Why is Google getting harder?
While these features make it easier for the consumer to find information, they’ve made it much harder for businesses to achieve organic listings, and thus, organic traffic to their website. If you search up your brand’s general industry, you’ll likely find two paidlistings, a local pack, map, or a knowledge graph, before finally reaching the organic listings – already halfway down the page!
Consumers can usually distinguish between paid listings and organic listings, however, there is still a portion of people that will ultimately click on a paid listing instead. And ads are becoming more expensive and difficult to spot. Where they once had a yellow ad icon beside them, the icon is now much less prominent, making it look more like an organic listing at a glance.
It’s not your ranking that’s the problem. More than likely, your ranking has remained fairly consistent over the past few years, even if your listing has moved down the page. It’s because while rankings are fairly resistant to change, your placement on the SERP page isn’t. Depending on what someone searches, different SERP features may appear for them, which will affect your listing’s position on the page.
Thankfully, there is a way you can still achieve great amounts of organic traffic. How? By not focusing on beating Google.
