Digital Cowboys Ep #5 | 3 Ways to Use the Google SERPs for SEO

Posted by Cameron Francis on 26 May , 2017 in

Discover the simple ways of optimising your business webpages through the use of the Google Search Engine Results Pages in this episode of the Digital Cowboys with Cameron Francis and Sam Roshan.

Show Notes:

Competitor Research – 00:02:32:05
Keyword Research – 00:03:53:29
Content Research – 00:05:55:21

Transcript

Cameron Francis:	Do you know why I like the Google SERPs so much?
Sam Roshan:	Why?
Cameron Francis:	Because Google is telling you what they think. It’s up to you to interpret the
	information.
Sam Roshan:	Look at the structure of the page, what the title looks like, what the
	metadata description is like and the content heading and so on. It gives you
	very good idea as to why Google has positioned some of these. I’m not going
	to go into back links and so on because really what’s important right now is
	just how are we going to best utilize the Google Search results for our
	research.
Voiceover:	Digital Cowboy Episode Five, we discuss everything, digital marketing and
	growth hacking for small businesses, startups and entrepreneurs. If you
	want that competitive edge, then saddle up because Cameron Francis and
	Sam Roshan are about to drop some value bombs.
Cameron Francis:	Hey, everybody, this is Cameron Francis.
Sam Roshan:	This is Sam Roshan.
Cameron Francis:	This is Episode Five of the Digital Cowboys.
Sam Roshan:	Of the Digital Cowboys. Very excited to be here.
Cameron Francis:	Sounds it. You sound always super excited when you say very excited to be
	here.
Sam Roshan:	I know. It’s because I’m really monotone. That’s why I’m so excited. I’ve just
	been back from holidays.
Cameron Francis:	Tell me a little bit about it.
Sam Roshan:	I won’t tell you too much. I went to a wedding, a good friend of mine. It was
	unreal. I went to Boracay. I don’t have any friends. I just went to Boracay,
	which is one of my favorite destinations.
Cameron Francis:	Did Aliki like it?
Sam Roshan:	Aliki, my wife, yes. She loved it. Yeah, it was just unreal. What my favorite
	thing to do on a holiday is sunbathe, chill and just sleep under the sun.
Cameron Francis:	You’re the only person I know that will go on a holiday, and you’ll come back
	lighter skin thin when you went there. It’s very strange. Tell us about that.
Sam Roshan:	I don’t know what to say to that.
Cameron Francis:	Very well.
Sam Roshan:	I’m actually quite black.

Cameron Francis:	Today, guys, what we wanted to do is talk about … What’s our topic today,
	Sam?
Sam Roshan:	Something that I think would be really good for us to talk about is what is
	the best way for an SEO specialist or anyone to use the Google Search
	results for SEO.
Cameron Francis:	Love it. Do you know why I like the Google SERPs so much?
Sam Roshan:	Why?
Cameron Francis:	Because-
Sam Roshan:	Tell me.
Cameron Francis:	Google is telling you what they think. It’s up to you to interpret the
	information, right? What we want to do here is give you some information
	as to how to interpret the information that Google provides you, what to
	look for, what to look out for, and what to be weary of.
	What I really love with Google SERPs is I do competitive research. How do I
	do that? I will type in my service into Google. I’m a plumber in Mentone, I
	am a chiropractor in Darwin. I’m going to say which one of my business or
	which one of my competitors are listed. I’m going to keep on doing that with
	different search queries. I want to see which ones are listed, what they’re
	listed for, how often. That way you can keep a very, very close eye on who
	your competition is, split actually. Another one is if someone new comes in,
	if you’re actively looking at your golden keywords. For us, it would be SEO,
	web design to the golden ones, the keyword groups. You’re able to see
	who’s moving up, who’s moving down, who’s new very, very quickly.
Sam Roshan:	Fantastic. I think the other thing what you can do is, is one, you can actually
	then interpret what the search results ideally, why they’re there. You can do
	that by actually clicking on some of those web links to look at the structure
	of the page, what their titles look like, what their metadata description is
	like and the content heading and so on. It gives you a very good idea as to
	why Google has positioned some of these. I’m not going to go into back links
	and so on because really what’s important right now is just how are we
	going to best utilize the Google Search results for our research. The other
	one would be keyword research. Everyone uses a lot of tools. There are a lot
	of big tools such as Google keyword.
Cameron Francis:	Keywordtool.io , the list goes on and on and on.
Sam Roshan:	Correct. What you can do to make to simplify for yourself is again go back to
	where you’re trying to position your business, your sites or the sites that
	you’re working on. That would be by just typing in search queries such as
	dentist in Melbourne or Abbotsford or wherever it may be and scroll to the
	bottom of the page and see what are the related keyword lists. They’re
	actually giving you recommendations as to what are the keywords
	commonly used that are related to your search query.

Cameron Francis:	Very good like perfect example. If I was to type in, give me an industry, give
	me something. Give me anything.
Sam Roshan:	Mechanics.
Cameron Francis:	Okay. If I want to go mechanic and I’ll press Enter, so everyone can play
	along. Go into your Google Search results, type in mechanic or type in your
	service, type in our product, scroll all the way down to the bottom. There’s a
	thing called searches related to mechanic. What this means is Google is
	telling you after this phrase, what is most likely to happen next because not
	everyone just searches once, they’re searching for multiple different things
	in order to satisfy their search query. Underneath, I’ve got car mechanic
	Melbourne, mobile mechanic Melbourne, Western suburbs, mobile
	mechanic Bayside, Melbourne, mobile mechanics Melbourne. They-
Sam Roshan:	The list goes on.
Cameron Francis:	They’re giving you the data, right?
Sam Roshan:	Yeah.
Cameron Francis:	The cool keyword research aspect of it, I actually don’t use keyword planner.
	I don’t use any of the other tools. I use what you think you would search for
	and then I’ll scroll it down to the bottom and I would let Google tell me what
	people are searching after. That’s my keyword research, and then I’ll map
	the keywords accordingly. The other thing I would do is I would look the
	amount of search results that have appeared. For mechanic, I’ve got 177
	million indexed websites as a result. Do you want to go into what that
	meant?
Sam Roshan:	It really gives you an idea of the level of competition for such a query
	because there has been that many pages or web pages that have been
	indexed that contain the word mechanics. If you’re wanting to get presents
	for a particular service, then what you want to do is if you then zone that
	mechanics, which is such a broad keyword down to mechanics in the local
	suburbs, let’s just do Mount Waverley, then you’d be able to identify that,
	that results will reduce dramatically because there’s a lot less searches or
	pages that have been indexed that contain those keywords or phrases. Then
	it gives you an idea of, okay, should we be focusing on really broad terms if
	we’re going to be optimizing a particular page or should we be focusing on
	something that is a longer phrase, but also ideally, if yourself in your
	audience’s position, they’re probably going to be writing these longer
	phrases to be able to get a more precise result.
Cameron Francis:	A plug-in that everyone really should get added is keywords everywhere.
	The reason-
Sam Roshan:	Very good.
Cameron Francis:	The reason for this, it actually adds keyword data, volume, cost per click and
	competition level on the Google SERPs page so you’re able to know
	variances of keyword data, how often they were actually searched. When

	you’re doing a search, I’ll just search mechanic. It says that mechanic in
	Australia searched 18,100 times a month. The cost per click is $5.91. You’re
	able to know what is searched a lot, what’s searched a little and what’s not
	searched at all from a Google SERP page.
Sam Roshan:	Fantastic. The other thing that … The best way for you to be able to
	formulate your content strategy would be again to look at whatever industry
	that you’re working on or working with. You just type in the particular FAQs
	or something you think that your audience might be searching into the
	search results.
Cameron Francis:	I’ve got one for you.
Sam Roshan:	Gone.
Cameron Francis:	What mechanic, where mechanic, who mechanic, where mechanic, right? If
	you do that for any, because it’s the beginning of the question, so you’re not
	filling in the question, you’re just typing in what end keyword, what end
	product, what end service. You scroll all the way to the bottom, and it will
	basically give you the
Sam Roshan:	Give you the list.
Cameron Francis:	If I go what photography … First of all, it gives me all of the information
	down the bottom. If I go what photography, it’s going to say the definition of
	photography, photography code, actually not as many good results as I was
	hoping. Serves me right. However, if I put in what photography, you’ll have
	the search drop-down box, the auto predict. In there, it says what
	photography means to me, what photography means, what photography is
	all about, what photography is. It’s actually given me a list of 12. If you keep
	on doing this with who, what where, how and putting in different products
	and services, Google auto predict is telling you what people are searching
	for and you’re actually inputting a question because of the what, who,
	where, when and how. If you’re using that as the basis for content
	marketing, what should you write content for? Go to your Google SERPs and
	type the what, how, who, where.
Sam Roshan:	Then to be able to ensure that, that content that you’re going to write is
	going to be indexed or you’re trying to really maximize its visibility, then
	when you select a number of topics that you want to talk about, right that
	actual search query into the search box and see what are the top five
	articles that have been posted. Again, review the title, review their meta,
	review the content and the headings.
Cameron Francis:	Show me that. What do you mean?
Sam Roshan:	I’ll just right, for example, if you can write into Google, how to write good
	content?
Cameron Francis:	Okay.
Sam Roshan:	Then what you’ll do if you’re going to get a number of … I’ll look at the first
	[crosstalk 00:10:12].

Cameron Francis:	Are you on web or are you on blogs or news?
Sam Roshan:	I’m right now on all.
Cameron Francis:	Okay, yeah.
Sam Roshan:	How to write good content and the first thing you see is Quick Sprout and
	the next one is by Kissmetrics.It gives you with-
Cameron Francis:	Shout out to Neil Patel.
Sam Roshan:	Yeah. He’s got one of these … His article that’s been written so well. It’s
	Learn to Write Content Like A Pro – The advanced Guide to Content
	Marketing.
Cameron Francis:	Yeah.
Sam Roshan:	Then you’ve got KissMetrics, the title is the Nine Ingredients That Make A
	Great Content, right? They are the titles, and then look at the meta
	description. If you actually click on those webpages again, then you can go
	and review how that page has been constructed. There’s reasons as to why
	these blogs have been indexed where they have, where they are. I think that
	you can actually really utilize some of these.
Cameron Francis:	Excellent. Another thing I would do is so when you’re searching for your
	products or services or even business name, actually not business name, just
	your products and services, say if the Google 3-Pack are appearing, that’s
	your Google Maps, and if they offer certain phrases, then make sure you’re
	optimising your Google My Business page for that. Not every search phrase
	is going to trigger the Google Maps, but if it does, then … It is an important
	product and service for you, then make sure that you’re incorporating that
	data naturally into your Google My Business page.
Sam Roshan:	Look, I think there is a lot more to discuss, but this is really … We’re trying to
	make sure that we provide as much value as we can.
Cameron Francis:	No. I got one more.
Sam Roshan:	You do have more. Okay.
Cameron Francis:	You touched on it, but I’ll think I want to explain it a little bit more. That’s
	your competitors’ title tags. When you’re writing your metadata for your
	website, so you do your keyword research, you map it to the right page,
	criteria and what is good metadata. You don’t have to read any of the
	content that’s out there. Use your commonsense approach, right? If you do
	your keyword search, and let’s just say … I don’t know. Let’s go SEO
	packages for example. I’ve typed in SEO packages. Some of the other things
	… You got the ads at the top. There’s a Google Maps listing. Someone is
	actually for SEO packages, SEO copilot. They’ve got their business that is
	coinciding with the maps. It’s over there in the right. That’s really
	interesting. Underneath, you’ve got the organic listings.
	What I’m going to do is if you look at all of the text in the blue writing, that’s
	who you’re up against. Yeah? Be your customer or your user and see what

	other people are writing, how they’re writing it, how long are these and then
	stuck you up against it. Would you click it? I’m looking at this. As you can see
	SEO co-pilot, SEO packages Melbourne, Sydney, Brisbane, next one, SEO
	packages and prices. Okay. Then I’ve got attention, SEO packaging and prices
	that actually work. That’s by us. Then the next, which is from SEO Shot. I’m
	putting my business and my message up against all of the others. Then just,
	again, common sense approach, would you choose yours over those? Is
	there something different about it that would intrigue the user?
	All right. That’s about it. Just a nice little quickie now that Sam’s back. We’ll
	be back with another episode.
Voiceover:	Thanks for listening to the Digital Cowboys with Cameron Francis and Sam
	Roshan. Now, if you enjoy today’s episode, hit on over to iTunes and give us
	a five-star rating. Please, write a review. Also, hit on over to
	Digitalcowboys.com.au where we post the latest episodes and content
	thesis for all of our listeners, so saddle up and join us next time for another
	edition of the Digital Cowboys.