Beyond rankings: The changing face of the Google SERP
Even the casual SEO has historically kept an eye on their rankings. Using an online service or a program like Web Position Gold to track the successes and failures of their activity. At the same time, the wise SEO kept an eye out for their usual competitors, and stayed on the lookout for emerging competitors in the marketplace. As Google continues to innovate, the landscape of the results have changed, and there is now an additional item for the SEO to worry about - Google itself.
Thank you Google.
Two years ago if you did a search for "grocery store" from your home computer you'd get a listing of the most relevant sites for the term grocery store - for the whole country. You've probably noticed that similar searches have begun integrating local results, complete with Google map listings. You'll see the same thing when doing searches for product related terms, and for certain informational topics you'll also see the integration of video results. This is Google trying to anticipate user needs, which may not always be pleasant for the SEO.
Recently I was working with an online retailer that had achieved a #3 ranking for a popular product related term. The only page outranking it was the manufacturer. This led to a steady stream of traffic and consistent month to month sales. Out of nowhere it seemed, that all stopped.
On a month to month basis we saw the drop in analytics. I quickly looked back to the organic rankings report - there was no drop. The next step was to look at the SERP. That's when we saw the problem. Google had integrated both video and product listings. We had gone from a cozy perch atop the rankings to below the fold and competing with images and videos for the user's attention and eye share. I wouldn't have assumed the loss in traffic would be as drastic as it was (see below).
Can you guess when the SERP changed?
Even with the number one ranking within the Google Product feed listing (essentially maintaining our #3 ranking in terms of visible links) the additional competing items on the SERP wiped out our traffic. The moral of the story here is that while your competition needs to be monitored, so does the medium itself. Google will continue to adjust the SERPs to improve user experience, and as SEOs we will need to continue to adjust to the changing landscape.
Tags: google product listings, google serps, integrated search, lost search traffic, SEO
