SERP is an acronym for Search Engine Results Page.
You type what you are looking for into the search box – in this case I typed in “art gallery denver” – and this is the first page of the results I received from Google, the first SERP.
Keyword, by the way, is the entire phrase that is typed into the search box, such as “art gallery denver”. It really should be called a keyword phrase, but the word keyword is commonly used to mean the whole phrase.
The first two results shown in our SERP are paid ads from Google AdWords. With AdWords you can bid on how much you pay to be shown on a SERP for a certain keyword. If someone clicks on your ad, you pay a fee. If your ad shows for a keyword but no one clicks on it, you do not pay a fee.
Below the two paid ads in our SERP is a map and three local business listings. These listing come from Google My Business and appear when there are brick and mortar locations for the keyword.
If you own a business with a physical location, you should definitely claim your Google My Business listing. You can fill in information about your business, your hours, description, photos, make sure the map address is correct for your business, and reply to any reviews. Check out Google My Business here.
Below the Google My Business section, also called the local listings, are the organic search results.
These are the pages Google has deemed most applicable to give you the information you want for that keyword. You do not pay to be shown here. SEO, search engine optimization, is what you do to get here. And unless your keyword is obscure or non-competitive, it is quite a lot of work to get here.
More on that soon.