, maps, news, and more. We’ve also seen images and videos being directly removed from the standard SERPs. Things are much more varied than they used to be. Google has been introducing and testing in the SERPs for a while now, and it’s likely to continue into 2023 and beyond.

This could be perceived as a move to a more holistic and comprehensive way to address user queries. The MUM update is further evidence of using in-depth world knowledge to gather additional information through formats like text, images, video, and audio.”

How do you optimise for a constantly changing SERP? How can you give a brand a decent chance of featuring in those new features by marking up code on-site?

“Firstly you can identify what features and formats are appearing in your key SERPs. This varies a lot from industry to industry. Certain tools can scrape the SERPs and show the features which are appearing, including common ones like featured snippets or PAAs. Some tools will even show you who owns those features, which is something you can do within the tools by plugging in a keyword and seeing what features are generated.

Another thing you can do is manually look for your head or primary terms - not the entire keyword set but the terms that matter to your brand. Manually look at what’s appearing in the SERP because it’ll be subject to regular change. Also, the tools won’t necessarily pick up on all the latest features and formats that are appearing. Have a look and note those features and formats down.

You can then look at who owns them and consider, why? Generally, it’ll be because Google feels that particular feature or format best answers the user intent. For example, if it’s something like a featured snippet that’s appearing for one of your head terms, look at who owns that, where the format is, and what format the featured snippet is written in. Is it a paragraph or a list? You can then look at what type of content is there when you click through from the featured snippet to see if that reinforces why they own that particular feature.

If the content on your site is in a paragraph format and the featured snippet for the query you want to target is in a list format, consider restructuring your content to match the format that Google is showing for that particular query. This is true for features and formats too. If there’s lots of video content appearing in one of your key SERPs, reach out to your video team and see if they can produce some video content. If there are things like FAQ rich results being pulled through into the SERP, make sure that you’re marking up the content on your site with schema to increase the chances of FAQs being pulled through your site as well.”

What’s the best initial featured snippet strategy? Is it to look at competitors and try to do better or look at keyword phrases that don’t have a featured snippet and create content to serve that?

“You should look at whether your featured snippets are appearing. We know that Google will see those as key SERPs that you need featured snippets, because they’re the best at answering that particular intent. Once you’ve achieved this, it’s good to future-proof your strategy and aim to put features where they’re not appearing at a given time.

Certain SERPs which have ranked highly might have a really high search volume too. However, there might not be many featured snippets or other types of results appearing in those, which would suggest it’s more than a traditional listing. You should look at which types of SERPs are generating those features first.

Ultimately, you should think about intent and understand what the audience wants to see. From here, you can try and get ahead of Google a little bit to future-proof your strategy. For example, you might assess your in-house audience data for a certain type of query and discover that people prefer to have their questions answered in video format. Therefore, you should make sure you’re ready with that format, in case Google decides to pull that particular feature in.”

How do you financially justify the importance of trying to appear in more featured snippets? What’s the ROI of getting more featured snippets and are there more click-through rates from the SERP that you can measure as a result?

“Even if you rank well for one of your top queries, because more features are appearing in the SERPs, the click-through rate to those traditional organic listings will reduce. This is a common occurrence across various industries, so it’s about maximizing that visibility in the SERP. You should aim to get in those PAA and featured snippet boxes.”

If you’ve got the brand appearing in a featured snippet, does that provide value as well, or are you always looking for the click-through?

“Ideally, you would like people to click through to the site so you get traffic. However, the reality is that as search changes change so does the overarching ecosystem. For example, there are no-click searches where people can receive quick answers to questions via featured snippets.

Google has started to recognise this and is serving those, but it’s important to raise the awareness of your brand to show that you have authority and can answer a particular question. Then, if somebody has a follow-up question that requires a more detailed response, they’re still likely to click through.”

How do you optimise for personalized search?

“It’s about understanding the audience’s intent as much as you can. If you’ve got a research and insights team that truly knows who your audience is, you can better understand the SERPs they’re seeing so you can try to capture them. It’s difficult because what we see when we look and try to optimise our strategies is different to what a potential customer would see. Therefore, it’s really important to understand who they are, what they might see, and what features they might be shown.”

How are you seeing user behaviours change in terms of how they search? Are people searching for longer-tail keyword phrases, perhaps even using voice search or something else?

“Voice searches are interesting. Going forward, the way we search will be much more varied than simple keywords. Lots of broader searches will still be really valuable, as will performing specific searches.

You need to be able to answer queries with really comprehensive content. Though it’s important to make SERP optimisation a key part of your strategy, that doesn’t mean you should completely disregard keywords. It’s important to look at those, but consider what might be appearing on the SERP so you can target those keywords in the right way.”

Do the user’s search preferences depend on where they’re from, their age, the device they use, etc.?

“Yeah, that’s fair to say. Today’s generation consumes media very differently from their predecessors. We’ve seen the rise of video in today’s younger demographics. Perhaps Google recognises this and is consolidating more video searches onto the main SERPs. That’s something that’s becoming more prevalent. With the younger generations, if they are using voice search more, that’s something we should factor into our strategies as well.”

What shouldn’t SEOs be doing in 2023? What’s seductive in terms of time, but ultimately counterproductive?

“Stop relying purely on keywords. Really think about intent, how you can best answer that, and capturing the best format to answer that intent.”

What are your best sources for discovering audience intent? Do you use software tools for that or do you need to manually go through different keywords to work out the intent behind each phrase?

“It’s a mixture. There is a certain insight you can get from tools, but what’s even more useful is qualitative data or audience-led research from your research or insights team, brand, or customer care teams.

If it’s a brand that people bring up and ask questions about over the phone, that will give you really good primary data that you might not see reflected in search results. Use as many resources from as many different channels as possible to build up a comprehensive understanding of who your audience is. By doing so, you’ll be positioned to better understand their intent.”

Are you a fan of optimising for zero-volume keywords?

“It’s important to take a holistic approach because something might not be reflected in tools at the time but lots of customers are inquiring about it. If it’s not reflected just yet, it’s still worth having that content appear.

Get insight from your customer care team about something that’s been asked. Then you can produce a piece of content to get a decent amount of traffic. It can take a while for the number of people searching around that intent to be reflected in Google data. Always try to address audience intent with your strategies.

If you know something is an intent or an area of interest for your audience, you should always address it.”

Louise Heap is SEO Content Strategy Manager at Stickyeyes and you can find her over at stickyeyes.com.