Test Different Messaging on a Single Search Engine Results Page

It is a long standing debate on whether or not to bid on phrases in pay per click that your website already ranks for organically. One school of thought would ask why someone would pay for clicks on a search engine results page in which their website is already ranking for organically. There are actually several answers to that question, one being that it gives a website the opportunity to use different messaging variations.

Various messaging may be attractive to some people but not others. The messaging/offer included in your organic search listing may attract clicks from some users, but not others. Additionally, you do not have complete control over the messaging that is displayed in your organic listing. Adding a paid listing with a different message or a specific offer can appeal to an additional cross-section of searchers. You also have much more control over what is displayed in a pay per click listing than what is displayed in an organic listing.

Let PPC Dictate Your Meta Descriptions

When your website is included in the organic listings of a search engine result page, there are two important factors that will cause people to click on your listing: rank and messaging. Of course the search engine has the ultimate say in where you rank, and even what your messaging is, but you do have some control over the messaging. Often times in an organic search listing, a snippet of your meta description is included. If your meta description is what shows, it better be inviting if you want a click.

One of the beautiful things about PPC is the ability to test different messaging in ad variations. Once you find the right ad copy to generate a high click through rate, by testing different ads, you can use that copy in the meta descriptions of your webpages. By knowing what messaging causes people to click, you can increase your click through rate in organic search as well.

More Wikipedia Content now Served on Yahoo! SERPs

Wikipedia deep links and images are now being served in Yahoo search as part of an attempt to add more third-party content to its results. Now when a Wikipedia page is served in Yahoo’s search results, four links to sections within the article will be displayed along with an image from the page.

With this new search engine real estate, your company’s Wikipedia page is even more beneficial. Make sure your page has relevant section headers and an enticing picture.

How to OWN a SERP

Recently a client asked me why we are recommending they create a blog, a Wikipedia page, a Google Knol, and a YouTube channel with videos. They couldn't understand what one had to do with the other. We often refer to the combination of these tactics as Reputation Management. And while we find it essential to control as much of the search engine results page (SERP) for a client for messaging reasons, we also like the fact that it just plain allows an opportunity to own as much of the real estate on a SERP as possible.

But since most search engines only allow up to 2 links from a single domain, you must create optimized presence in a variety of domains in order to do that. With strategic website choices (like those I mentioned above) and appropriate tagging and optimization, a client can achieve many slots in a SERP, even for competitive phrases. If done well, a client can potentially own all 10 first page results.