The days of 10 blue links on the page 1 are long over. The page 1 of Google search results now shows a bewildering array of results.
Let’s look at some of them.
Here are some of the key new Google SERP elements and changes:
- Google ads
- Featured Snippets
- Image Packs
- Knowledge Cards
- Knowledge Panels
- Local Packs
- News Boxes
- Related Questions
- Reviews
- Shopping Results
- Site Links
- Tweets
- Video Results
Google ads
Google ads are ads you see at the top of the page. Like the example above.
Featured snippets
Featured snippets are also called ‘Position 0’ in google. They have high click rates as they are responses to specific questions.
There are 3 types of featured snippets.
1) Table snippet. This can be information presented in a tabular form.
2. Paragraph snippet. This can be an answer to a subjective question or some descriptive information.
3. List snippet. This can be a checklist of things to do, a guidebook or a ranking.
Image packs
Images are also a great way to rank. People conduct image search or sometimes, the image is an answer to a word query.
Knowledge cards
This is shown for queries that request data.
Knowledge Panels
They appear on the top right side of search results when users search for common knowledge queries. It can be a brand query, local business or personality and is usually from sources like Wikipedia.
Local packs
When people search for a brand or business near them, the search throws up a map, locations, reviews and prices.
Good local SEO that involves putting your business on the map and getting good reviews can help.
News Boxes
Google indexes news items separately and by optimising your blog for news, it can appear in the search results.
Related questions
Google wants to help you by thinking of more probable questions related to your question.
Typically, they usually consist of 4 question-based results.
It’s good to target keywords that are based on What, Where, When, Who, Why or How.
Reviews
Ratings appears in the form of 5 stars just above your meta description.
Reviews are important for local businesses, services and e-commerce as they influence buying decisions.
Reviews are based on GMB listings, Facebook page reviews and enabling the schema markup.
Shopping results
These are also called google shopping ads or Product Listing Ads (PLAs). Most e-commerce brands use them. They are a paid feature and sell your products using images and pricing.
Site links
A brand query can also throw up a series of URLs, related to the same brand in the search results. There can be 4-5 such links and this provides a great source of organic traffic. To get your brand appear as site links, you need to get a good SEO agency who can implement a series of actions called the ‘search action anchor markup’.
Tweets
If your keyword is related to a trending topic, even tweets can appear in the search results. For example, if we search for CPL 2020 which is going on currently, these show show up.
Video results
If Google thinks that your video is helping resolve search query for a keyword, it will feature videos on Page 1.
However, it’s important to optimise video for SEO by implementing video schema markup.
For example, if I type ‘how to make masks’ in the search box, this is what I see.
Since you know all the types of results Google shows, you should look at creating the appropriate content for the specific query.
This will help you shoot up the rankings.
But creating content is not easy. You need a high quality creative team that also understands SEO.
At Serpo, that’s exactly what you will get.