Thinking About The New Google SERP (Search Engine Results Page) Layout ? BECAUSE EVEN WE ARE!

I am not sure if you have observed or not but if you are an online marketer you would sure have. So, the Google SERP layout is not the same anymore. The side bar which had ads has been removed and instead the ads allowed above the organic results are increased from three to four. Though the fact is that google had been testing this style for a long time but it was constrained to only a few subset of searches. Now, this has created quite a stir amongst the online marketers because one is not able to see the organic results without scrolling down in some cases as most of the page is covered by the paid ads.

THE EFFECTS

The PPC advertisers are definitely going to get an edge because of two main reasons, first because, now that the side bar is removed, the new Google SERP layout looks a lot clutter free and second due to the increase in number of ads, numerous organic results don’t appear before the user scrolls. Also, another addition is that all the PPC ads are allowed to use location extensions, sitelink extensions and call out extensions which were earlier a privilege of top of the page ads. Due to this advantage it is more likely that google will raise the cost of PPC ads. This might not affect the big fish, but the small budget business might concentrate more on organic search optimization.

THE ACTION PLAN

Now that there is more concentration on organic results because ppc might get expensive, user engagement is a term that becomes imperative if you are not into PPC at all. To improve your Search Engine Results Page aka SERP rankings you need to interact and engage with the customer regularly. Watching every content piece, its engagement and conversion rates and its ability to allure the customers all along the journey is necessary. Here is rundown some of the points to consider while curating your content so that it outclasses the competition. Curating high quality content on various topics that meets the demand of the customer in form of articles, blogs, videos, infographics, presentations and more is the key.

• Focus on enhancing your social media presence by engaging your customers in online interactions.
• Interact with users on social media sites.
• Engage them in discussions, debates and respond to their queries and issues.
• Use the share, promote strategy and increase your customer base.
• With quality content, use of back links and traffic rates, etc, you can definitely increase customer engagement.
• Also, seizing every opportunity when it comes to meta tags and using schema to the optimum is another good idea.

Now that google is giving PPC prominence over google results, it is very much possible that these ads are going to have a better and better visual appeal as well, hence your content also needs to match the same.

Finally, consistent monitoring and changing your strategy accordingly is needed to get your rankings northward with SERP.