Evolution of SERPS and its impact on SEO? 4 Adwords Ads in top positions.

How many times have you heard the words ‘SEO is dead!’?

Yet here we are on the cusp of 2016 and search engine optimisation is still one of the most sought after services a digital marketing agency can offer. This is because we all know that organic search traffic is the life blood of most digital marketing strategies and is fundamental to the success of a huge percentage of online companies.  The visibility and search traffic a company can receive from ranking high organically on page one of Google has often meant that more effort and resource is poured into SEO than other digital marketing mediums.

But what if SEO didn’t provide the same visibility? How would this affect your strategy?

As if on cue, let me introduce you to one of the latest tests Google has implemented on its SERPS (search engine results page). The long time speculated 4 Adwords ads in top positions.

Historically when doing a search that would result in triggering Adwords auctions you would often see a results page like this:

As you can see it has a traditional three Adwords ads at the top (marked by the small yellow ‘Ad’ box). You will notice the organic listings are shown above the fold and have the top three SEO results showing clearly. They are front and centre and as such will receive a huge portion of the click traffic for this search term.

Then we saw the introduction of the right hand column, increasing more Adwords ad space. Was this the death of SEO? Simply put. No.

You can see that organic traffic still has plenty of the real estate on the SERPS and while there are more options for a user, SEO results are still going to be a huge draw for the person doing the search.

Then we saw the introduction of Google’s Shopping results. This changed the SERPS layout again. Increasing the number of Adwords ad options and decreasing the visibility of organic results that are above the fold (the line where the bottom of your screen cuts across the SERPS, which means that to see what is below this fold line you must physically scroll down).

You can see by these two examples that Google have played with the location of the Google Shopping image ads.

While this will have an impact on organic traffic for E-commerce related terms, if you provide a service rather than a physical product this would not have impacted on your organic traffic much, however Google’s latest tests just might.

They are currently testing (in the USA only) changing the top of the SERPS to include not three but Four Adwords ads.

As you can see even this stripped back results page shows organic listings pushed further down the page.

Now look at what happens when Google invites other elements to the party (as taken from Dr Pete Myers Twitter page). Such as its own charge towards offering key comparison services – such as flights, mortgages and insurances.

Do you see the number one organic listing there peeking its little head above the parapet? What about position two…or three? What if you’re currently lower than that, but still feature on page one of Google organically? What does this mean to you?

Well in the short term. Nothing. There is no data available to suggest what impact this will have on organic listings, let alone if Google will even decide to roll this out en masse.

So is SEO dead? Certainly not. SEO will still form part of a robust digital strategy for any business online. But what this does mean is that companies and their digital partners will have to stay close to the ever changing nature of the SERPS and ensure they do not put all their eggs into one – traffic source – basket.