Google SERP result types in 2020 and how to rank for them

Written by Rocío Rodríguez

SERP stands for Search Engine Results Page, which is the page a search engine returns when a user enters a query into its search bar. When we talk about SERPs, we don’t just mean Google results. Other search engines like Bing or Yahoo! also have their own SERPs. Nevertheless, in this post we are going to cover the main result formats from the Google SERPs, as it is the most-used search engine in the world.

When we enter a search query into Google, the search engine usually returns ten pages we can browse through. Each one of them contains ten organic results.

Depending on the search query we make, we will encounter variations in the content that is presented to us. For example, if we look up “buy iphone”, Google will return shopping results, because it identifies it as a clearly transactional intent. However, if we look up “how to make custard”, it will return video results, because it understands that the intent in this case is purely informational.

Over time, the SERPs have introduced new formats and features, to the point where users can get the information they’re looking for directly in the search results, without having to visit any page.

While this results in a better user experience overall, from a business point of view it’s always not as beneficial, as it diminishes the amount of clicks your website can obtain.

These changes allow Google to make its result pages much more dynamic, and to display a richer and much more valuable content to the user, than it did a few years back.

Below we are going to analyse, one by one, all Google SERP features in 2020, and we are going to provide recommendations to optimise our website, and explain how to rank our result with any of the features we mention in this article.

It’s important to keep in mind that we cannot expect to be able to appear for all the possible features that the Google SERPs provide. We will only consider and work with the optimal choices for our business, that will provide value both to us and our users.

For example, if we have a recipe blog, it wouldn’t make much sense to try to appear in the Google News, because we don’t publish trending content on our website. We can, on the other hand, try to get a featured snippet to gain visibility.

For this analysis, we’ve grouped the various SERP features into organic results and paid results.

Organic results

Classic list with ten organic text results

Organic results are the traditional results, presented in a natural way in response to a search query.

The order in which these results appear is determined by Google, based on their relevance and technical aspects like user experience, download speed, navigability…

Each result consists of a title, description, a breadcrumb trail, and occasionally, a date, too.

How to optimise your content to rank in organic search results:

• Optimise the title and the description. Although the latter doesn’t directly influence rankings, it does have a bearing on other indicators, namely CTR.
• Use headings inside the content of your pages, and make sure they follow a correct descending order: H1, H2, H3…
• Define a correct information architecture based on a keyword research, which you’ll have to assign to the different URLs belonging to your project.
• Work on the internal links and structure your content accordingly.
• Create quality pages and content, which will cater to the visitors’ needs. Write for the user, not the search engine.
• Use images to illustrate the content, and ensure your pictures have an optimised alternative text.
• Take good care of the anchor texts of your internal links, as this text will influence the rankings of the linked page.
• Create user-friendly URLs. Avoid using symbols and characters, which will make it harder to understand them.
• Don’t forget to regularly analyse and review the technical aspects of your project: page download speed, programming errors, server errors, etc.
• Use structured data markup. It helps to present rich snippets with additional information that’s interesting for the user. You can test whether the implementation of your structured data is correct analysing your pages with Google’s rich results testing tool.

Local search results

The local pack contains information of interest for the user, and is comprised of a map and three specific locations, whenever they are geographically relevant for the entered query. The information shown to the user includes the physical address or telephone number, and additionally, we can sometimes see images and reviews of the business in question.

This SERP feature is usually presented on top of the 10 first traditional organic results, and it appears when the search query has a concrete geographic intent.

For example, “24 hour pharmacy” returns the results for pharmacies in our immediate surroundings:

This section doesn’t usually display more than three results.

Depending on the search, we can sometimes see a fourth location included – an ad.

On mobile devices, besides all the previous information, we can include a telephone icon which allows users to directly ring the place.

In general, when a user looks up a business on the Internet, it is usually done with a clearly transactional intent, so to appear in the local pack brings us greater visibility and serves as an entry point for new prospective customers.

If we click on any of the three provided local results, the browser will take us to its Google My Business detail page, with all the information: reviews, opening hours, telephone numbers, address…:

The results displayed in this section of the SERPs will vary based on the user’s location.

How to optimise your content to appear in the local pack:

• Register your business in Google My Business, filling in all the required fields, especially those which are the most relevant, namely: opening hours, website, address and telephone number.
• Double-check all the entered data.
• Request current or old customers who are satisfied with your product or service to review you, and always reply to their comments, to form a dialog and communicate with them.
• Add good quality images and videos of your business on Google My Business.

Organic results with sitelinks

As we can already guess from their name, sitelinks are links from our website displayed in the search results, providing users with a more direct access to the most-visited sections of our website:

It’s not up to us to decide how these links are going to be displayed. Google determines which shortcuts are the most interesting ones based on its analysis of our website, to make the access to information easier for our users.

How to optimise your content to get this type of results:

• Set a clear and logical structure for your website, with links to the most relevant and popular pages.
• Review the anchor texts of your internal links and make them relevant and informative.

Image packs

Not all searches return results with this feature in the SERPs. It usually appears only when the visual aspect is particularly relevant for the result.

This feature can be displayed in several different ways: sometimes approximately 12 images appear at the top of the page, forming a rectangle, as shown below:

Other times, they are displayed as a horizontal carrousel, and not always at the top of the SERPs.

If we click on any of those images, the link doesn’t take us directly to the source page of the image, but to Google Images instead.

How to optimise your content to get this type of results:

• Use descriptive names for your image files. Avoid “Image-1.jpg”, “DSC_198089.jpg” and so on. A better fit would be “big-ben-at-night.jpg”, for example.
• Optimise the pages where the image is placed, to give it more relevance, and surround it with a coherent context.
• Include original and unique images inside your page. Avoid using public domain stock pictures, appearing on many other websites. Google prefers indexing original images, to avoid duplicating already existing content in its index.
• Don’t forget to optimise the size of your images. Avoid large files, but preserve their quality. It’s important that your images look sharp. There are many tools for image compression out there. You can try this one, if you only need to compress a .png or a .jpg file. And finally, ensure they have proper size and compression with Google PageSpeed Insights.
• Optimise the alt attribute of your pictures, by including a descriptive text. Besides being good for SEO, it will improve accessibility for people with visual disabilities, who will be able to listen to the description.

Video results

This type of results is presented as a rich snippet inside a carrousel. It includes a thumbnail image, title, video author, platform or name of the website, and the publication date:

This type of results has better visibility than traditional organic results. Undoubtedly, the YouTube video platform takes over the starring role in these results. However, it’s still possible to rank in the video carrousel if we create content with videos embedded from other platforms.

How to optimise your content to appear in video results:

• Open your own YouTube channel, if it has a place in your marketing strategy, it suits your business model, or it can help you to reach your company’s goals, as well as provide you with better authority and credibility in your industry. Create and publish interesting content for your audience (reviews, tutorials, etc.).
• Boost your videos and provide your content with added value by embedding these YouTube videos in your blog content. We recommend you to add this information as high up as possible inside the page.
• It’s also important to optimise each YouTube video, adding the appropriate keywords within the title or description.
• Encourage users to interact with your video: prompt your users to leave comments, click on “Like”, or subscribe to your channel.
• Share your videos in social media whenever you can.

News

Carrousel

These are results returned for search queries of the type QDF (Query Deserves Freshness), and they are presented inside a carrousel. They are mostly reserved for when the query is in any way related to a trending topic, breaking news, or a major event:

Although this carrousel usually appears at the top of the SERPs, sometimes it can appear a little lower:

Up until recently, our website needed to be registered in Google News if we wanted our results to appear in this carrousel. While this is no longer a requirement, it is still recommended.

This carrousel appears highlighted in the SERPs with a thumbnail, the headline, publication time or date, and the name of the publisher. We usually see at least three news posts, up to ten.

Module

Throughout the SERPs we can usually find a featured news module, interspersed with other results. There are always three news pieces featured there, no more, no less. A link below the news articles takes the user to a vertical search for “News”:

The information is always the same as in the carrousel, but in a horizontal format, and it doesn’t have to appear at the top of Google’s results necessarily, but it can be placed in between the results instead.

This type of format usually appears when a query corresponds to a trending topic or breaking news.

How to optimise your content to get this type of results

If you’re a media outlet or you have a current events section on your website, we recommend you to follow our recommendations if you want to increase your probabilities of appearing in the Google News carrousel:

• Add structured data to the source code of your page. This way, we will help Google to better understand the content of our website, providing additional information. Google recommends the NewsArticle type to media publishers in their content markup. It’s also important to set the Author type to indicate the author of the article, and last but not least, we must set the publication date marked with the DatePublished property. This information is important, because the Google News carrousel includes news pieces no older than 48 hours, counting from the publication date.
• Create and send from Google Search Console a Google News sitemap with the URLs of articles posted in the last two days. Update the sitemap frequently to include new pieces; remove those, which are older than 48 hours, and don’t add more than 1,000 URLs.
• We recommend you to have an AMP version for your news pieces. Otherwise, we won’t be able to appear in the horizontal carrousel for searches made from mobile devices.

Rich results

Google frequently displays prices, user reviews, or the availability of a product from within the SERPs. We call this type of results “rich results” or “rich snippets”. They are traditional organic results, with their title, description, and breadcrumbs, but contributing additional information and value to the user. For example, the cooking time of a recipe, user reviews of a product, prices, etc.

How to optimise your content to get this type of results:

We recommend implementing the appropriate structured data to label information on our website, because Google will display it with a rich result format. We can check whether the structured data on our website will favour rich snippets with the rich results testing tool.

For example, in the case of online shops, our product pages could be labelled with the Product type of structured data, to let the search engine know about its properties, such as price, reference, category, discount, stock availability, images, reviews, size.. If your website has a recipe section, you can label the recipe’s ingredients, an image of the dish, user ratings, cooking time, etc.

Rich cards

Rich cards are part of Google’s organic results, and they appear especially in cases of recipes, movies and books, although we can also see them for content like rankings and songs.

• Recipes

• Movies

• Books

• Rankings

• Songs

We could say that, in a way, this is an evolution of the traditional search results.

In the case of recipes, the module usually offers three results on mobile devices, and four on desktop, including additional information like ratings and cooking times. Images are given higher priority, and the description shown in regular organic results disappears:

In the case of movies, books, and rankings, the information is frequently displayed with a carrousel, both on mobile and desktop devices. It includes additional information such as publication or release date, or height.

How to optimise your content to get this type of results:

• We recommend employing structured data markup to inform Google about the content of our page. Only then we can qualify to appear in the SERPs with this type of result. For example, in the case of recipes, we should add the markup for the Recipe type. In the case of movies, we can label the title, the director or the pictures. You can check out schema.org to see which type of structured data best suits your content and the information you wish to label.

Events

This kind of rich results shows a list of events scheduled in a specific location, meaning the information will be based on where the query is being made from. That is, I won’t get the same results if I look up “events” from Madrid, than if I do it from Alicante.

The events returned in the results range from live shows, art festivals, theatre plays… to marathons or conferences, amongst others. The rich result provides additional information like the image, date and start time:

If we click on an event, we can get more information, including its logo or poster, description and other data. It’s just another way to get our audience to know more about us.

How to optimise your content to get event-type rich results:

To ensure Google can include information about our events in its results, we must implement the Event type of structure data, and follow Google’s technical guidelines, which recommend the following measures:

• Implement Event markup on individual pages for each event, plus a page including a list of different events.
• Make sure to fill in all the mandatory properties of the Event schema: location, name and startDate, as well as any recommended properties you can.
• Make sure your CMS is capable of generating an updated sitemap file.
• Test your markup compatibility with the rich result type in question using the rich results test.
• Check your Event structured data for errors in Google Search Console.
• Request indexing and check the URL rendering of your event pages with the URL inspection tool from Google Search Console.

Featured snippets

Featured snippets, also known as position 0 (although, strictly speaking, nowadays they’re position 1), is the largest result displayed on top of traditional organic results:

Google displays this information when the search intent is identified as informational. A featured snippet is more likely to appear for queries starting with or containing “what is…”, “how to…”, “… meaning” etc.

Google extracts the information displayed in this section from the pages included in its index. It’s up to the search engine to decide which page it should display for each of these informational queries.

To appear featured in the SERPs is an enormous visibility opportunity, and the CTR figures are usually higher than for a regular result ranking at #1. It becomes even more important in mobile devices, as we would pretty much take up almost the entire above-the-fold area in the results.

There are several variations of featured snippets:

• Unordered list.

• Ordered list.

• Definition.

• Table.

The user intent behind the query will determine what type of featured snippet is going to be displayed, as well as how this information is going to be presented.

We should not forget voice search. There is a direct relationship between voice searches and featured snippets. If we appear with a featured result, Google will read the snippet out loud. This means our result will be the only result for certain searches.

Bear in mind that, not all featured snippet types return a result that Google reads out loud. Featured snippets with lists, tables or videos do not create a “spoken result” as such. Only featured snippets with text definitions are “read” by the search engine.

Using tools like SEMrush we can identify for what type of queries we get featured snippet results. This will provide us clues on the content that works best, and the content we should improve.

How to optimise your content to appear with a featured snippet in the results:

• List-type featured snippet

Let’s not forget: there are ordered and unordered lists.

To get to appear with these results, the content that works best is the one that uses HTML for listing its items, in an ordered or unordered manner. For example: steps to restart a router, or the most interesting monuments of any given city.

• Text definition featured snippet

For featured snippets with definition boxes, the content that works best is the one providing a direct answer to a question.

1. Place direct answers to the target keyword at the beginning, and develop further content to enrich and complete this direct answer.
2. Use structured data whenever possible, even though it is not a requirement to appear in featured results.
3. Most featured results contain between 33 and 58 characters. If we include a longer text, out text is more likely to be subject to being shortened by Google, followed by ellipsis, which encourages users to click on our result to get more information.
4. To get spoken results, we should focus on optimising definition boxes, as lists or tables aren’t “read out loud” by Google.
5. To boost our CTR, we must strive to get text-type featured snippets over 58 characters in length, or lists with more than 8 elements, which are more likely to include a “See more” link.

• Table featured snippet

To get a featured snippet with a table, the content that works best contains standings or rankings of elements based on a certain criteria, formatted as an HTML table.

Video featured snippets

This type of result is similar to the featured snippets we’ve just examined, but with a video. Google extracts the information to be displayed in there from YouTube.

The screen real estate we get with this type of result is massive, especially in the case of mobile devices, where the available space is smaller.

The result includes the title of the video and its length, as well as the name of the channel.

How to optimise your content to get video featured snippets:

Our recommendations for this format are similar to the ones given previously for video results.

Frequently asked questions

This type of result is shown in Google Search. It includes a list of questions related to the entered query:

If we click on the questions, they will unfold and show the answers, which may or may not include links. In general, they don’t, but that’s not always the case.

How to optimise your content to get this type of results:

• To rank with this result format in the SERPs, you have to add the appropriate language markup to the frequently asked questions on your page. While we only recommend to implement the FAQPage type to real FAQ pages, which was Google’s recommendation at the time, we have seen cases where this recommendation isn’t always followed to a “t”. We’ve seen how sometimes this type of structured data has been used to label a FAQ section at the end of an individual page, which is then displayed in the SERPs with this feature.
• Thanks to this feature you will gain more visibility, as you will take up more screen real estate, especially on mobile phones. See how to add FAQPage structured data to a page, and the required fields you need to fill in to appear as a rich result.

Related questions

This SERP block displays questions Google thinks are directly related to the entered query.

This module can appear in different parts of the search results page: at the top, in between results, at the bottom…

If we click on any of the questions, the content will unfold, displaying the link to the source from which Google extracted the information:

As we go on unfolding more related questions, we’ll see more new ones.

How to optimise your content to get this type of results:

• We recommend you to broaden your content’s semantic field, adding related keywords and terms.
• Structure your content appropriately, and use Hn headings to give more relevance to parts of the content you want to highlight the most.
• Use topic suggesting tools like Keywordtool.io to find out what type of questions or doubts your users usually have regarding something, and add them to your content.

Knowledge Graph

On mobile devices this result is shown on top of the traditional 10 organic results. On desktop, however, it appears on the right side of the SERPs, next to the organic results and Google Ads advertisements, if there are any.

Google shows its own data, together with information collected from Wikipedia and other websites.

In the image below we can see the knowledge graph generated for “Spain”:

This SERP feature is generated as a response to queries related to places, people, brands, companies, and some other entities. It includes maps, images, a brief description and additional information of interest.

For example, for “Spain” we get the capital city, population and other data, while if we look up “Elton John” we’ll get links to certain music streaming services like YouTube or Spotify, in addition to other interesting information, such as the public figure’s date of birth or the name of their spouse.

As for places, Google extracts the data from Google My Business, and adds information from Wikipedia or other websites, as pictured in the above image.

How to optimise your content to get this type of results:

• Implement the Organization type of structured data. This way, Google will be able to better identify what the content on your page is about. You can tag relevant information, such as telephone numbers, address, e-mail, website, logo image or social media profiles, amongst others.
• Verify that your implementation is correct with the structured data testing tool.

Sitelinks search box

It’s the same type of rich results as we mentioned previously, with the sitelinks, but in this case it also includes a search box, which allows users to quickly search on our website without leaving Google:

How to optimise your content to get this type of result:

• Implement internal search on your website ensuring it works correctly.
• Implement the WebSite type of structured data on your home page.
• Verify your implementation using Google’s structured data testing tool.

Apps

This type of results are displayed in the mobile results when we search for a brand, product, or service, which offers an app that hasn’t been installed on our device.

Depending on the operating system of our device (iOS or Android) the download link will take us directly to the App Store or the Play Store, where we’ll be able to download the app and open it whenever we want.

How to optimise your content to appear in the results with an app:

This result type can only be achieved if we have an iOS or an Android application available in the App Store or the Play Store, and the user is searching from their smartphone.

Here’s how you can upload your app to Google’s or Apple’s stores:

• Google Play: to upload you app you will need a Google Developer account in Google Play. Once you’ve created it, you will be able to upload apps from the Play Console. Find more information about how to create an application here.
• App Store: if you want to upload an application to Apple’s App Store, you will need a developer account (you can sign up as a private entity, as well as as a company), and join the Apple Developer Program. Here is all the information you need to know in order to submit an application to the App Store.

Last, but not least, we shouldn’t forget to optimise our application once it’s up. Here’s a helpful post on how to optimise your app for app stores.

Podcast results

For podcast-related queries Google usually returns a carrousel with various audio programs at the top of the SERP. Each result includes the title of the episode, its duration, and publication date.

If we click on the first podcast result, it will open in a new Google Podcast page, where we can listen to it by clicking on “Play episode”.

If we click on the name of the podcast right underneath the search box, it will take us to the podcast main page. We can also customise the episode description by including links to various resources or information of interest.

The podcast main page can also be customised to include a link to our website. Additionally, this main Google Podcast page provides access to all the episodes available on the channel:

How to optimise your content to get podcast results?

• To get your podcast to appear with Google Podcast features you will have to publish an RSS feed describing its content. This feed will have to include at least one episode complying with the requirements set by Google.
• The podcast should have an exclusive main page. Make sure your Google Podcast home page follows the requirements.
• We should never, ever block the access to the podcast home page and the RSS feed to Googlebot, through robots.txt or a noindex meta robots rule. Here you can check out the Google Podcast RSS feed requirements in force.
• In any case, even if we follow all the requirements, Google doesn’t guarantee your podcasts will appear in Google Podcasts or the SERPs.

Movie results

These results appear when the query matches the name of a movie available on YouTube, Google Play Movies & TV, or both. For example, if we look up “The Pianist”, it returns the following organic result on mobile devices:

If we click on the YouTube link, it will open the video platform and show a summary of the selected movie, together with a link allowing us to buy or rent it:

If we click on the Google Play Movies & TV link instead, it will open the film in the Google application, and just as before, it allows us to buy it or rent it.

How to optimise your content to appear in movie results:

In this case, we can’t optimise our content to get this type of results, because movies are protected by copyright, and on both platforms, Google Movies & TV as well as YouTube, films are uploaded by their corresponding production companies.

Local business

When we look up a local business on Google, the information displayed in the knowledge graph includes its address, telephone number, working hours, reviews, and even a link to set up an appointment; or, in the case of accommodation, the possibility to book a room.

• Company:

• Hotel:

The search engine extracts most of this information directly from Google My Business.

How to optimise your content to appear with this type of result:

• Register your business in Google My Business. Fill in all the required fields, especially the most relevant ones, like working hours, website or address, add pictures of your facilities, and try to get former customers to leave their reviews about your products or services.

Jobs

This type of results is displayed when the search query is related to job search. The goal of these results is to make this task easier for users and to improve their search experience.

The information displayed includes the job position; the logo, website or name of the company, the publication date of the job offer, gross annual salary, and whether the position is full time or part time.

If we click on any of the offers, we can see a description of the position requirements, and then a link to the website, where the user can check out the full information about the job offer:

How to optimise you content to get this type of results:

• Add structured data to you website’s job offers, so that they are more likely to appear in this module with special SERP features. In this case, the most appropriate type would be JobPosting. Here you can find all the information you need to implement it.
• If you use a third-party website to post job offers instead, you can integrate it with Google.

Flight and hotel search

Google Flights

Google’s flight results allow users to directly find flights, compare prices and alternatives, provided by the different companies. Even though the transaction itself is carried out on the airline’s website, information on schedules, flight duration, or whether it is a direct flight or with stops, can be seen from the result page itself:

Google Flights may not display the offers of all companies, as you have to be affiliated and become a Google Partner to appear in these results.

How to optimise your content to get this type of results:

If you’re an airline, an online travel agency or an aggregator, and you’re also a Google Partner, we recommend you to also add structured data to tag the information of the flights, their schedule, prices, etc. This way you will make your information easier to understand for the bots. This will help Google to present your content with these SERP features.

Google Hotels

This search box is very similar to the Google Flights one. In this case, however, you can sometimes complete the transaction directly from the SERPs.

This result format shows 4 hotel alternatives with their name and other additional information, such as ratings or reviews. Certain properties specific to the accommodation are displayed too, which can swing our decision in favour of one of the provided options over another. For example: swimming pool, spa, free Wi-Fi, etc.

Depending on whether we’re searching from a mobile or a desktop device, next to these 4 results we will be shown a map with the location of each hotel. If we click on any of them, we’ll be taken to Google Maps.

If we click on any of the provided results, a new page will open, with full information on the accommodation: summary, prices, reviews, location, pictures and other information.

How to optimise your content to get this type of result:

• You must be a Google partner, as the hotel prices displayed in there come from them.
• It’s advisable to register your accommodation in Google My Business, because the search engine uses this source to gather the data, which is then displayed in Google Hotels.
• Ensure your details are constantly updated and with as much information as possible, with useful and valuable data for the user.
• Add structured data to tag the page’s information and to help Google understand your content better.

Places

This type of results is very similar to Google Hotels, but instead of showing accommodation options disposed vertically, it presents places of interest in a horizontal format, similar to a carrousel. This module usually appears for search queries with a clear travel intent. For example, “things to do in Madrid” returns this first result in the SERPs:

With a quick look we can see places of interest and top sights related to the entered destination. The cards displayed inside the carrousel have a title, ratings, and other interesting data.

We can see that all this information has been extracted from Google My Business.

If we click on any of the results, we can read a brief description of the place. In this case, the source of the information is Wikipedia:

How to optimise your content to get this type of results:

• In this case we don’t have any possibilities to appear for this type of results, as Google extracts this information from various sources like Wikipedia or Google My Business, and it never includes any third-party content.
• If you work in the travel or tourism sector of a particular city, make sure that all its places of interest are registered in Google Maps.

Google answer box

This feature is usually shown in the SERPs when we enter questions that require a quick answer. For example:

• “ibex 35”

• “population of Spain”

• “what day is today”

• “weather in spain”

• “barça madrid”

Although presenting the information in this manner improves the search process, it’s become an entry barrier for businesses, because the user obtains all the information they need from the SERP itself, which reduces the probability of them accessing any of the provided results.

How to optimise your content to appear in the answer box:

In this case it’s not possible to optimise our content to get this type of result in the SERPs.

Calculator

The amount of different Google SERP features is ever-increasing, providing a response to many needs directly from the results. It is the case of the calculator, which you can use to operate from the SERPs too:

How to optimise your content to get this type of results:

In this case it’s not possible to optimise our content to get this type of result in the SERPs.

Routes

For search queries, which look up information on how to move from one location to another Google provides a map with a route and different travelling alternatives: by car, by bus, and even by bike:

This information is directly extracted from Google Maps. If we click on the provided map, the search engine will take us to the Google Maps interface.

The user can check out the different route options from the search engine, as well as the distance and duration of the journey, in addition to indications to reach the desired destination, adapted to real-time conditions and circumstances.

Sometimes we can even see the price, especially when public transportation options are involved. There will also be a link to the website selling tickets, and a telephone number.

How to optimise you content to get this type of results:

If your company provides passenger transportation services, you can get to appear in this module of the SERPs. You’ll have to share fixed information on schedules, stops, etc. with Google Transit and this data will get integrated with Google Maps. Using Google Transit is free, and it will help you reach more passengers.

Related searches

This section appears at the bottom of the search results, and it shows queries related to the one the user entered.

This contributes with added value to the user, as there’s already a high probability that they may be interested in some of the suggested topics.

When we click on any of these suggested searches, a new SERP is opened, with results for the suggested query:

How to optimise your content to get this type of results:

• In this case it’s not possible to optimise our content, because this is an automatic Google feature, and we have no control over it, therefore it is out of our bounds.

Twitter box

This type of result displays the latest tweets of a brand, an organisation or a person in a carrousel in the SERPs. It can sometimes display additional information with an image and a publication date.

We can go to read the tweet’s content in full by clicking on the result.

How to optimise your content to get this type of results:

• Keep your Twitter feed continuously updated, encouraging participation and interacting with your audience. This way, Google will see it as a fresh and relevant profile, and it will display it for related and/or appropriate search queries.

Paid

Ads inside the Search Network

Google Search Network ads look very similar to traditional organic results, and they’re usually displayed at the top or below them.

They can include ad extensions to make them more juicy, more valuable and more visible. However, even if we add these extensions, it doesn’t mean they’re always going to be shown. Google will display this additional information whenever it considers it will add to the ad’s performance.

The features of this type of format are very similar to the organic results, but in this case they are paid advertisements. To tell them apart from the natural results, Google has included the “Ad” particle in bold, next to the result:

How to optimise your content to get this type of results:

• Create an account in Google Ads and your first ad campaign.
• Once that’s done, it’s time to start to optimise the ads of the campaign. Google takes into consideration various factors to determine the ad’s position: bids, quality of the ad, landing page relevance, amongst many others, so we recommend you to keep an eye on them all.
• Check your landing pages for the ads, and if you need to, make the necessary improvements to ensure an optimal user experience. Review the cost of your bids, and create at least two ads for each campaign to test which one works best and continue making changes.
• Last, but not least, you should focus your ads towards relevant keywords. This is an important step, because by selecting the appropriate terms you will have a higher chance of getting your ads to be displayed to users you’re interested in.

Shopping

This type of results consists of a block of products that are displayed as rich cards. They contain the name of the product, an image, and the website where you can buy it.

Results of this kind are usually displayed in response to a search, which has a clear transactional intent:

We can find this type of format at the top of the page, above the organic results; as well as at the bottom of the page or on the right-hand side of the SERPs, if we’re browsing from desktop:

How to optimise your content to get this type of results:

Create a Google Ads account and another one in Merchant Center. There you will have to upload your products. When you’re done, create shopping ad campaigns from your Google Ads account and set a bid and a budget. From Merchant Center you will be able to manage your feeds and see their data, and that’s where Google is going to extract the information from when it displays your ads.

As you’ve probably realised, there is a massive amount of result types that can appear in Google for the different search queries. The variety is ever-increasing, and we must strive to try and optimise our content to appear in all the types of search results that are relevant for our business, and can contribute value to our users. Do you know any SERP feature we haven’t covered here? 🤔🧐