Search Engine Position Analysis: 9 Things To Analyze in SERPs

Analyze the Click-Through Rate

Though where you come up in search results is important, what’s even more important is how many searchers clicked through. That’s the meta description—it’s the paragraph that shows under the title and link of a webpage in the search results.

This will help a search decide whether your website has what they are looking for. Every page, blog post and even e-commerce description needs one. 

If the meta description is missing, the search engine pulls up the first paragraph on the page no matter what’s there. Make sure it is written for the human reader but it is keyword-centric, with the search engine in mind.

Look for Rich Snippets when Studying SERPs

We are hyper-focused on rich snippets. We want to make sure that our rich snippets are displaying properly and presenting the correct information. But we also want to see which rich snippets are being used by our competitors. Review snippets add stars and color to your listing, but are you missing out on FAQ snippets? These are great snippets to capture commonly asked questions and gain more real estate on Google’s First Page.

Use Text Readability and Quality as a Key Metric

Although many who track SEO will use more well-known techniques, text readability and quality can be critically important and should be utilized as a metric in any analysis. Having content that looks good but is not actionable will do little to improve your SEO—measuring not just the quantity but the quality of your content is critical. 

Text readability and content relevance are vital components because they create a seamless user experience for visitors. To accomplish this, Yoast provides readability metrics to measure the fluidity of your content, and programs through Clearscope can assess the quality of your information. By running your search engine analysis through a text readability and quality metric, you will acquire the relevant data for analysis and be able to bolster your SEO.

Do Manual Position Evaluation

The first way you may use to evaluate search engine rankings for a website is to manually review search engines like Google, Yahoo or Bing. This method involves entering your target keyword phrase into a search engine and manually examining the SERPs to determine your website’s ranking position. This necessitates scrolling through each SERP to find your website’s URL. 

The main advantage of manual position analysis is that you can search for any keyword. You can search for your website using a keyword and scroll through the results until you locate it. Remember that your target websites might not appear in the top 10 or 100 results for every search query. You can manually search the SERPs and not find a URL that leads to your website.

Examine How Organic Traffic Boosts your Website’s Visibility

When performing a search engine position analysis, the best metric to look at is your organic traffic. This metric shows how well your website ranks in search engines for your target keywords without paid ads. If you’re not receiving enough organic traffic, it’s crucial to analyze your website and see where you can improve. 

One way is to ensure the keywords in your website’s title and description are rich and relevant. Then, use the correct keyword density throughout your website’s content and keep your website updated with fresh, original content. 

Finally, clean up your backlink profile to ensure that only high-quality links point to your website. Low-quality or spammy backlinks negatively affect your website’s search engine rankings. By making these changes, you can improve your website’s ranking and visibility in search engines, which will lead to more organic traffic.

Target Keyword Search Results

One metric to analyze when doing search engine position analysis is the keyword you’re targeting and its position in the SERPs. The position of a keyword in the SERPs indicates how easy it is to find and click on your website from that result. The higher up your website appears in the SERPs, the more likely people are to click on it. So if your website appears high up in the SERPs for a keyword you’re targeting, that’s a good sign for SEO optimization.

Analyze the Singular and Plural Versions of your Niche

As a corporate event host, I daily—if not hourly—analyze the metrics of both the singular and plural versions of my niche. According to Google, the plural version of my title means something different in its singular version. A search for the singular phrase “event host” yields a featured snippet with a definition stating that an event host is a venue or coordinator that caters to guests. My page is listed shortly below that. 

Yet, when you google “event hosts”, the search engine yields results and definitions based on the professionals who take the stage with a microphone to engage with audiences. Google has decided to split the homonym “event host” by its plural and singular pronunciations. The reason I check it religiously is that every once in a while, my page breaks the algorithm and actually ranks high for both versions. 

Look at the Number of Search Results against the Keyword

One metric you analyze when doing search engine position analysis is the number of search results appearing for a specific keyword or phrase, and the order in which your website appears in those results. The higher up your website appears in these results, the more visible it will be to potential visitors, and the more likely they will be to click through to your site.

Ensure the Relevant Page is the One Being Ranked

Whenever I’m analyzing the ranking positions of a website I’m working on, I will always check which webpage is the one that is being ranked for the search query. This is important because you want the right page to be served to users that matches their search intent and provides information relevant to their query.

There can be times when cannibalization occurs, which is when two or more of a website’s pages are optimized for the same keyword. This can cause issues as the search engine is unable to identify which webpage is most suitable to display in the search results. In cases of keyword cannibalization, the search engine may show the undesired target page in the search results, or sometimes it may show two results together.

While having two pages ranking sounds like an ideal problem to have, it can split the visits and it can also hamper your webpage from ranking higher, because it is competing with another of its own webpages for the search query.

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