Do you know how SERPs (search engine results pages) work? These pages have become our modern-day yellow pages, consumers type in a few words on a search bar expecting to get all the answers for their questions. Reading this study from BrandVerity we found that up to 63% of customers don’t understand how search results are ranked, they believe its either relevancy or advertising.
That statement is partly true, results are ranked based on a mix of relevance (obtained through on-page SEO work) and advertising. The amount of promoted content seen these days can become a bit worrying for marketers since this content is not always the best produced one, lots of ad-based content is put out there solely to grab clicks and produce money rather than driving traffic into organically produced content.
With the rise of ad revenue, marketers fear that organic search results might be left behind, here’s where action needs to be taken to ensure that search results have a good mix of ad revenue and well-produced content. After all, search engines are still a business and there’s a relevant level of competitiveness to take into consideration.
Optimize your content and take advantage of SERPs
In 2014, Google introduced something called Position Zero, this is basically the answer snippets placed on top of search result pages right after the ads. Its a compilation of the most direct answer for the search query made up of ad-free content. This was implemented in an effort of enhancing user’s experience when looking for answers.
Answers placed on Position Zero are not based on the #1 organic site but picked from the 10 highest ranked websites, taking into consideration the search query. A lack of knowledge in how this search engine implementation works can cause companies to miss out on opportunities to enhance their presence on SERPs.
Here are a few tips to apply when trying to optimize content for Position Zero, based on this list created by HubSpot:
- HTML formatting of the content should be simple and consistent.
- List items using
- formatting, this seems to be preferred by Google.
- Find keywords relevant to your content by using keyword research tools.
- Run regular searches of your keywords as an anonymous user and see how content is ranking amongst its competitors.
Wanna learn more about how to make your website rank in Google? Check out our services at Rootstack, we are a digital agency with solutions for all your company’s needs.
