Post on 18-Jul-2020
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POINT OF VIEW
The status quo for search engine results have changed, now offering more results per search, and
incorporating more vertical site information within. In some cases this can lead to pharma brand
results appearing later in the search results stream. We recommend several tactics to address this,
and among the most critical is to partner with online publishers who can help boost content value.
Background
Search engines have always presented search
results in a list format, with 10 results per page
in order of importance, based on the user’s
search intent and backend search algorithms. In
time, most users became accustomed to seeing
this format after completing a search. More
recently, however, the display of organic search
engine results pages changed dramatically with
the addition of results from other websites’
custom search engines, leading not only to more
results, but to broader results.
These custom search engines—vertical search
engines—work like web search engines but find
content exclusively from their own websites. In
the past, vertical search results could only be
accessed using a website’s vertical search
engine. Today, these results are part of a typical
search engine result page.
With these changes in search engine behavior, it
is no longer enough to build content in just the
brand website to improve a brand’s web
presence. The brand management team now
has a bigger responsibility in making sure the
brand’s content reaches as many users as
possible – it also needs to be sharable. Brand
managers have to plan for creating content that
will be hosted in other well-known websites
that are authorities in the industry. They have
to build connections with publishers who
already host discussions about the brand. On
top of that, they would benefit from
establishing strong social media profiles so all
users can use their preferred social networks to
easily find the brand.
How to Make Ever-Changing Search Engine Results Pages Work for Your Brand
Executive Summary
“ …it is no longer enough to build content in just the brand website to improve a brand’s web presence.”
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While analyzing the search landscape, the CMI
SEO team discovered this article on Moz where
the author performed a case study for the
search term “autism speaks”, which yielded
unconventional search results, including vertical
results. We, at CMI, performed our own search
for a different term and found the following
results listed below.
What most of us are used to seeing is the
current format in every page of search results
following the first page—10 total organic search
results per search query (below).
In the current search landscape, the first page
of search results yields a significantly different
outcome.
Note: for a better view of the images within this
document, please visit Google and run similar
searches.
While reviewing the first page results, three
types of results were evident: organic, news,
and vertical. With these conditions in mind, out
of the 11 total results displayed, Google had
five standard search results for “world health
organization”.
Organic results are the traditionally optimized
pages related to a topic. The six sitelinks below
the first organic search result, which lead to
specific pages in the who.int website, are a part
of the same result. Among the five standard
search results, all five of them were organic
results.
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News results are pages from trusted news
sources, which show up based on real-time
relevance to the topic. News results are in their
own category and only cover current events.
This means that if an “in the news” result shows
up, it is not counted towards the total for
standard search results. Our search query, at
the time, produced three total news results.
Vertical results are from custom vertical search
engines within websites that contain enough
content segments to warrant their own search
feature (Amazon, Yelp, Realtor, etc.). In the case
of “world health organization”, there were three
vertical results.
When Google shows five organic results out of
eleven total search results, it means that the
remaining results are not counted as organic.
News results change on a daily basis. So, why
did Google present the last three search
results? Because those were vertical results
compiled through vertical search engines.
There is a faded line that separates the last
portion of search results, which indicates the
start of the vertical results list. Despite their
display on a separate list, vertical results are not
limited to that section. Some of the same exact
vertical results can still appear as organic results
for different keywords.
Vertical Results in Mobile Search
So, what about mobile? Yes, this certainly
applies to all mobile searches. Below is a
screenshot of a search for the word “world
health organization” on an Android phone.
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There is a search box in the #1 organic result,
“top stories” news results, and articles from The
Guardian, which are vertical results. This time,
the vertical results are not at the bottom of the
page. Among the organic results, two of them
were from social media accounts.
If a topic, such as a disease state, has enough
content written about it and enough large
publications continually writing about it, those
articles will eventually be interspersed as a part
of the search engine results pages to the
patients and HCPs—the pharma brands’ target
audience.
How This Affects Pharma Search Results
So, how can we expect the pharma search
engine results pages to change? Just like
content for the World Health Organization,
there is plenty of content for all pharma drugs’
indications, such as “HIV”.
Search Results for “HIV.”
Again, the second page of results is what all
results used to look like for a long time (below).
Note: for a better view of the
images within this document,
please visit Google and run
similar searches.
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As with “world health organization”, the search
query for “HIV” brings different results in the
first page.
Note: for a better view of the
images within this document,
please visit Google and run similar
searches.
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These search results looked different from
“world health organization”. There were 8
organic results and 3 news results, which
covered results #1 to #11. The three vertical
search results for #12 to #14 were still on the
first page of Google competing against disease
state websites.
The biggest takeaway is that search engine
optimization strategies to gain organic rankings
must expand beyond their current capabilities.
With the addition of vertical search results,
brand managers can take advantage of the
existing content about the brands in related
websites, especially those that regularly discuss
similar topics.
This meant there were 14 total search results,
which still exceeds the previous standard of 10
results. Because of the broad keyword used in
the exercise, there was no specific #1 pharma
brand result.
What Pharma Brands Can Do
Just as the case was for who.int, any brand can
also appear as the first search results with up to
6 additional sitelinks that guide the user to
more internal pages of the brand website.
However, it is not enough to maintain branded
organic rankings in the search results. Online
publications have long since grounded their
organic search presence by continually
producing new content that covers multiple
topics in order to gain a wide audience. Rather
than trying to beat them, brands can use their
vertical results space as a new opportunity.
This strategy can take the form of, but are not
limited to, any of the following:
1. Working with third party websites to
generate fresh new content with
information that could only be available
from the brand
2. Reaching out to publishers who host content
referring to the brand to link back to specific
pages in the brand’s website
3. Establishing a presence in social media
platforms (Facebook/Twitter) with regular
daily/weekly updates about the brand
CMI/Compas works with our internal Supplier
Partner Team to identify opportunities like this –
many exclusive – that can better maximize our
clients’ branding efforts.
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Written by:
David HurSenior SEO Analyst
CMI/Compas
CMI is more than happy to review these
effective strategies and more, in order to help
steadily maintain high rankings for a brand, so
the limited number of organic results does not
negatively impact the brand. Please feel free to
contact us for additional information on how
CMI can help your brand stay on top of
managing a strong organic search presence.