SERP FEATURES
Overview
I was tasked solving SERP features as a wait for it...as a feature. The SERP Features Feature. This I believe is one of the most insightful sets of data Moz gives its customers. When first looking at this problem you have to wrangle with the fact that there are 16(as Moz defines them) the kicker is they all show very different data on a SERP to the user. There is also a set that can be "won" and a set that can not be "won". Won in this sense is attaining that position and unseating a competitor from that slot on the SERP. Moz has some really great documentation so where relevant I will site Moz because the are the industry experts in explaining all things SEO, not me. So, lets learn about a SERP Feature!
"A SERP feature is any result on a Google Search Engine Results Page (SERP) that is not a traditional organic result. SERP Features include:
Rich Snippets which add a visual layer to an existing result (e.g., review stars for product ratings)
Paid Results that are bought by bidding on keywords (e.g., AdWords or Google Shopping)
Universal Results that appear in addition to organic results (e.g., image results, new results, featured snippets)
Knowledge Graph data which appears as panels or boxes (e.g., weather, Celebrity Knowledge Panel)
In the early days of Google, every result on the SERP looked the same, and these traditional organic results have not changed much in appearance over the years. However, beginning with AdWords in 2001, Google has been very busy adding other non-organic results into the SERP." Full Article on Moz.
Moz focuses on obtainability based on your current rank. If you are ranked as 20 on a SERP you may very well never need this feature. On the other hand if you are in the top five of a SERP this new feature is the bee's knees.
For the feature we are focusing on the overall relationship your pages have with a SERP based on the query of a certain keywords into Google.
The Solution
We did multiple usability studies with this feature. We got some GREAT results. We were able to identify some sticking points that at the time we just couldn't quite put our fingers on.
I will just run down the page:
The graph shows how many SERPS exist with your keyword list and how many you are currently appearing in.
"Non-Organic" means these are not winnable through conventional SEO practices for example, ads are non-organic.
They "Keywords & Features" table from left to right: Keywords that you have listed as important keywords to track for this campaign. Feature Relationships are shows the type of feature and how it is ranking amongst your competitors. Insights is information on how to gain the advantage on a specific keyword that you are close to ranking for.
The colors are as follows:
Blue- You have the winning position with this SERP Feature
Red- Your competitor has the winning position with this SERP feature and you are not in the feature.
Orange- You and your competitor both have a position in this SERP feature.
Grey- The SERP feature exists but you and your competitors do not have a position in the feature.
Same as above but with labels turned on and showing the explanatory tooltip.(Below I show how this information was eventually made much more prominent)
This is a different graph that exists on the same page. This graph show the frequency of the specific SERP feature and a visualization of where you and monitored competitors appear or drop of and the percent.
This graph is a bit non-traditional in a sense but once understood it is insanely simple. It is binary, on/off at its core. The feature either exists for a specific keyword or does not. The break denotes that for that period your page did not own that SERP feature.
If you would like to see more of the feature in action check out the guide.
Post-Launch
Post-launch we did make a few changes to make things clearer for any user unfamiliar to the specific color associations.
