Lesson 5 of 1913 minBeginner
Reading the SERP
Anatomy of a search result page
Ads, AI Overviews, local packs, People Also Ask, videos and ten blue links all compete for the same attention. The layout of a SERP tells you what format Google believes the searcher wants.
Why this lesson matters
This lesson belongs to Reading the SERP, the part of SEO Foundations where the goal is: learn to diagnose a keyword before you spend a week writing for it.
Read it once, then do it straight away on a real site inside RankAudit. Nothing here is theory for its own sake — every step produces something you can show a client.
Do it now
- 1Open RankAudit with sample data already loaded, so you are not stuck on setup.
- 2Crawl a site and triage the issue list.
- 3Pick five queries in your niche, search each one, and note the dominant result format plus the weakest result on page one. That weakest result is your benchmark.