How to Do a SERP Analysis in 7 Steps (With a Real Example)

A SERP analysis is the ten minutes that save you ten hours. Before you write, design, or build for a keyword, you open the real results page and read it. What does the searcher want? What kind of page wins? Which blocks take the clicks? Who is already there?

This guide walks through the seven steps with one worked example, best running shoes, using the page we fetched for US desktop on September 6, 2026.

What SERP analysis means

SERP is the search engine results page. If the term is new, start with what a SERP is.

SERP analysis is studying that page for one keyword to answer four questions:

1. What does the person searching actually want?
2. What page format does Google reward for it?
3. Which SERP features are on the page, and who owns them?
4. How strong are the pages in the top ten?

The answers tell you whether to go after the keyword, and if so, what to make.

Step 1: Fetch the real page, not your own

Your browser shows you a personalized page. Google adjusts by your location, device, language, and history. For analysis you want the page your audience sees.

Two ways to get it:

• By hand. Open a private window and set the location. Our guide on changing your Google search location covers the methods.
• By tool. A rank tracker or SERP API fetches the page for a chosen city and device and returns every block with its position. That is how we pulled the example below.

Pick the device first. In our 200-page sample, video blocks appeared on 37 percent of mobile pages but 26 percent of desktop pages for the same queries. Mobile is the default for most consumer topics.

Step 2: Read the intent from the results, not the keyword

Do not guess intent from the words. Read it from what Google chose to show. Google has already run the test with millions of searchers.

There are four common intents:

Example. The best running shoes page has an AI Overview, a Runner’s World buying guide, a Reddit thread, a People Also Ask block, and a popular products carousel. That is commercial intent with a strong “help me choose” flavor. A product page for one shoe would not fit. A comparison guide would.

Step 3: Note the format that wins

Look at the top five organic results and write down what kind of page each is. Blog guide, product category, tool, video, forum thread, homepage.

Example. Runner’s World is a long buying guide with picks by category. Reddit is a discussion. Sixminutemile and RunRepeat are review sites with test data. Nike is a category page. YouTube is a video. Four of the top six are editorial picks with testing. That is the format.

If every winner is the same format, match it. If the formats are mixed, Google is unsure, and a strong page in either format can win.

Step 4: Map the SERP features and who owns them

List every block on the page in order. Mark which ones you could win, which you could be cited in, and which you cannot touch. Our SERP features guide explains each one.

Example, top to bottom:

Now count blocks above the first organic result. Here it is one, the AI Overview. Across our 200-page sample the first organic result was in the very first spot on only 14.5 percent of pages. For how-to questions it was 1 percent. The more blocks above rank one, the fewer clicks rank one gets.

Step 5: Judge the competition honestly

For each of the top ten organic results, note three things:

• Site strength. Domain age, backlinks, brand. A backlink tool gives a number. Without one, ask: have I heard of this site?
• Page quality. Does it show real testing, real photos, real data? Or is it a thin rewrite?
• Freshness. When was it updated? Google dates many results in the snippet.

Example. Runner’s World, RunRepeat, Nike, Amazon, and YouTube are strong brands. Sixminutemile is a smaller review site that ranks on test data. Reddit ranks on being Reddit. A new site could realistically aim at the sixminutemile spot, with better tests, not at the Nike spot.

Step 6: Estimate the real prize

Volume tells you how many people search. The page tells you how many of them will click a result like yours.

Use the click curve. First Page Sage’s May 2025 data puts the first organic result at 39.8 percent of clicks, the third at 10.2 percent, and the tenth at 1.6 percent. Backlinko found the top three take 54.4 percent between them. Then discount for what sits above you. An AI Overview at the top can take a large share on informational queries. A map pack takes most local clicks.

Example. Say your page reaches organic spot 6, under an AI Overview and a product carousel. It might see two to three percent of searchers. On a keyword with a few hundred thousand searches a month, that is still thousands of visits. On a 200-search keyword it is a handful.

Step 7: Make the call and write it down

Every analysis ends with one of three decisions:

• Go. The intent matches what you can build, the format is clear, and at least one spot in the top ten looks reachable.
• Go for a feature, not the ranking. The organic spots are locked by big brands, but People Also Ask or the local pack is open.
• Skip. Intent does not fit, or the page is all brands, forums, and shopping blocks.

Keep one row per keyword in a sheet: keyword, device, location, intent, winning format, features present, features you can win, strongest competitor, decision. That sheet becomes your content plan.

Doing it at scale

Seven steps by hand works for 20 keywords. It does not work for 2,000.

For a big list, fetch every SERP with a SERP API or a rank tracker that exports feature types. Then filter in a spreadsheet. Keywords with People Also Ask but no AI Overview. Keywords where the first organic result is in the top spot. Keywords where no result in the top ten is a major brand. Hand-check the short list.

We describe the feature side of that process in how to find SERP feature opportunities, and the volume side in how to track rankings in bulk.

Common mistakes

• Analyzing your own personalized page. Set the location and device, or use a tool.
• Reading intent from the keyword. Running shoes looks transactional. The page says commercial research.
• Ignoring the blocks above rank one. Rank one under an AI Overview is not the rank one of 2020.
• Checking once. SERPs move with every core update. Recheck important keywords every one to three months.
• Skipping the write-up. An analysis in your head is gone by next week.

Quick recap

Fetch the real page for your audience’s location and device. Read intent from the results. Note the winning format. Map the features and who owns them. Judge the competition. Estimate the real clicks. Decide, and write it down. Ten minutes per keyword, and you stop writing pages that never had a chance.