SERP is an acronym for Search Engine Results Page, and refers to a page that displays the search results for your relevant keywords by an online search engine. In a nutshell, a SERP is simply a list of webpages the search engine in order you want to view the most.

Most SERP pages on popular search engines such as Google, Bing and Yahoo contain a mixture of results that include pay-per-click (PPC) advertisements and organic (unpaid) content that the search engines think is most relevant to the keyword that was typed in by the user.

The way a SERP looks and the order of the results shown on the page is completely determined by the individual search engine’s algorithm.

There are now more than 70 variations of Google's SERP pages. There are a large array of extensions to a generic search listings, including paid or sponsored advertisements, rich snippets (listings containing ratings, prices, stock availability, event dates, recipe instructions + more), knowledge graph data (Wikipedia & company information, local listings, answers to questions typed into Google search + much more), social media feeds, video/YouTube content, Google's extension products (Google Compare, calculator, timer, nearby local listings, flight information, sports scores, weather forecasts + more) along with many other variations.

Take a look at the Google SERP for the latest James Bond movie, Spectre on the right (below if you're on mobile). It contains a mix of rich snippet results, Twitter posts, video trailers, recent news and the Google knowledge graph. This is just one example of the many variations of a typical Google results page.

Popular search engines like Google use metadata from websites to help them index and recognise what each individual page is about. Although most search engines today are smart enough to analyse the content themselves, the page title is still arguably one the most important out of the 200+ known page & domain ranking factors to determine it’s relevance to the content on the page and what the publishers want the page to rank for.

There are 3 pieces of metadata that display on almost every popular search engine:

• Page title – The main title of the article or page (approx. 487 pixels wide on desktop, and 552 pixels wide on tablet and mobile). Also includes the website/brand name after the article title.
• URL – the web address of the individual page (max 70 characters on desktop and tablet, and approx. 40 on mobile)
• Meta description – A short description/summary of the content on the page (max 156 characters on desktop & 116 characters for tablet and mobile). Although this no longer determines the ranking factor of the page, it can be optimized to describe the content on the page to generate a call-to-action and improve click through rates.
  Note: If a meta description is not supplied, the search engine will generate it’s own that usually look’s fairly ugly.

There are over 200+ ranking factors that determine your ranking in Google, however it is critical that you include these to ensure your webpages display in the search engines correctly.

The page title and meta description must be placed within the head section of your HTML website to display correctly (see example below). The URL does not require any additional code in the HTML as it is pulled through automatically.

If you are using a CMS (content management system), you can usually edit your page title, meta descriptions and custom URL in the individual page editor.

For a more detailed description of how to use and implement metadata on your website, visit the W3Schools Head Elements website.

We could sit here and tell you in our own words how to improve your ranking in Google and the other top search engines, but that's not what this website is for. There are tonnes of great resources available for you to check out to help you improve your ranking. Some of our favourites are:

• MOZ.com - Learn SEO
• Advanced Web Ranking - SEO Resource Centre
• SEO Book - 7 Days to SEO Success