The anatomy of a localised search engine results page (SERP)

We spend a lot of time talking with owners and managers of local businesses - in particular restaurants and other hospitality venues, local trade, and professional services - about the opportunities offered by localised search marketing.

Put simply, it's about ensuring that your business appears when someone is actively looking on Google for what you offer where you offer it.

One of its main attractions as a marketing channel is that as potential customers have already decided what they want, and the location in which they want or need it, they are motivated to find the best option.

So, when a potential customer clicks through to your website, they're highly likely to covert to a booking or enquiry.

But the first challenge is ensuring that you appear in those results.

Now there are multiple ways to achieve this - some organic (AKA local SEO marketing), and some paid (AKA local pay per click or PPC marketing) - and here's where we often share a local search engine results page (or SERP) to help explain the difference.

This also provides a great opportunity to highlight where a local business is - or at least could be - appearing.

So, in this post we break down the anatomy of a local SERP as shown to a potential customer looking for a steak restaurant in or around London's Covent Garden.

A localised search usually has 2 core parameters - one describing the desired service (in this case a "steak restaurant") and the other defining a location (in this case "covent garden"), giving us a search query of "steak restaurant covent garden".

(It's worth noting that the location parameter could simply be "near me", or inferred by the user's location at the time of search, but let's keep things simple for now!).

Here’s the local SERP in full (deep breath!)…

Google has a habit of tinkering with its search engine results, but a local SERP tends to include a range of results related to that search. Let’s break it down…

1. The number of results for that query

In this case there are more than 2.8 million results for "steak restaurant covent garden"!

2. Sponsored results

Sponsored results are delivered via Google Ads, where businesses can bid for how much they are willing to pay per click from the ad to their website. Depending on their popularity, i.e. how many businesses are competing for this keyword, these results can appear at the top of the page, down the right-hand side and even at the bottom of the organic search results.

3. Local directories and aggregators

Hospitality and restaurant-related searches will include OpenTable and TripAdvisor, but other directories will be more relevant to other sectors. These often include search engine-optimised landing pages as you can see here with titles such as "5 best steakhouses in Covent Garden".

4. Places' map results

Places' map results are served by Google Maps, and populated by Google Business Profiles. The ranking performance here will be based on proximity, the number and rating of reviews, and how well-optimised each Google Business Profile is.

5. Places' sponsored results

Places' sponsored results are also delivered by Google Ads (as per point 2, above)

6. Places' top 3 organic results

The top 3 organic results (AKA the "Local Pack") are served by Google Maps. As with the Places' map results (4, above), ranking performance is dictated by a range of factors.

7. More Places results

A link to More Places takes you deeper into Google Maps results.

8. The top 10 organic results

In the case of our search for a "steak restaurant in covent garden", the results include venues, directories, and aggregators. Ranking performance here is dictated by a range of on and off-site search engine optimisation or SEO factors.

9. "People also search for" results

In the case of our search for a "steak restaurant in covent garden", the "People also search for" results include suggested venues, including several Blacklock and Hawksmoor venues, even though they're outside the specified location.

10. Further "People also search for" suggestions

In this case, again, Google is suggesting venues (Hawksmoor, Blacklock, Gaucho) as well as variations on the search query, in this case, "best steak restaurant covent garden".

11. Further results within page 2 onwards

As with the first page results, these subsequent pages can include a mix of paid and organic opportunities for your business.

What does this all mean for attracting new customers to your local business?

As you can see, there are many places where your business could appear in local search results.

That's why we combine hyperlocal paid and organic search marketing techniques when we work with local businesses to attract new customer enquiries and bookings.

This approach means that the paid search can provide immediate enquiries and feedback on our organic keyword strategy and, over time, we can reduce reliance on paid search marketing as our organic SEO gains a foothold.

If you own or manage a local business, we recommend conducting initial searches on Google to see whether your business appears. Of course, if you'd like to take a deeper dive with on of our local SEO consultants, feel free to get in touch for a zero obligation chat where we can explore the opportunities for your local business.