SERP changes SMB’s should know about

For any company that wants to grow their business, or drive sales online, creating a website is just the first step. Web marketing focuses on driving organic traffic to the website, as the more website visitors your site receives, the more opportunity there is for sales and sign ups. And the Search Engine Results Page (SERP) is one of the most important factors involved in this, as most of your potentially interested customers or clients will use the search engine tool to find the information they are looking for. But over the last few years, there have been a number of significant changes to the way that the SERP looks, and works. And this can have an influence on the website rankings. So what are the SERP changes SMB’s should know about? And how can you be sure that your website will succeed? Well, here at Pumpkin Web Design, we are Preston’s leading web design and web marketing professionals. We provide valuable web design, SEO, and marketing solutions to a range of clients, across the North West, including Southport and Wigan, as well as Manchester. As a result, we have produced this guide to everything you need to know about the changes to the SERP that could effect small and medium sized businesses.

What are the important SERP changes SMB’s should know about?

There are a number of things that it is important for any small and medium sized businesses to know regarding the SERP changes. These include:

• The map is key- if your potential customers are searching for a location based product or service then they do not need to specify the location in their search terms. Instead, the search engine will use the personal data to show results based on where the searcher is at the time. This is incredibly helpful when travelling, as well as searching from home. But this also means that a local business map will appear above the search results. if your website shows up here, the chances are you will see a lot of traffic. If not, you will need to consider listing with Google My Business, and building up some positive reviews and feedback to rank.
• Ads are everywhere- this point is most relevant to Google, but the way that the ads are displayed is frequently changing. While these used to be shown neatly down the right hand side, they are now shown above the organic (non- paid for) results, and can be more difficult for searchers to distinguish between the real results and the organic traffic. This also takes up some space on the SERP, which could bump your website down to the second page! As a result, it is more important than ever that your website ranks highly on the first page, for your relevant search terms and location searches.
• Featured snippets- there are now a lot more featured snippets appearing in the search results for a much wider range of searches. These are results that feature an image, and a selection of text from the web page, in a large, boxed result at the top of the page. Otherwise known as position 0, this is key to directing traffic to your website. To make the most of this, your company should aim to create high quality, informative and original content to answer FAQ’s related to your business and industry.

For more information or advice, or for professional web marketing and web design, get in touch with the team here at Pumpkin Web Design.