Keywords provide context

I travel a lot for business, and search results keep me connected. Many times all I have to do is search for seafood restaurant and I'll immediately see restaurants that are nearby, with ratings, recommendations, maps, pictures, and menus. It makes travel easier when you have all of this information at your fingertips. 

Now, from a business standpoint, it also shows the competition you might have. Since making a seed list, now you check the results to see what shows up for your keywords. It's not the same for everybody. In fact, it could be different for every business, industry, or keyword. A local dry cleaning business, a laser printer, how to tie a tie, how much does an elephant weigh? All of these searches produce very different types of results. 

The search engine results page, or SERP, is your primary focus for rankings. If you're a local business, you'll see local results, listings, pictures, and maps. If you're selling products, you'll see product listings. If someone searches for how to do something, they'll see videos. Or informational searches can show entirely different mixed results. 

As you can see, the results change based on the type of search. This has to be taken into account 

as part of your keyword optimization and marketing plan. It's not just about getting rankings anymore. It's about the visibility in the search results through whatever media may be shown. In this result for hiking in California, I have to compete with the map of California on the right, and other travel companies and destinations offering travel packages. 

If the searcher is using their smartphone, I have to compete in a smaller space that heavily favors the top of the page. That now has to be part of my strategy. So take your seed list and do searches at different destinations. Google, Bing for search. Maybe Amazon or eBay if you compete there as well. 

Take notes of how different words and phrases will change the results. For this, I create a spreadsheet and list the key words I used to search. Then I create columns to note the information that appears on the search results page, knowledge graphs, product listings, maps, images, videos, or ads, anything beyond the typical search results page. 

Then make notes of how you will need to optimize your content and any multimedia or page search campaigns you may need to implement in order to compete and have visibility on the results page.

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