I am still amazed that many people do not understand that the sponsored results on the right, and sometimes at the top of google’s search results were paid placements (sponsored / PPC adwords results), and that companies have to pay every time someone clicks on one of those sidebar links. So this little graphic tour of the google pages will help should help everyone understand the different areas of google’s search results.
Sponsored search results, otherwise known as PPC (pay per click ads), ads on the side, ads at the top, right side ads, google adwords, adsense, etc.
Organic search results.
These are the search results you would see if you did not see any ads / sponsored listings on the top or on the right. The organic results include the top ten search results, the front page results, but all the results that the search engines show, excluding the advertising / sponsored ads, are considered “organic” search engine results.
Getting to the top, or number one, or on the front page of search engine results, in the “organic” results, is one of the toughest places to achieve, and keep.
Especially now that google is showing more results like google local, maps, google shopping, google video, and other little blocks of info that can push your web site further down the results pages; it is very important to understand all these areas, and talk to your web site promotions partner about a strategy to take advantage of these areas, rather than losing customers to your competition.
It is important to know what these areas are for the google search results pages. Being number one doesn’t mean you will always be above all the other links, and google changes the way it displays some results pages often.
It is also very interesting to note how the pages can be very different for similar keywords and different phrases, or different order of keywords. The results for “dj Nashville” are very different compared to the results of “Nashville dj”. If you do a lot of research like we do, you will notice that the sponsored web site ads also change depending on the time of the day, and can also be affected by the location from which you are surfing the internet.
Learn more about the sponsored web site links in google, how to get front page results with the google adwords system, and what mistakes to avoid when trying this method of advertising.
Learn more about how you can get higher placement in the SERPs and what can be done to get your web site to show up in the other results that google often presents for money keywords like local results, video results and more.