Do you know what a Search Engine Results Page (SERP) is, and what it means for your property management company?
It’s quite likely you’ve already seen it on your mobile device or your desktop.
Most SERPs will be ordered like this:
- First three pay-per-click ads.
- Map and local results.
- Around 10 organic search results.
- Final three paid ads.
That’s the basic overlay of any SERP – but what comprises each of those elements? Let’s dive in and see what each of these categories actually consist of and why they matter to property management marketing.
Anatomy of a Search Engine Results Page (SERP):
Paid Ads Come First on SERP
This may seem obvious, but you’ll know you’re looking at a paid ad because on the left side, you’ll see the word ad. But, what goes into a paid ad?
First, you’ll see the business information followed by the URL. Somewhere in between that or below that will be a star rating, which represents a company’s reviews. All this information is grabbed by Google My Business; you don’t have to manually include any of it.
If you’re looking at your own paid ad results, you’ll next notice a better description of what your company does. You can control what you want viewers to see. Then you have an additional option below that description, where you can choose to include ad extensions. These could be anything – maybe an offer for a free rental analysis.
Got other questions about Google ads? Check out our blog series on paid ads.
Location-Specific Results and Maps
If your search has a location-specific term in it, the next thing you might see is a map.
Below that map, you’ll see three results with businesses that are pulling information from their respective Google My Business accounts. You don’t have to worry about Google My Business just yet. We’re planning to talk about that in a later video, so for now, just notice that you have an option to click on the local map results, which leads to an expanded map with additional results on the left side.
Exploring the Organic Searches
Next, you will see 10 different organic search results. These are basically pages that Google thinks are relevant to what you searched for.
Notice these are pages. Google ranks the pages and not the entire website. This is why it’s so tremendously important to optimize your content. The text on your webpages needs to be relevant and search-worthy.
Not everyone knows what an organic result even looks like. The first thing you are going to see is the title of the page. The URL will be right below it followed by a longer description pertaining to what the page actually is. If you are not number one on the page, don’t worry. If you can answer the questions that people are searching for, everything else will follow. Traffic will begin to arrive on your page and consistently remain on your website.
Paid Ads Complete Search Results
Following the 10 search results, you’ll find three additional paid ads. Then, you’ll see a brief excerpt that describes what people are searching for. These are related topics and similar terms that match the original search.
With the right content strategy, you can actually leverage these to drive more traffic to your website.
To go deeper into the differences between paid ads, organic results and local listings, check out our deep-dive.
If you’re not sure whether your current content strategy is set up to take advantage of how a Search Engine Results Page functions, contact us at Fourandhalf. We’re here to help with content, website optimization, and all your property management marketing needs.
