These results pages typically consist of at least 2 types of results, typically paid search results, and organic results.

Here is a beautifully designed graphical representation of a SERP, followed by some quick descriptions of what we are looking at.

1

Search Phrase

This is the phrase whose results are being displayed currently. There are 1,190,000,000 or so results for the example term “Chicago”.

2

Paid Search Results

These results are where Google makes a major portion of its billions every year. More than 75% of Googles profits are generated selling paid listings like these. Users can identify the paid listings on the SERPs because they are typically displayed with a colored background at the top of the page, though there are also adverts that will display along the right hand side of the page.

3

Organic Results

This is where the results are returned that are derived from Googles organic search algorithm. These results will often show local results as well, which are displayed when the searcher adds a local modifier to the search query. In this case, if the searcher had searched for “Chicago Sushi” instead of just “Chicago” they would have likely had a series of Google Local results before the normal organic results. These are easily indentified by their having a pin next to them, and the address where the business can be found.

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Duplicate Content

Duplicate Content is essentially content that search engines recognize as being re-posted or re-purposed. Duplicate content can be a product of webmaster oversight or sloppiness, or an attempt by unscrupulous webmasters to manipulate search rankings for their site by gaming the Google system. Either way, duplicate content can negatively affect your web efforts in the form of Google penalties and dilution of keyword focus. Here are a few of the more common types of duplicate content.

Duplicate Content By Bad Design

Many websites contain duplicate content that is the product of bad web design. For example there are sites that use the same title tag across every one of their pages, thinking this will increase their keyword value for the terms they’ve indicated. This actually tends to draw keyword focus away from pages that should be associated with your targeted keyword, and redistributes the keyword value throughout the site willynilly.

Google and other search engines try to differentiate between websites that have duplicate content caused by a server misconfiguration or design flaw, and those that are genuinely ripping off other properties. This being said, it is advised you do everything in your power to keep this decision out of the “hands” of the search engines. Here are
Google’s guidelines for duplicate content.

Duplicate Content Caused By Scraping

Duplicate content can come from within a given website, or from without. For example, a site could have the term “Integrated Marketing” as the title tag of numerous blog pages, or they could have a full page of copy describing “Integrated Marketing” copied and pasted from an authority site like Wikipedia. If the content was recognized as being indexed by Wikipedia first, then little if any value for the content will be attributed to the copycat site. Furthermore, in instances where there are high percentages of duplication across a site, Google will take measures to lower the value of offending pages.

To provide some SEO background, in the early days of SEO, black hat webmasters looking to boost their site rankings would often copy a competitors high ranking pages word for word in order to poach their search value. There were many instances of entire sites being ripped off and the subsequent impostor websites outranking the original content for a given search. Google had to make changes to their algorithm to account for this tactic, and now have systems in place to devalue copied material.

Duplicate Content by CMS

With certain Content Management Systems like Joomla!, there are duplicate pages that get created automatically when a new page is created. For example, Joomla! by standard configuration creates a PDF version and print version of each new page created. These pages are identical in content, so search engines see each of the pages past the original indexed version as duplications. The preferred method of rectifying these duplicate pages is by either A:Turning off the option in Joomla that controls this feature, or B: Blocking Search Engines from crawling the PDF and Print pages with your Robots.txt file.

Don’t give search engines an excuse to devalue your website. Avoid duplicate content!

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Long Tail Keywords in SEO are the keywords or phrases that are unique to a given business, or specific industry. Long tail keywords are typically easier to rank for in SEO, as there is less cross over between various industries vying for similar keywords. For example, numerous verticals compete for the keyword “tool,” but there are less competing for the more specific term “Dremel Planing Tool.” Therefore “Dremel Planing Tool” the long tail term would be a more accessible keyphrase.

Head Term

Long Tail Term

As a more detailed example, I once worked for a company that sold premium loose leaf teas. There are 4-5 major companies in the loose leaf tea industry who dominate the rankings for the majority of the most desirable keywords, with medium and smaller shops competing for a couple of big terms a piece. The big terms were obvious, like “Buy loose tea”, “Buy Tea Online”, “English Breakfast” etc. While we did rank for couple of solid high traffic keywords, the terms that we made a big chunk of our traffic and conversions off were more specific and often unique to our shop. For example, “Rooibos Vanilla,” a type of herbal tea flavored with vanilla beans, was one of our best performing keywords, and it’s a long tail term.

Long tail keywords are important to identify because they typically provide higher quality traffic, since the users searching for these more specific phrases are typically more knowledgeable about a given vertical. Owning the top results of long tail keywords will make sure that you are claiming all the easy to convert specific traffic, because often there are only a few (if any) companies vying for the top results for these long tail terms.

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