Today, most businesses have some sort of online presence—whether by putting up a website, selling products and services on e-commerce platforms, advertising on social media presence, publishing blogs, etc.
Why? Because it helps connect businesses with tech-savvy customers. In a world driven by paid advertising, being online is a (relatively) free way to build brand awareness.
But is simply having an online presence enough to drive traffic to a website?
The answer is not quite as simple as ‘yes’ or ‘no.’
Whether you’re trying to figure out how best to rank higher in search results or are stepping into the world of SEO and need a crash course on organic search, understanding how the search engine results page (SERP) works is a must.
And that brings us to the question, ‘what are organic search results?’
Simply put, these are search results that show up based on users’ queries, domain authority, links, and other such organic (non-paid) factors.
Here’s everything you need to know about organic search results.
The Types Of Organic Search Results
Here is a list of the types of organic search results available on Google:
Blue Links
In the beginning, organic or non-paid search results were colour-coded blue. And this is what SEOs used to target—a ranking in the top ten blue link search results. Blue links consist of a blue-linked headline, a URL above it, and a short meta description below. The headline is usually the website name or title. In recent times, blue links are shown under Snippets and other visual-based organic searches by SEO.
Featured Snippets
A featured snippet takes a short paragraph from a website’s content and displays it to answer the user’s query. Featured Snippets show results in one of the three structures—paragraphs, tables, or lists.
Top Stories
Sometimes, a user query is met with recently published high-quality news stories. These top stories or news boxes are presented at the top of the search results.
Video Carousels
Video Carousels are Google’s way of providing videos with high organic visibility. They, too, appear in boxes and provide links to videos that match the user’s search query.
People Also Ask
‘People Also Ask’ displays the most frequently asked queries that are related to the user’s search. It then picks out short answers from the internet and shows them under the questions.
Why Is Organic Search Important?
Organic search results are important to anyone who wants to market their content, be it their brand websites, videos, or other links. Higher rankings in these search results are sought-after as they bring in ‘free’ traffic.
But it’s not just any traffic. It’s the kind of traffic that converts. Users who type specific queries are looking for a service or product. When they’re directed to your website, it increases your chances of generating leads and revenue.
How To Check And Monitor Organic Search Rankings
Monitoring organic search results ranking is critical for companies to have the highest visibility. These rankings change by the day or many times, even by the hour. There are many available webmaster tools like Google Analytics, Keylogs, Yandex, Ahrefs, Bing, and many more. These tools help you keep track of your ranking based on the target keywords that you have used in your website content.
How To Rank Higher In Organic Search Results
How Google organic search results work is still somewhat of a mystery. However, many studies have linked a few factors to higher rankings. These include:
- Linking to another website (backlinks/incoming links)
- Mobile-friendliness
- HTTPS (security)
- Relevance (optimize page content)
- Freshness (recent content)
- Page loading time
- Formatting
- Attractive images
It may seem like a lot to take in at once, but each of these can dramatically increase how your website ranks on Google. Sparing a few moments of your time to understand these and implementing them will drive enough traffic to your webpage, making it worth the effort!
If you want better organic search results, talk to SEO & Web
