Competition is a part of any business, and it’s no different when it comes to your online presence. Search Engine Optimization, or SEO, is a lucrative and competitive field, and getting to the top of the search results can push your business ahead of the competition. But in order to understand how you can take the top spot, you need to understand who you’ll be competing against on the search page. There will generally be two types of results on a search page, direct results, and ads. We’ll cover both of them here.
Advertisers
Whenever you make a search, advertisements will always be the very first results. However, who appears in the advertisements depends more on how much you’ve paid for the ad than how good your SEO is, and, depending on the keyword, this can quickly become costly. With most of the internet’s searches being done via google, their advertising framework, Google AdWords, is the one we’ll primarily be referencing.
However, while the amount you pay has a significant impact on where your ad shows up, SEO still has an impact as well. Making certain that your advertisement is well-written, contains proper keywords, and states clearly what your business offers can bring your ad closer to the top, and attract more potential clicks.
While other advertisers for similar services are your primary concern, there will also be seemingly unrelated ads showing up for relevant keywords. While these businesses don’t compete with you for business, they do compete with you for the highest spots on the search rankings and can push you down to the bottom of the page, or even the next page, where your ads will have far fewer clicks.
Direct Results
If you can’t afford an effective ad, or you just want a less expensive option, direct search results can still garner your website significant traffic if you have properly optimized Search Engine Optimization. However, the competition is far more intense for direct results, and it can be a significant challenge to become highly ranked in the search results for your keywords. There are a few types of pages which fare far better in search results, even if they’re not as relevant to the keywords.
Articles and News
Google usually prioritizes news and articles relevant to a specific keyword or key-phrase ahead of vendor content or other types of pages. A good way to attract attention to your site is to have an article or review available on a high-ranking or reputable website.
List Pages
Often, Google will place content lists before many other types of results, pushing your page further downward. However, with better SEO, it’s still possible to overtake lists, or even create lists of your own, or find a way to have your site or business featured on a list.
Directory Sites
Search engines such as Google will try to present as many options as possible, and as such, they will often have directory or review sites can often appear higher up. A good strategy is to attempt to get your business a favorable position on as many of these directories as possible.
Conclusion
SEO is incredibly important, and a website with a high search ranking can attract hundreds or even thousands of potential customers to your business. This is why it’s important to do everything you can to maintain a high ranking, or run an efficient ad campaign.
Marvin Morgan 