A Study on the Importance of Search Visibility and Ranking

In the competitive online environment, businesses have been hankering to achieve top rank in the Search Engine Result Pages (SERPs) for most of their keywords. So, for much of the history of digital marketing, the ranking positions of crucial keywords were the primary concerns that professionals at any agency offering SEO services dealt with. The reason is not difficult to guess as SEO experts found that a majority of people tend to click on the # 1 ranked URL the most. The CTR usually declines progressively thereafter. No wonder, the primary objective of any SEO expert was about trying to move the keyword results ‘higher in order’ in the SERPs. This went on for many years until Google search ads burst into the scene.

How Google search ads impacted SEO Services

In the initial days, the Google search ads used to appear on the right sidebar of the SERP. There was a clear demarcation between the search ads and web results obtained organically. So, the people searching for information were sure of where to find the ‘real’ information. Google too continued experimenting with the positioning of search ads - above, below, and on the sides of the organic results. However, February 2016 changed everything with sidebar ads being removed altogether. The result - search ads and web results started competing for the same space in the SERPs.

This came as a challenge for the visibility of organic search results. Also, with elements like featured snippets and others, the web results have been pushed down further making them lose visibility even more. Hence, being number one in organic search rankings is not the same thing as it used to be earlier. Now, they have to compete with search ads to seek the audience’s attention. So, it can be fair to state that traffic to the sites featuring organic results has been hard hit by Google’s specialised features. This gives rise to the question - does search visibility matter more than ranking now?

Shift from search ranking to search visibility

Even though the organic ranking of websites for specific keywords will continue to remain relevant, it is not the whole story anymore to bring traffic. So, the bottom line is - the more your website features down in the SERP, the less it will be viewed by your target audience. Thus, two things have become important now:

• What Google search features like snippets, ads etc appear above your website
• How far down the SERP does your website feature?

This creates a challenge for any internet marketing agency to create a new metric based on the ‘search visibility’ and ‘share of visibility.’ The metric score would enable SEO professionals to make an accurate assumption of a keyword’s traffic value.

How to measure search visibility

# Looking at the SERP: Professionals at any digital marketing agency in India ought to look at the SERPs regularly to understand how visible (or otherwise) are the specific keywords for the target audience.

# Appear above the fold: Every webpage appearing in a browser have a ‘fold.’ Here, ‘above the fold’ would be the visible part of the webpage appearing in a browser. This for any search user would mean, the webpages featuring ‘above the fold’ in a browser can be seen without scrolling. Thus, it is obvious that featuring ‘above the fold’ in a browser would score more on visibility.

# Actual rank: It is the numeric position of an organic search result in a SERP and includes all other elements like search ads, snippets etc. For example, a keyword may rank 2nd in the organic search result but with a featured snippet and video carousel above it, the actual rank would be 4th. However, traditional tool trackers do not necessarily take every element present in a SERP such as featured snippets, videos, and shopping ads into account while displaying the rank of a keyword.

Conclusion

With the Google SERP landscape changing, professionals providing SEO services have their task cut out. They need to move with the times and understand that search visibility has become equally important if not more than traditional ranking in a SERP. If you want your website to score high on both rankings and search visibility, engage any professional agency offering seo services in India.