Here you will find the most popular SERP features like Knowledge Graph panels, carousels, featured snippets, sitelinks, etc., and some good SEO techniques that allow you to win a couple of SERP features for your website. I am sure that with this guide, you will learn some SEO gems on how to increase SERP impressions and clicks.
What is SERP, and how many types of SERP features are there?
The Search Engine Results Page is a list of various results a search engine provides in response to a search query. Basically, the SERP is made of three types of search results: organic, paid, and rich results enhanced with different features, like images, videos, rating stars, etc.
For convenience, I would define 6 types of Google search results as they appear in the SERP, even though there can be multiple subtypes within.
- Knowledge Graph panel and information box
- Local search results
- Media results and featured snippets
- Related Searches
- Regular organic results
- Paid results, commercial ads
How do search result types impact CTR and traffic?
Over time, Google Search has become a vast knowledge base, capable of interpreting the most complex queries and delivering elaborated search results. Different result types are influenced by a multitude of factors, require distinct optimization techniques, and offer varying degrees of SEO potential.
Before we dive deeper and explore Google’s various listing types, let’s pause for a second on the SERP feature types and the influence Google’s rankings and layout have on traffic and CTRs.
It is clear that everyone aims for the number one spot. According to this impressive SERP Features study by Sistrix, there is a drastic difference between the click-through rate of the #1, #2, and #3 positions in organic search results. The average click-through rate for the first position in Google is 28.5%, while at the second position, the average CTR drops to 15.7%, and at the third position, it’s 11%.
In fact, the average CTR in top positions does not show the real picture. CTRs vary depending on the query type and the rich results presented for the query on the first page of the SERP. For example, rich sitelinks will create a higher CTR for the website with this SERP feature.
A Knowledge Graph SERP feature can bring down the CTR for the first result. There is no need to click if the question finds an answer right in Google search. And PPC campaigns and commercial ads will affect CTR rates throughout the SERP, making competition really tough for the rest of the organic results.
Well, everything depends on the search volumes issue, keyword intent assumption, and the right bid for target keywords in each particular case.
How do I know my best SERP features?
How do you know which of your pages are featured with a rich SERP feature on Google? This is a tough point to discover, as there can be thousands of SERP features and keywords that you cannot possibly examine manually.
For the first quick check, let’s have a look at Search Console > Search Results. In the Search appearance tab, you will see the most popular rich SERP features present for your ranking pages.
Knowledge Graph Results
Since its introduction in 2012, Google’s Knowledge Graph has expanded to become one of the biggest knowledge databases. Google analyzes authoritative sources to create connections between entities and present knowledge about them quickly and clearly.
Knowledge Graph data is displayed as a compact summary to the right of the organic results list in the form of a Knowledge Graph Panel or Knowledge Card.
Instant Answers
While there are hundreds of types of rich answers that rank first, the so-called OneBox results are unlikely to drive traffic to your website. Those rich answers go without an underlying link. When trying to search for general knowledge facts, like weather forecasts, calculators, and real-time sports scores, you will find answers right in the search snippet. That is why they are sometimes called zero-click results.
When you enter your search query, you will get the information box right at the top of the SERP, without links to any specific website. However, you might be offered to learn more, usually on general-knowledge information sites that feed the information box.
Brand Knowledge Graph Panel
This SERP feature usually appears for branded queries. The current version of the brand knowledge panel features the brand name, a logo, a link to the company’s site, a description of the company, and a list of the entity’s social profiles. A branded Knowledge Graph panel can be tremendously powerful: it draws users’ attention and is an explicit indicator of the company’s authority and trustworthiness. Added eye-pleaser to search results and page layout—most of the time eyes are immediately drawn to the information panel, be sure to leverage it effectively.
How to get the Knowledge Panel
To get a Knowledge Graph panel for your company, you need to optimize for your brand the way it grows into a trusted and complete Google entity. Fortunately, we know what sources Google draws information from for its Knowledge Graph. Here are steps that will significantly improve your chances of being listed.
1. Get on Wikidata.
Previously, Google received some of the data for its Knowledge Graph from a data repository called Freebase. The project was shut down in 2016, and all of Freebase’s data was transferred to Wikidata, a knowledge base managed by Wikimedia. Creating an entry is easy—Wikidata is more machine-oriented than human-oriented, so you only need to specify a few details about your company to appear in search results, instead of writing paragraphs of text as you would on Wikipedia. Additionally, Wikidata is a great starting point if you want to get your business on Wikipedia. Here’s a guide to Wikidata to get you started.
2. Get a Wikipedia article.
Wikipedia is one of the main sources feeding the Knowledge Graph: company descriptions and official site addresses are almost always pulled from Wikipedia. You can create a Wikipedia page for your brand yourself, but my best advice would be to hire an experienced and trustworthy Wikipedia editor (there are many white-hat companies available to choose from). Don’t forget to include a link to Wikidata in your entry—this may increase your chances of getting the article approved.
Note
More than ever, it has become important with Google’s new beta feature of showing information about the source next to each result in the SERP. Clicking the three dots next to the result will open a pop-up context window that provides information about the source: when the website was first crawled and if it’s secure. For a great many sites, the description is powered by Wikipedia. This update puts more responsibility on websites to work harder to become authoritative sources on the web.
3. Use schema markup for organizations on your homepage.
Schema markup is a type of microdata or, in practice, a piece of structured HTML code on web pages that is not visible to visitors, but is meant to be read by machines (search engines, web crawlers, or browsers) to help them understand the page better. Semantic markup is incredibly beneficial for all kinds of Google listings. For your company’s homepage, you are recommended to use the Organization type of markup. In your markup, be sure to specify your logo, contact information, social profiles, Wikidata, and Wikipedia pages—this is the information Google is likely to pull from your site. Make sure to check Google’s instructions on how to customize your markup elements, if you want to impress the Google algorithm.
4. Have your social media accounts verified.
To correctly identify the social profiles of the panel, Google seems to require them to be verified by the social networks. So what exactly is a verified account? It is a profile of a company or an individual that is confirmed by the social network as their primary official account. On most social platforms, verified accounts have a blue verified badge next to the account name.
Just like traditional organic results, social results have evolved over the years. For bloggers and influencers with a significant social media presence and an active community, social accounts rank high in organic results. Additionally, Google’s important Twitter box is here to stay. In the current layout of Twitter listings, you can click on recent tweets from the account without leaving Google.
Each social network has its own guidelines for getting accounts verified.
5. Contact Google to request a change.
Finally, when you already have a Knowledge Graph listing for your brand, and there is a part of it that doesn’t seem right on the search engine results page, you can request Google to make changes to it. For this, you need to log in to your site’s Google account. Then go to the Knowledge Panel (make sure it’s the right entity you’re looking at) and click on Suggest an edit.
6. Popular product listings
Google implemented popular products at the start of 2020 for diverse product search against the growing spread of marketplaces like Amazon. The Popular Products tab is found in the branded knowledge panel above Shopping ads for retailers in certain industries (initially for clothing and shoes, though currently popular products appear for all types of manufacturers).
This SERP feature is intended for users who want to make the best choice about products rather than just looking for where to buy them. The Popular Products feature is powered by organic product listings and is actually a mashup of various organic search results, including images, ratings, and reviews. To get the Popular Products tab absolutely for free, create a product feed in Google’s Merchant Center and implement structured data.
Local Results
Local results are extremely important for businesses with a physical location. Users find services on Google Maps, rate businesses, and leave reviews—today Google acts as shoppers’ consultant and best friend. Since local results are entity-based and personalized, local SEO requires special tactics.
Google’s local pack SERP feature now consists of a map and 3 listings. Local pack listings depend heavily on the searcher’s location; clicking on any of them takes visitors to Google Maps with an extended view of the business they clicked.
How to get to the local pack
1. Claim your Google My Business listing if you haven’t done it yet.
Most of the information related to local business listings (including address, phone number, images, map, etc.) comes from that page. After setting up your profile, make sure to:
- Add a long, unique description with a link to your official website.
- Choose the correct category for your business.
- Upload a high-resolution profile picture and a cover photo.
- Double-check your address, local phone number, and opening hours.
2. Ask customers for positive reviews.
The review stars of your Google My Business page can play a significant role in your listing’s importance in local search. Encourage your satisfied customers to review your business on Google and consider offering incentives for reviews.
Local Knowledge Graph Panel
A local Knowledge Graph usually appears for branded queries and search terms implying that the user is looking for business premises or physical location, rather than general information about the business or organic results. This type of listing is somewhat similar to its branded sibling in appearance, but it pulls data from different sources.
A local Knowledge Graph usually includes an image, a map with a pin, a link to the company’s website, a link to Google Maps for directions, a Google review score, contact details, some excerpts from Google reviews, and a graph of popular times for some niches.
How to get featured with the local knowledge pack
1. Do a citation campaign.
Make sure your business is listed in all relevant local and industry-specific directories. Think Yelp and TripAdvisor for restaurants, Booking.com and TripAdvisor for hotels, etc. Don’t forget to also check that your brand name, address, and contact details are consistent across all these listings. This will add to your importance and trustworthiness for the famous Google search engine.
2. Set up a Google My Business page.
A Google My Business account is crucial if you want to get a local KG card, so ensure it displays correct and relevant information. When setting up the Google My Business page, double-check that the address, map, and opening hours are correct, and choose a preferred photo. The photo cannot be a logo and needs to be representative of your business. Your safest bet is a square image, 250×250 pixels or larger.
3. Get some great reviews.
Google loves reviews, remember? Strive to get at least 5 Google reviews — you will be rewarded with bright yellow review stars placed right under your business name in the local panel. Make sure to ask your customers for reviews whenever you can and offer incentives to give them that extra nudge.
Travel Box
For queries implying that the user is looking for a way to travel from one place to another, Google often displays a travel box, with a map and directions for driving, walking, cycling, and train and bus schedules. The same results appear on Google Maps when you search for directions.
Switching to the public transport tab and clicking on a route will give you some information about the transport company, along with a link to their website, a ‘buy tickets’ link (again, on the company’s website), and a phone number. Also, being listed in the Travel box is currently free for transport companies.
Organic Search Results
You have surely seen this mundane expression—simple blue links. And good old SEO. But the days when normal organic listings all looked the same are gone; structured data have crept in here too, making even standard Google listings look different. Anyway, there’s good news. That is, if you understand organic results, you will experience some serious traffic gains.
Related Searches
Search engines do not shy away from being too suggestive. Google search results include several related search functions, which promote additional queries, in case they might be relevant or interesting to the user as well.
Common to all the information boxes is the People also search for box right below it, which usually displays top competitors and colleagues. The People also search for box can appear anywhere on the Google search engine results page, however: at the bottom of the knowledge panel or at the bottom of the SERP.
The View results about box, which appears on the right side of organic listings or at the bottom of the Information panel, links to other meanings of the search query. The SERP feature provides variants in cases of disambiguation which is rather common for short-tail queries.
Enhancements
There are a few technical SERP features that will make your search results more presentable. There are breadcrumbs and Sitelinks to implement if you have many pages and high click depth on your site.
Sitelinks are rich blue links to your main subpages. There is no way you can influence the SERP feature on your own, the Google search algorithm finds them by itself. Just create a clear site structure with some important pages, that seem more important to Google.
Breadcrumbs show how deep the page is buried from the homepage.
The Sitelink search box is a rather unnoticeable SERP feature. However, it can be useful for large retail platforms to help users find the item they need without leaving the SERP. In this case, the search box will help attract a bit more convertible traffic to the site.
You can add the search box and breadcrumbs with the help of structured data markup.
Featured Snippets
This is probably the most popular SERP feature that everyone desires. Featured snippets come from third-party sources and include a link to the page along with the page title. They are quick, text-only, rich answers, including the phrase that best answers the user’s query, sometimes it can be a bulleted list, an enumeration, steps, or a table.
In 2020, Google launched its Featured Snippet Update to bring order to search results: if a web page appears in a Featured Snippet, it will no longer appear lower down the first page in regular organic results (the so-called Featured Snippet deduplication).
Interestingly, sometimes the search algorithm can fit two web pages into the featured snippet, as in the example below for the query `freelance career opportunities`.
There are About featured snippet and Feedback lines below the paragraph snippet that demonstrate that this is the featured snippet you are seeing. Users can report if they believe a featured snippet is misleading, vulgar, dangerous, or simply unhelpful.
Getting your pages into featured snippets can give you a huge boost in traffic—click-through rates for clickable rich answers are about twice the CTR for a #1 listing on a SERP without an answer box.
Rich Snippets
Rich results are SERP features that have some specific graphical elements like stars, images, thumbnails, and the like. Unlike the Knowledge Graph SERP feature, which is built by Google search algorithms, rich results are enabled with the help of structured data markup on each site.
Carousel Results
There are a lot of rich features presented in a carousel-like layout. However, each carousel type has its own nuances in usage and the way it is generated.
Before 2017, Google used to return carousel results in response to non-commercial informational queries that included keywords like ‘best’, ‘top’, etc., where the searcher looked for a selection of options. Currently, the carousel is also active for commercial search queries. The carousel appears on a white background and actually includes a kind of knowledge panel with a list of search results. Carousel listings do not include links to sites—clicking on one of them will simply take you to a new search results page. I bet it’s hard to think of a direct SEO, local SEO, or traffic advantage you can get from the carousel given.
Carousel on mobile
The carousel on mobile devices displays multiple listing cards from the same site. One can scroll through the cards in the carousel with scores, descriptions, and top casts, and then decide whether to proceed to the streaming platform. Currently, the feature is enabled only in combination with certain types of content, such as recipes, courses, restaurants, and movies.
>You can control this type of carousel with the help of structured data: add the list of items and details in the carousel markup.
Image Results
Image Pack
Image result boxes are often embedded into Google’s organic SERP and appear on the first page of results. An image pack is seen as a horizontal row of images relevant to the query. These results link directly to Google Images search, where little things called vertical searches come into play. If you have a photo on Flickr with proper content and tags, you will appear in Google Images too.
Video Results
Like social listings, trending video results are integrated into organic results and have a custom snippet. They display the video thumbnail, publication date and video channel name. If video content is part of your marketing strategy, leveraging Google video results is an absolute must.
Featured Video is a special SERP feature for TV and video productions. Search for your favorite hit, or a movie trailer, and you’ll find a big embedded video at the top of the results page. The highlighted video contains the URL leading to the official source, track and artist info, genre, and top streaming platforms for download. Obviously, you can watch the video right in the SERP, and even browse the lyrics. Music fans love it.
Google News
Google News result blocks appear anywhere on the first page of results, among organic listings, in response to queries matched with recent news posts. This block currently known as Top Stories can have up to three URLs, enhanced with a thumbnail image.
How to run your PPC ads
Logically, by starting a Google Ads account and choosing an ad format. Your ad campaign success hinges on your estimates and settings for your PPC campaign and, of course, the budget that you allocate to appear in paid results.
Google Shopping Ads
Currently, paid shopping results appear as blocks of product images and links to the right of organic listings. The block appears for queries with a strong commercial intent.
Shopping ads can appear as part of the branded information box and allow users to pick out items without even leaving the search page. Paid results in the Buy Now section will include filters, prices, top featured buys. You can compare prices, read user and critic reviews, and only then decide if you want to proceed to the shopping platform’s website.
Conclusion
These are the main Google search result types and their distinctive features. Which of them have you seen bringing you the most visits? What do you think about the possible further development of Google SERPs? As always, I look forward to a great discussion in the comments!
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