Serp analysis guide by letruongan.com

SERP Analysis Framework
Looking for a way to more accurately qualify keyword opportunities? Use
this SERP analysis framework.
You’ve built a keyword list and tagged all the relevant opportunities. But there’s another
crucial step before you start optimizing your keywords and creating content. And that’s
Qualification.
Get this step wrong, and you’ll spend a ton of time, money, and resources trying to rank
for a term that’s unrealistic, at least in the near future.
So, where do you start?
SERP analysis. It’s the most important step in the keyword research process and it’s
guaranteed to save you time and money.
In this guide, you’re going to learn step-by-step how to use SERP analysis to more
accurately qualify keywords, so you can invest the resources into going after the most
valuable keywords that you can actually rank for.
Disclaimer: this guide contains affiliate links. If you purchase a tool through one of my
links I will receive a commission at no additional cost to you. I only recommend tools I
personally use in my business.

What is SERP Analysis (and How Can It Make or Break
Your Keyword Strategy)?
SERP Analysis is the process of analyzing the top-ranking web pages for a specific
keyword or topic and evaluating your chances of outranking the competition. It also
involves checking SERP features to ensure your content matches search intent.
When you start analyzing the SERP, you’ll look at several different data points related to
Domain and Page Authority, Link Metrics, Content Types and Formats, SERP Volatility,
and User Intent to:
● Make sure you are targeting the right terms
● Make sure you are targeting terms with the right content
● Make sure you can get meaningful traffic from a given term
● Make sure you can actually outrank the competition
● Make sure you can maintain top rankings
By the time you’ve completed this guide, you'll be able to better analyze SERP data,
qualify keyword opportunities, map content types, and prioritize targets.

10-Step SERP Analysis Framework (With Working
Examples)
When you’re evaluating potential keywords, there are multiple factors to consider in the
SERP analysis process, including Link Metrics, SERP Volatility, Content Types and
Formats.

Each one has to be checked so you can accurately qualify a shortlist of keywords and
plan your content strategy.
Here are 10 steps to follow when qualifying your keywords.
#1. Analyze Click Data and Traffic Potential
When checking potential keywords, many people stop at search volume. But as more
elements like Featured Snippets have entered the SERP, we're seeing more no-click
activity as users are consuming content directly in the SERP.
In theory, you could rank #1, but only get a small amount of traffic because people are
getting the information in Featured Snippets, People Also Ask boxes, and calling
businesses directly from Google Maps.
As a result, it's critical that you check the click data (i.e. what % of searches actually
result in a click, and how much traffic the ranking content is getting).
Let’s look at some examples:
In Ahrefs Keyword Explorer, you can see the keyword “how old is barack obama” has
a search volume of 5.3K:

But 89% of those searches aren’t clicked because the query is answered directly in the
SERP:

The keyword "best crm software" has a search volume of 2.3K, but gets 2.5K clicks
due to the investigational intent behind the term:
There’s a huge Featured Snippet list at the top of the SERP (after the Ads), which also
includes categories like sales, marketing, and recruitment:

When users click on one of these, it changes the Featured Snippet accordingly. In other
words, people can click here rather than refining their search query, so there’s more
clicks than searches.
The keyword "beard growth oil" has a monthly search volume of 6.9K:

Sounds good, right?
But only 51% of searches get clicked. And of those clicks, notice how Paid results get
40% compared to 60% Organic.
In the SERP, you can see why. At the top, there’s a Shopping Ad, followed by a Video
Carousel, and then a People Also Ask box before the #1 organic result:

As you can see from these examples, just because a search term has a high search
volume doesn’t necessarily mean it has great traffic potential. SERP features like
Answer Boxes and Featured Snippets have changed the dynamics.This is even more
apparent for terms/ topics with relatively low search volume.
Keep this in mind when you're evaluating whether or not the traffic potential warrants
the investment in content, link building and other promotional activities.
#2. Analyze Secondary Keyword Opportunities
A single piece of content can rank for hundreds or thousands of different keywords. So,
the search volume may be much lower than the actual traffic potential.
A brilliant example of this is the product review site Wirecutter, which ranks for
thousands of secondary keywords.
For example, one of the site’s top organic traffic pages “The Best Cable Modem”
ranks for 12,984 different keywords:

The primary keyword “best cable modem,” which gets 15K monthly searches, only
brings in around 10% of the page’s overall monthly organic traffic. The remainder
comes from the other 12,983 semantic and long-tail secondary keywords.
Using related and long-tail secondary keywords help Google to rank the content for a
range of queries and boost organic traffic.
So, how do you find new secondary keyword ideas and expand your content footprint?
Enter the Ahrefs Content Gap Analysis Tool.
Here’s how it works:

If I enter “how to increase organic traffic” into Ahrefs Keyword Explorer I can see my
article is only ranking for 67 different keywords, compared to the hundreds of different
terms many of the competing article are ranking for:
But using the Ahrefs Content Gap Analysis tool, I can quickly identify all the
keywords I’m missing.
Head over to the Site Explorer and enter the exact URL of your content:

Scroll down to the Organic Search section and click the Content Gap Analysis link:

Next, enter up to 10 competing articles:
Note: Make sure you have the URL selected from the drop-down next to each
URL as you’re specifically interested in all the keywords those competing pages/
posts (not whole domain) are ranking, but you are not.
You’ll have several filter options to choose from:

I recommend keeping “At least one of the targets should rank in top 10” selected as
this will help return the most relevant results.
Hit search and you’ll see a list of all the keywords the competing articles are ranking for,
but your article is not:
Bonus Tip: As you scan down the list of secondary keyword opportunities, focus on the
opportunities where at least two of your competitors are ranking in the Top 10 for a
given keyword as these will typically be the most relevant targets.

#3. Analyze Page-Level Link Metrics
Industry studies show a strong correlation between the number of referring domains
pointing to a page and its rankings:
The more referring domains a page has, the higher the number ranking keywords. Plus,
Google also confirmed it’s one of the top 3 ranking factors.
As a result, you should always check the number of page-level referring domains in the
SERP.

For example, if you check the SERP Overview report for “beard growth oil,” you can
see the top-ranking pages have a low number of referring domains:
Search terms that have a single-digit to low-teen referring domain counts are
easier to target.
In contrast, the SERP Overview report for the keyword “best sales crm” shows
the top-ranking pages have a high number of referring domains:

As a result, this keyword would be a lot harder to target.
#4. Analyze Domain and Page Authority
Domain and Page Authority go hand-in-hand with page-level link metrics as
they’re both a significant driver of authority scores.
When you analyze the SERP, you’re specifically looking for pages where there
are at least 1-2 competitors within +/- 5 points of your domain authority (DR),
and/or URLs with a single-digit to low-teen page authority (UR) score.
Editor’s Note: these guidelines will change depending on how established the site.
Obviously, more established sites have higher thresholds and vice versa.

For example, the SERP overview report for “best modem cable” reveals the
top-ranking pages all have a high DR score above 80, which makes them extremely
hard to compete against:
But some of the lower pages in the SERP report have a UR score in the low teens.
So, depending on your domain and page rating, you may still be able to target some of
those positions.
Looking back at the SERP report for “beard growth oil,” you can see most pages have
a single-digit to low-teen page authority (UR) score:

There are also several competitors with a Domain Rating under 30. In this scenario, a
newer site would have a better chance of getting onto the first page of the SERP.
#5. Analyze the Different SERP Intent
Search intent is the why behind a search query. And it’s one of the most important
aspects of content creation. If you create content that doesn’t match why users are
searching, then it’s not going to rank.
You need to understand their search intent:
● Informational - Do they want to learn something?
● Navigational - Are they looking for a particular website?
● Commercial Investigation - Are they looking for reviews or comparisons?
● Transactional - Are they looking to make a purchase?

You can often tell what the search intent is from the query.
For example, the keyword “best cable modem” suggests the searcher is looking for
product reviews (commercial investigation) before making a purchase.
On the other hand, someone using the keyword “what is a cable modem” is searching
for an answer to a question (informational).
You can also analyze the SERP features to help infer the SERP intent. We’ve already
seen some examples of SERP features like:
● Featured snippets
● Answer boxes
● Shopping results
● Video results
● Related questions
● Knowledge graphs
And Google often shows particular SERP features alongside different types of search
intent.
For example:
Featured Snippets appear a lot for informational queries, like “what is a macbook
pro”:

Shopping Results appear for transactional queries, like “cheap macbook pro for
sale”:

Maps are typical for local intent queries, like “where is the nearest apple store”:

In Ahrefs Keyword Explorer, you can filter by the different SERP features to refine your
results.
For example, if you wanted to find keywords with investigational or commercial intent,
you could include only keywords with shopping SERP features.
Here’s how…
1. Enter your keyword, e.g. “macbook pro”
2. Select “Having same terms” from the sidebar
3. Include “Shopping results” from the SERP features dropdown

Now, select the SERP dropdown to see the SERP overview report for each keyword:
You can filter for different SERP features depending on the search intent you want to
target. For example:
● Informational – Featured Snippet, Knowledge Card, Videos, People Also Ask
● Navigational – Sitelinks, Knowledge Panel, Tweet Box
● Commercial Investigation – Featured Snippet, Adwords
● Transactional – Shopping Results, Google Ads
Note: Not all SERP results fit neatly into one of the four categories. If we look back at
the SERP overview for “beard growth oil” you can see there’s mixed intent:

This search term infers some people want to buy the product, some want to compare
products, and others just want to find answers to questions they have.
When a SERP has mixed intent, model what is predominant in the top 5 positions.
#6. Analyze Content Types
You can write the best piece of content, but if it’s the wrong content type, you'll fight a
losing battle to rank in the Top 10.
It’s what happened to one of my clients.

They produced a fantastic piece of content for the keyword “interactive infographics”
using an in-depth product page.
It ticked all the boxes with quality content and plenty of referring domains.
But it didn’t rank.
Why? Take a look at the SERP:

The top-ranking content type for this keyword is long-form list-type blog posts; i.e it
has informational intent rather than a product page with commercial intent.
So, we switched gears and published a massive list-type blog post of our own. It now
ranks #1 for the target keyword, and drives a lot of organic traffic to the site each month:
Over 12 months, the original product page brought in 366 organic visits compared to
the list post with 9,565 organic visits.
You can check which is the right content type for your keywords simply by analzying the
SERPs.
For example:
The top results for the search term “thrive leads add fields” are videos:

The top results for the search query “wooden hangers” are all ecommerce product
category pages:

So, before you start creating content, always analyze the SERP to check which content
type is most predominant and make a note of it in your keyword research document:

#7. Analyze Content Format
Once you’ve decided on the content type, the next step is to examine the format
of the content.
Some common formats include:
● How-to guides
● Step-by-step tutorials
● Checklists
● Case studies
● Roundups
● List posts
● Reviews

● Comparisons
In the example above, for “interactive infographic” we knew we needed a blog post, but
it also had to be in a list-based format to directly satisfy search intent.
But if we take the example, “thrive leads pricing,” you can see that blog posts in the
review format are most common:
And if you enter the search term “quadcopter controls” you’ll see that the How-to
format is used:

Follow the lead from the top-ranking content in the SERP to satisfy search intent with
the right type and format of content.
#8. Analyze Content Quality
The next step involves manually reviewing the top-ranking content to pick up on signals
that may not have been apparent at face value in the SERP report.
For example:
● Length - Content length can have a bearing on ranking. Google wants to
serve content to searchers that answers their query. That’s why more in-depth
content tends to rank higher and thin content struggles. But, this is not always
the case. Check the length of competing content and compare that against
what you think is necessary to satisfy the user's intent.

● Use of multi media - Check if the content typically uses a lot of relevant
visuals or only sporadic ‘filler’ images. Also make sure images use the “alt”
attribute, and videos and podcasts have a transcription, to accommodate user
preferences and accessibility.
● Grammar - Google is looking for grammatically correct and well-spelled
content. Also check if the content is written in a formal or informal tone, are the
paragraphs long or short.
● Structure/ categorization of content - Google likes to see content that is
well-organized and easy to consume and understand. Check if the content
follows a logical structure using headings and subheadings, and uses bullet
points to make content easy-to-read.
Editor's Note:
Want to learn how to write content for both humans and search engines, check out this
SEO copywriting guide.
If you can find poor/thin quality content in the SERP, then you have an opportunity to
create something much better that can outrank the competition.
I use this type of analysis to build detailed content briefs for writers:

Let’s look at a couple of contrasting examples.
SERP with poor content quality
If you enter the search term “baroque pearls,” you’ll find the SERP contains some poor
quality content alongside a few good pieces:

Here is an example of a blog post that is ranking:

325 words of average content. Shouldn't be too hard to beat this competitor from a
pure content quality standpoint.
Here's one of the category pages ranking on the first page:

Again, very basic - about 100 words of content and a standard product grid.
Note: While the SERP features show mixed intent for this keyword, I'd be leaning
towards creating a blog post to target this term since that is the content type
currently ranking highest for the keyword.
SERP with high content quality
For our second example, enter the search term “Siberian husky,” and you’ll find the
SERP is full of high-quality content.

Each article you check is packed full of relevant information and stunning visuals,
making them an excellent source of information.
The SERP features are also strong and consistent matching informational intent.
After looking at the content quality and strong link signals, it’s clearly going to be
extremely difficult to beat the competition for this keyword.
#9. Analyze SERP Volatility
Google rankings change. Sometimes there can be minor shifts as one or two
URLs change positions. Sometimes, a new page hits the Top 10 from nowhere.
So what does that tell us?
If results have been the same for years, Google is happy that the top-ranking
content satisfies the intent, and it may prove difficult to replace.
On the other hand, if there’s lots of volatility and sudden jumps from nowhere, it
could indicate a lot of potential to get quick ranking gains and better satisfy the
intent of the user.
Using Ahrefs Keyword Explorer, you can check the history of the SERP to see
how volatile the movements have been.

Enter your keyword at the top of the page, and then scroll down to see the SERP
position history graph:
Note: Filter the graph to show 6 months of data for the latest trends. Switch lines on/off
if you want to isolate the trend for one or two pages.
Let’s look at some examples.
#1 Little or no volatility in rankings
The top ranking pages are a good indication of the search intent. For example, the
SERP position graph for “best sales crm” shows no volatility over the last 6 months:

These top 5 pages are satisfying search intent, so if you wanted to outrank the
competition, you’d have to follow their lead, but do it better.
That’s what UAV Coach did for the search term “quadcopter controls”:

#2 Volatility of some pages but not others
Sometimes you’ll see some pages are volatile while others remain relatively static. For
example, the SERP position graph for “beard growth oil” shows some pages are steady,
and some are jumping around:
In this case, you could target the less static pages. If we remove a couple of lines, you
can see the following:

The Beard Club (blue) only hit the SERP in November 2019 and quickly gained
the #1 spot in December. While Ask Men (orange) and The Mod Cabin (purple)
have hovered around #4 and #5 spots apart from big dips in Nov 2019.
#3 Lots of volatility in rankings
When you see lots of volatility in the rankings it could be that Google is struggling
to understand the search intent. This typically happens when you have a broad
search term, like “mercury,” which could reference the planet, the element, the
rock singer (Freddie), or a brand name (Mercury Marine):

It’s hard to target keywords like this because search intent is unclear.
Editor's Note:
If you see this type of volatility for targeted queries with clear intent, it can provide a
strong signal that Google is still looking for content that best serves that search
intent. This is a great opportunity for you to fill the gap.
#10. Analyze Link Velocity
By analyzing the page-level link metrics in the SERP report, we’re able to get an idea of
the link volume we'll need to be competitive at a given point in time. But it doesn't tell
us how many links we'll need to acquire to remain competitive in the SERP.

We already saw how to get the answer to the first part of the equation in Step #3.
Now we’ll look at how to find a monthly Link Velocity target to remain competitive in the
SERPs.
First, enter your target keyword – e.g. “quadcopter controls” – into Ahrefs Keyword
Explorer, and scroll down to the SERP overview report:
UAV Coach has the highest number of referring domains (192) and also has the highest
UR (40) in the results.
But, we want to understand how quickly they are building new links to create more
page-level authority and remain in the #1 position.

So, next, click the green drop-down arrow next to the page URL and then click the
Overview link in the popup menu:
This generates an overview report for that specific URL. From there, click on New in the
Backlinks profile menu:
The report shows the number of backlinks won and lost over different date ranges:

Under the calendar, you can select different date ranges for 7, 30, or 60 days.
Select each date range in turn and make a note of the number of new backlinks
acquired so that you can build an average.
For UAV Coach, it looks like this:
● 7 days = 4 new backlinks from unique domains
From the results, you can see that, on average, they’re consistently acquiring 1 new
backlink every other day.
So, if you wanted to outrank UAV Coach for “quadcopter controls,” you’d have to get
around 200 backlinks to start with AND then continue to acquire about 16 backlinks a

month.
Editor's note: Ahrefs SEO Toolbar
You can pull most of the data directly into the SERPs with the Ahrefs SEO Toolbar.
With Ahrefs SEO Toolbar, you have immediate access to both Page and Domain
metrics such as:
● Ahrefs Domain Rating (DR)
● Ahrefs URL Rating (UR)
● Ahrefs Rank (AR)
● Number of Backlinks
● Number of referring domains
● Estimated organic search traffic
● Number of ranking keywords
The SERP overlay lets you analyze the top-ranking pages and understand how hard it
would be to rank in the top 10 for your target keyword:

Plus, you can click on any metric, to open more details inside Ahrefs.
Other SERP Analysis Tools
We covered Ahrefs in this guide, but you can also use different SEO tools to analyze
the SERPs.
Mangools SERP Checker

SERPChecker is part of the Mangools suite of SEO Tools. It’s a Google SERP analysis
tool with 45+ SEO metrics, including SEO Difficulty, Link Profile Strength, Moz, Majestic,
and social metrics.
SERPChecker allows you to see what’s influencing the organic search results. For
example, you can:
● Analyze all the strengths and weaknesses of your competitors
● Evaluate SERP positions
● Compare your desktop vs mobile results
● Detect Google SERP features
● Choose from countries, states, or cities for Local SERP results
● Compare your website with competitors
Enter a keyword below to start analyzing the SERP:

SEOquake by SEMrush
SEOquake by SEMrush is similar to the Ahrefs SEO Toolbar. It’s a browser extension
tool that lets you:
● Get an SEO overview of any page at a glance
● Discover your SERP competitors’ strengths and weaknesses
● Discover any keyword’s difficulty level
● Analyze a webpage’s external and internal links
● Get detailed information about your backlinks
When you enter a keyword you’re targeting into the Google search bar, you’ll see
the SERP analysis below each URL.
You can select which parameters you want to analyze, such as Domain Age,
SEMrush Rank, Alexa Rank, and Facebook Likes, plus you can sort the page
based on specific parameters. You also have the option to view or export the
results as a CSV file.
Moz SERP Analysis

The Moz SERP Analysis Tool is part of their Keyword Explorer toolset. It gives
you a snapshot of the first page results alongside various Moz authority metrics.
You can use the information to get an idea of the strength of the sites ranking for
your target keyword.
At the top of the page, the SERP analysis report displays:
● Monthly Volume: An estimate of how many times per month people
search your keyword within a specific region and search engine.
● Difficulty: A score from 1–100 that tells you how difficult it is to rank for
that keyword.
● Organic CTR: An estimate of how many searchers click through to a
website result on that SERP.
● Priority: An estimate of the potential value of the keyword, based on
other metrics such as Difficulty, Volume, and CTR.

Below that, you get a view of the SERP Features and Moz metrics for each page,
including Page Authority, Domain Authority, the Number of Domains Linking to the
Page, and the Number of Domains Linking to the Root Domain.
Google Search

You can start your SERP analysis for free with Google Search. At a glance, you can see
the SERP Features, gauge the SERP intent, and evaluate the content type, format, and
quality.
But on the downside, you miss out on vital Link and Traffic data that you get with the
other tools.
Use SERP Analysis to Qualify (and Prioritize) Your
Keyword Strategy
SERP analysis is the most important step in any keyword research process.

Use the steps covered above to more accurately qualify which keywords you target, and
with which content type and format.
Here are a few other key takeaways:
● SERP analysis is the most important part of keyword research, so make sure
you use it to qualify every potential keyword
● You can use either Google Search or a SERP Analysis tool for your research,
but for the most comprehensive results, use both in tandem.
● Don’t forget SERP intent. If you create content that doesn’t match the SERP
intent, then no matter how good it is, it’s not going to rank.

Serp analysis guide by letruongan.com

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