Understanding Search Results

SEO is all about getting search engines to show your website high up on a search engine results page, better known as a SERP. You probably perform several online searches every day, scanning the results for a website that has the information you are looking for. But while we all see SERPs every day, most of us don’t fully grasp which elements mean what. This article will help you better understand a SERP so you can better understand SEO. Let’s do this!
When a user types in a search phrase (also known as a query), the search engine will provide him with a list of results, designed to be as relevant as possible to the specific query. This page of results is a SERP.
There’s more than meets the eye when it comes to SERPs. Let’s look at a sample SERP and break it down, then we’ll teach you how to customize the way your own website appears in search engine results.
The Anatomy of a SERP
Paid Results
As you read in the previous article, the sites you see on the top and along the right side of the results page are usually advertisements. It’s true — some of the best real estate on the page is reserved for people willing to pay Google to display their site. These are pay-per-click, or PPC, advertisements, meaning businesses pay search engines for every person who clicks on their sponsored links.
Organic Results
Below the paid results, in the heart of the page, you will see the list of the top 10 organic results. These are the websites that Google has determined are the most relevant to the search terms you entered. If you want to see more results, you can click on the right arrow at the bottom of the page. This will take you to the next results page. If you had the patience, you could click through likely thousands, or even millions, of results.
Local Results
If you searched for a local business, Google will display an interactive map showing the location of the top-ranked results for your query. You will also see a list of the businesses that are displayed on the map. When you click on one of these results, you’ll see the business’s location. You may also see a rating for each of the local listings (from 0-5 stars), customer reviews and even information about pricing. This data is taken from Google My Business, where anyone can set up a profile for their own business.
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