What does SERP mean?

SERP stands for Search Engine Results Page and looks like this:

What are the different types of results shown on a SERP?

Every result that appears on a SERP will contain the following three things:

• Title– Appears as a clickable blue link and outlines the main topic of the webpage.
• Meta description– A short, detailed description of the webpage that appears underneath the title. Words used in your search query that appear in this description will also be highlighted in bold.
• URL– A direct link to the webpage that appears at the top of the search result.

However, certain results can look a little bit different…

Ads

On a search engine results page, these results automatically appear at the top of the page and are clearly indicated as a paid advertisement through the ‘Ad’ appearing in bold. This is circled in red below. I have also highlighted in yellow the words used in the search query that appear in the meta description to show clearly how a SERP tries to show you the relevance of the results to your question.

Organic

Organic results will always appear on a SERP below the ads. The search engine’s AI tries to place these results in order of relevance with the most relevant result to your search query coming at the top of the organic results.

Rich Results

Rich results are similar to organic results but show more information about the webpage in an attractive way to the user. This can include reviews, links to social media accounts, images, video thumbnails and much more. This is done through adding schema to your structured data.

Adding schema to your structured data to create rich results can also lead to your search result appearing as a knowledge graph on a SERP. This appears on the rights hand side of your results page and most commonly goes into lots of detail about a local business, big corporation or celebrity.

How to rank on SERPs

Wondering how you can appear at the top of search engine results page?

Allotts have some excellent, detailed advice on how to optimise your posts to help your website increase its visibility to your customers. Some of the best includes:

• Writing great content that is useful and interesting to the user.
• Sticking to one unique keyword for each page or post you publish.
• Creating rich results that look super attractive and are informative to your audience.