What Google’s New Results Page Means for Organic SEO

Did you notice that Google recently changed how ads display in the search results pages? Google has eliminated the ads that appeared along the right side of the page — the right rail. If you rely on your mobile phone for your own searching, you might not have noticed any change, for Google has chosen not to show right-rail ads in the compressed screen of the mobile phone. The layout changes only apply to desktop searches. If you are a desktop user, you may have noticed the change, but you might have missed it if your searches trigger Google product listings (PLAs), for Google plans to continue displaying them in the right-hand panel. We can also expect to continue seeing ads in the Knowledge Panel area of the search page. Instead of three ads at the top of the page, before the organic search results, you can expect to see four ads, particularly for commercial queries. Combined with the three ads that appear at the bottom of the page, seven ads will be shown instead of a maximum of 11. This change is not an unmixed good. Google does not intend to forego any ad revenue opportunities. The Google rationale behind the change is that this change will align with how users interact with Google. Reading between the lines, this means that they are seeing huge volumes of mobile search traffic that make it harder to retain any logical reason for offering two different formats. Their testing has shown that right rail ads are less effective than the ads that appear integrated into the top or bottom of the results page. The right-rail ads have simply become ineffective — interesting news to those who have been spending valuable ad dollars for them. It is my conjecture that users know and recognize that they are ads and, hence, avoid them unless they really answer their needs. How Does This Impact Organic Search? While pay-per-click specialists calculate strategies for dealing with the new layout of the search engine results page, organic specialists are not unscathed by this change. Any time there is a change in how much search page real estate is given over to ads, it automatically impacts organic results. The addition of a fourth ad for commercial keywords means that your money terms will be driven further down on the page by that fourth ad. This means that it is imperative that your top keywords perform in the top positions, or you can expect to be lost in the clutter of ads at the top and bottom of the page. The organic search results have become more like sandwich-filling between Google’s bread and butter. The SEO’s task is not just to rank at the top of the results, but also to create a search listing that is more compelling — tasty, if you will — than the ads. This means that organic search just got a bit harder. You may see a reduced volume of organic clicks for keywords pressed below the fold by the increased ad volume at the top. It has long been my contention that most businesses that rely on organic search do not have a traffic volume problem, but rather a conversion problem. As my column last month suggested, the conversion must begin at the search results page. Now, more than ever, you need to focus on strategies that will yield the top five search results or better and convert to clicks to your site. Watch your traffic over the next couple of weeks to see how the changes ripple into your results. If your site is already gleaning the majority of its traffic from mobile devices, the impact may be quite small. It can be observed that it was just about a year ago that Google announced it would be boosting mobile-friendly sites. If you are still working on making sure that your site is mobile-friendly and are still relying on desktop search traffic, you are even further behind the eight ball than before, now that desktop search results will be more compressed and will look like mobile search.

Marketing and Sales

What Google’s New Results Page Means for Organic SEO

Amanda G. Watlington, Ph.D.

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Amanda G. Watlington, Ph.D.