It is no secret that SEO practitioners rely on a huge amount of data to determine if their online marketing efforts and strategies are working. But did you know that something as simple as taking a look at Google SERPs can help you determine if your website is succeeding or failing? As a matter of fact, you can even come up with strategies that you can utilise by looking at SERP.
According to Neil Patel, co-founder of KISSmetrics, there are a number of “actionable” SEO tips that you can obtain from Google SERP. He said that SERP information is the kind of information that “delivers powerful knowledge” for SEO practitioners and website owners. And to prove his point, he discussed the things you can take away from checking out Google SERP.
- Keywords or query string in the title.
Neil said when you type in a keyword on Google Search, you should pay attention to the titles of the sites that are being displayed on the search result page. This will give you an idea of how other websites or even your competitors are using keywords in their page title to get better rankings.
- Keywords in the URL.
If your competitor is outranking you for a given keyword, one of the things you should do is to determine how they are incorporating keywords in their URL. Then ask yourself these questions: 1) Does the URL of their page have any of the keywords in the query? 2) Does the URL of your page lack the keywords in the query? Neil said if you answer “yes” to both questions, you may have identified an “area of opportunity.” If you want your website to get better rankings on Google, you should create a page with a URL that contains some of your target keywords.
- The kind of results favoured in SERPs.
When entering a search query, you should identify the type of content that seems to be getting the most love from Google. According to Neil, this could give you an idea of what type of content you should be creating. And if there’s one type of searches you should be focusing on, it has got to be the “fuzzy” ones because most people who are looking to obtain information online do not use structured keywords in their search queries.
- Keyword distribution in title, description, and/or content.
Checking out SERPs can also clue you in on how successful websites spread out their keywords in their web pages. It also gives you an idea of how target keywords are appearing in search result pages. This can definitely come in handy when it’s time for you to create your content and web pages.
If you want to get better rankings on Google, you should observe how your competitors and other websites are nailing the SERP game. As Sun Tzu said, “If you know yourself and the enemy, you need not fear the results of a hundred battles.
