When people search for your brand on Google, the results that they see are called SERPs. However, these results are more than just your business cards on Google. They signify what your audience finds valuable and relevant. Moreover, they also indicate how Google sees your business. Through SERPs, you can create a holistic environment and supercharge your online presence. By utilising Search Engine Optimization smartly, you can elevate your SERPs and dominate your industry.

Importance of Brand SERP for Search Engine Optimization

Brand SERPs provide unparalleled insights into how your consumers perceive your brand.

With that intel, you can align your next steps according to your brand goal. This way, not only can you improve your future strategies but also highlight your strengths.

Instead of leaving it all on Google, you can take charge of what people see when they search for your brand. You should craft a brand SERP that speaks to your audience and represents your identity in the best possible way.

In this article, we will break down the essential elements of brand SERPs. We will assist you in understanding the significance and direct you to digital marketing success. So, get ready to revolutionise your brand with fail-proof strategies.

Analyse from the top

The Brand’s website and the site link should always be the first result. If the brand name is vague or keyword-oriented, then your task becomes developing confidence and reliability with Google.

A SERP brand can journey usually begins like this:

The home page might be satisfactory but there might be room for development elsewhere.

Titles and descriptions hold the key to understanding the site’s structure. It also helps analyse the quality of user-oriented pages like Contact Us, Categories, Log In and About Us.

Prioritise fixing these pages since these play a pivotal role in Google’s understanding of your brand. Furthermore, this will also set the foundation for successful Search Engine Optimization efforts.

Bonus Tip – Evaluate the implementation of schema.org throughout the website. Ensuring top-notch, sitewide and consistent schema.org markup will instil confidence in Google’s understanding of the brand. Unlocking rich site links offers invaluable insights to propel your digital marketing strategy.

Evaluate the ranking of social profiles

Even though the social profile on the search page appears due to different metrics, it is essential to know which ones are being clicked the most.

Imagine your client heavily investing in Facebook strategies, but their Facebook presence does not rank in the brand’s SERP. This means that their approach isn’t effectively engaging the relevant audience.

In such cases, a thorough report on what, how and whom the brand engages with on the social media platform can yield helpful insights.

While you embark on fixing your socials on SERPs, don’t forget your competitor brands. If TikTok rarely ranks on their SERP but LinkedIn does, this means that their users spend more time on the latter. Consequently, allocating resources to LinkedIn is more likely to give direct results.

Videos

Examine video sections closely. Are you making a substantial investment in production for YouTube? If you are, your videos should feature prominently on the brand SERP, with adequate video boxes and neatly branded thumbnails.

Take a look at Disney for example. While they have video boxes on their brand SERP, the design appears inconsistent – since the videos are sourced from multiple channels. Even their own YouTube channel displays a video with a sub-optimal thumbnail.

Prioritise Reviews

Implement a review strategy to garner reviews for the company and its customer support.

Apart from Google itself, prioritise reviews on the most pertinent and valuable platform in your niche.

While platforms like Trustpilot hold major significance, remember that the most effective platform can vary depending upon your industry. You can have a good brand image in the offline market within your niche but ranking in SERPs needs additional work and consistency. Small businesses often have a good presence on Yelp and Google My Business; but due to their limited online presence, they can lack a broader online presence (SERPs)

Keep in mind that product reviews are equally essential as selecting the right platform to gather them. However, avoid making assumptions – conduct a separate analysis of the product brand SERP and maintain a comprehensive approach.

Keen eye on News

For certain markets, the news might not hold the same significance as others. This can be due to the timelessness of their industry. News usually doesn’t tend to be evergreen. However, in industries like finance, news is subjected to hold a lot of presence and weight. Hence, they are the top priority.

It is not necessary that your brand might have SERP news boxes, but that does not mean that news are not a significant aspect of your industry. Conducting a brand SERP cohort analysis can swiftly reveal what your PR strategy should focus more on. This approach can help in identifying a few most relevant news sources for you to concentrate on. Additionally, through this way, you would be more organised and save up money along the way.

Answer what “People Also Ask”

Check the presence of People Also Ask questions on the brand SERP. Almost 70% of brand SERPs have a PAA questions list. If no pointers are present in your SERP, it could indicate a problem. The absence of PAA questions can suggest that Google probably lacks a proper understanding of your brand audience and your relationship with them.

However, on the other side if Google does display a set of PAA questions then you can ensure that they are pertinent. if your website doesn’t address any questions that are listed in the SERP, then consider creating an FAQ section on your website. Answer all the questions as clearly as possible.

As a brand, if you choose to answer all the necessary questions for the clients, then Google recognises the relationship between your brand and its audience as holistic and positive.

Pay attention to Filter Pills

Filter pills are the clickable icons below the search bar in the search results. These icons offer invaluable insights for your digital strategy. As a user, you can explore different aspects of a brand across various verticals. These filters make searches proximate to Google’s own word game.

For instance, if you search for “best movies 2023”, the search pills will indicate user interest in several genres or origins of movies.

Additionally, examine the related searches at the bottom as they reveal more areas of focus for your strategy.

Furthermore, mastering the insights from filter pills and related searches empowers you to refine your digital strategy and capitalise on relevant areas of interest for your audience.

Presence of Knowledge Panel

The presence of a Google knowledge panel is crucial for any company or brand. It serves as a concise summary of information collected from credible sources, showcasing Google’s understanding of your brand’s facts.

Not having a knowledge panel on your brand SERP indicates a significant issue. It means you are not part of Google’s Knowledge Graph, and also that Google lacks understanding of your brand’s identity.

Make the knowledge panel a “must-have”. Without it, you cannot gauge your relevance to your audience. Furthermore, Google couldn’t assess your credibility (E-E-A-T) for your target users. Lacking a knowledge panel is quite outdated.

Focus on building the entity home, ensuring consistent corroboration and effective signposting to address this critical aspect.

Search Generative Experience

SGE is already a focal point for most Search Engine Optimization tactics. Managing SGE results involves viewing them as dynamic knowledge panels or multi-element featured snippets.

SGE aims to summarise the SERP information and save the user time in their search process.

These answer engines provide accurate, helpful and actionable summaries. They also reduce the need to click on multiple links and read through various pages.

A positive summary of your brand in Google’s SGE is ideal, while a negative one signals potential online reputation management issues.

Pages 2 through 10 of brand SERP

If you look past the reputation-oriented search rankings, you can find insightful details. Look for positions 20-100 within the search results. In doing so, you can constitute what you are doing wrong or might not be doing as well as you should for the brand.

For instance, if you invest in video content but find that your results are not ranking high – it indicates misallocation of resources.

Similarly, as discussed above, if you encourage your clients to review your company on TrustPilot, but it ranks low. This means that there is probably a different and better platform/market for your brand.

To enhance your digital strategy further, consider analysing brand SERPs for “{Brand} reviews” to identify additional opportunities for improvement.

Ending Notes

This article provides a simple and quick overview of how brand SERP can identify key issues and prioritise different aspects of a holistic digital strategy through time.

In today’s competition, a brand needs more than just an Search Engine Optimization team to flourish for a long period. With SERP you can utilise your assets by collaborating with social media managers, website developers, content creators, etc.

Brand SERP offers a valuable opportunity to bring all the stakeholders together in a unified representation of the overall strategy. They provide a shared KPI that is fundamentally part of Search Engine Optimization. Hence, making it easier to align everyone’s efforts for the brand’s success.