Search Engine Results Pages or SERPs are a lot more than ranking higher than the competition. Sure, fine-tuning your keyword strategy can bring more traffic to your site, but there is a goldmine of information right there on the SERPs that you may be overlooking.
Google is getting better and better at filtering out all but the most relevant content for a given search query. A typical SERP can have upto 3000 words brimming with information that Google thinks are most relevant for a particular type of query. It displays only the most relevant snippets based on the user’s intent.
More often than not, the result and the custom meta-content is also modified to suit a user’s query. For instance two similar sort of search queries - and gift ideas for clients cheap result in completely different search snippets.
Whoa!
Let that sink in for a moment.
The rules of the game have changed. The trick is in understanding the intent behind a search query.
By looking at SERPs through the lens of contextual reasoning, you can discover a world of new possibilities for SEO optimization.
A quick search for ‘mental health’ returns about 20 billion results. However, getting lost in the technical nitty-gritty may make you lose sight of the real goal – understanding the learning intent of the people looking for information.
For example, someone searching for mental illness is very likely looking to understand about the signs to look for, what causes it, and maybe not so much about how to take care of mental health, how to seek help. That’s exactly what the SERPs reflect.
Also, if you notice the kind of featured snippets or the featured snippets questions that Google shows in the ‘People also ask’ section - those are exactly the kind of questions a person wants answers to for that query.
Now, try searching for mental health disorders which is nothing but a semantic search of mental illness. You’d think the results should be similar. However, you will notice different kinds of results.
Now the thing to note here is – most people might think the kind of intent people who search for mental illness and mental health disorder might be similar. However, Google understands the slight difference. And that’s apparent from the SERPs.
By looking at the SERPs you are very likely to understand the true intent of the user – what are they looking to get out of their search queries, and what do they expect.
It’s often said that cracking SEO is no rocket science. More often than not, Google actually screams at you depicting what it’s looking for. As a marketer, you just have to pay close attention to reading the SERPs.