Original subtitles

- [Instructor] The search engine results pages, or SERPS,

are the proving ground for a successful keyword strategy.

This also shows you important areas to consider

in your optimization and content tactics.

Many times it's not just a webpage

that you are competing with for rankings.

It can be a product listing, video, Wikipedia entry,

or a local business listing.

Most times, you may be up against

local results or ads or both,

which take up a lot of real estate on the page.

Other times, your competition may be Google itself.

In attempting to provide an answer,

Google uses information from other websites, Wikipedia,

or also provides other questions to refine your search.

In this search for hiking tours in Iceland,

here are the results.

Ads take up the top of the page,

information about Iceland is on the right side

which shows on the desktop, but not in mobile results.

This comes from the knowledge graph.

Next are common destinations and tours.

This section will also provide

products for e-commerce and reviews.

Finally, you see the organic search results.

And then the people also ask section,

which provides additional information

in the form of questions

that may help you refine your search.

The format of the results will change

based on the keywords and phrases,

or types of phrases that you use.

Now there are two sides to this.

For the search engine, it presents content

to answer the searcher's query fast.

Without clicking the result,

the searcher sees the information they need.

Steadily, Google has been making the SERP page

a destination for searchers

rather than a means to find websites with answers.

Many searches are now starting and ending at Google

without the searcher clicking the website.

Other features that are seen in the results

are images, videos, Twitter,

featured snippets that feature webpage content

at the top of the results page, rich snippets,

which include additional links to a website,

typically the highest organic result, and news.

These are important factors

for website owners moving forward.

Here's your assignment.

Make several searches,

including question based searches related to your industry.

Make note of the results that have ads.

How many have extra information

such as local results, maps, videos, news, and more?

This will provide you with the context

of the competition in the SERPS for your business.

Additionally, because most searchers use a mobile device,

the first ad will take up almost all of their screen.

They will have to scroll through additional ads

to get to the organic results,

those that are based on the search engine's algorithm.

Use the exercise file,

a basic template has been added to help you get started.