SEO Session IV- Understanding SERPS

SEO Session IV

SEO Sesson IV-  How To Please The Search Engines and Gain Recognition in SERPS.

If you are just joining us please catch up to this point by reading :

• SEO Session I

• SEO Session II

• SEO Session III

There, now you are caught up and ready for your next SEO Lesson today.

By now you should know what keywords your consumers are using to find you and what words are important to them. Remember that these words should be researched through keyword tools on a monthly basis so you can keep on top of any niche words coming down the pipeline.

If you are reading this post and are a member of Active Rain you already know what the SERPS look like and what turns up in searches. When a consumer types words into the Search Engine Search box; they will receive a Search Engine Results Page, the abbreviation for those words is SERPS.

You should be optimizing many pages on your website. Remember from Session III that the Search Engine looks and rank each page of your website individually, they do not rank your entire site. So it is important to use your keywords in a strategic manner to optimize different pages on your website. You do not want to use the same keywords for every page. Make sure it is relevent too.

It is important to look at the SERPS for different keywords so you can get to understand the points of entry and how your competitors are showing up. You want to show up on the first page of Google. We will be using Google a lot during the sessions. It is better to be #10 on page one of Google, then #1 on page 2 of Google.  Most searchers do not go beyond the first page of Google. What they will do instead if they can not find what they are looking for on page one of Google, they will go back and refine their search. Think about your Google habits. How do you search?

The more you learn about what is happening on page one of Google, the more you will be able to capitalize on the opportunity of getting to be number one.

The search engines are similar in the information that appears on their SERPS.

• Above all the searches there are sponsored ads. People who pay for adwords will have their ads on the right sidebar.

• The next section is the related searches. This is to help the searcher to narrow in on what they are searching for.

• Links to the internal searches.

• There are also content properties such as: Google News, Google Finance, Google Groups, Google Images, Google Maps, Google Video

                                             Yahoo Shopping, Yahoo News, Yahoo Finance, Yahoo Answers, Yahoo Maps, Yahoo Sports, Yahoo Video, Yahoo Directory
                                             Live QnA

The above internal searches are called verticals.
You can see these verticals right below in this image.



You can get your site into the top 10 search results for your keywords by using these verticals.

For instance, Google Image search is a great way for you to show up if you title and tag your images with your keywords and they are relevant. Image Search can also drive a lot of traffic to your website.

The Google News and the Yahoo News both are very popular and can drive traffic to your website. These are tools that are sitting right there in front our faces that are there for us to use to get higher on the SERPS yet we most often do not take full advantage of these opportunities.

Individual Search Results are almost the same across Google, Yahoo and MSN.

What is going to show up is The Page Title,  Description and the URL to your Website.

This is why your keywords, Title and description are the most important parts of your website. The SE will go in and grab a snippet of a desription from the page it is crawling to bring back to the searcher. If you can get your website submitted to DMOZ.org, the seach engines will pull from DMOZ instead. DMOZ is the largest human edited website directory on the internet.

Having links going to specific pages on your website will help searchers who narrow their search to find your site; this is called longtail searching. The more refined the search the more serious the searcher is. It has been shown in studies that the shorter the keyword search the farther out in the buying process the searcher is, the more refined, the longer the search is- the closer to buying they are. Of course the more refined their search is and the more quality content you have to please that searcher, the longer they will stay on your site and the more likely they are to call you.

Again, having lots of backlinks is the secret to good SEO.

How you organize your site and how you make your site easy to navigate for consumers as well as for Search Engines will truly help your rising in the SERPS.

The more popular you can make your site the more the possibility exists that Google will list your site links in the SERPS.


You not only have to make sure the Search Engines like your site but you almost must learn to write well, understand call to actions and writing compelling copy in order to appeal to the consumers to the point that they are exciting about clicking on you.

The biggest way to attract that click is to make sure you have a compelling Title with keywords. While the Search Engines don't have a sense of humor and will not be able to decipher clever headlines, your consumers will. You must find the balance of writing for both. You need to make them both happy.  The title is the first impression so make it a good clickable one. Your description and your page URL are the next parts of what will show up in the SERPS and what has to also tempt the consumer to want more of what you are offering.

We will go into more detail in our next sessions. Please consider susbcribing to our blog so you do not miss out on any SEO lessons.

Homework for this week is to write a news story and submit it to Yahoo news/Google news and upload images to Google/Yahoo and get links back to the pages on your website where it is relevant. Work on your title, description and URL  over the next week or so. This should always be a work in progress. Even if you have a title already, examine it, check the keywords, make sure that people actually search for your keywords. Spend some time working with your description. We will work on this more in other lessons.

Katerina Gasset, CIPS, Realtor ®, Business and Life Coach, Speaker and Author. Reach Katerina at: 561-753-0135

Disclaimer:The information provided herein is supplied by several sources and is subject to change without notice. Wellington Homes Blog does not guarantee or is any way responsible for its accuracy, and provides said information without warranties of any kind, either express or implied. Entries on Wellington Homes Blog represent the opinions and ideas of the author(s). Wellington Homes Blog does not express the views of International Properties and Investments, Inc or those of the broker.

Copyright © 2008 By Katerina Gasset, All Rights Reserved.*SEO Session IV- How To Please The Search Engines and Gain Recognition in the SERPS.* Contact Katerina Gasset for Customized Business and Personal Coaching.