Hi John,

Thank you for your question.

If I may quickly define a term: ‘SERP’ means ‘Search Engine Results Page’ and ‘SERPs’ is simply the plural of that term.

Google SERPs consist of two elements: paid results and natural results. Paid results will show in a pink box right at the top of the SERP, and a white box in the right hand border of the same page. Both clusters will be labelled ‘ads’. Natural results fill the rest of any SERP.

I don’t engage in any paid search activity as I believe research which suggests the majority of people using Google or any other search engine focus on the natural search results for one reason or another. Your question therefore relates to how I achieve good ‘natural’ listings on SERPs.

Good positioning on SERPs comes down to SEO or search engine optimisation. In essence this requires only two things – (1) good content and (2) ensuring search engines are notified of this content.

With regards to this particular blog post point 1 is covered as the entire entry relates to ‘Small Business Sunday’. The post title and post tags both include the phrase ‘Small Business Sunday’. Point 2 is handled through a good set-up of my blog.

In recent weeks I have started a venture called Smarter SEO so it is perhaps useful to note I practice what I preach

Should you need any assistance with SEO please get in touch via e-mail. My approach to Smarter SEO is to teach other website owners how to perform their own SEO, as opposed to carrying it out on your behalf on a weekly/monthly basis.

Adam