Optimizing for Google Quick Answers
Google Quick Answers was first introduced in September 2014 as a means of presenting easy answers to queries that were ‘how to’ or ‘what is’ oriented. To generate these answers, Google will take parts of content from web pages that were already regarded as trustworthy by the search engine. These answers then appear in an outlined box on the top of the SERPs.
Why do I want to appear on Google Quick Answers?
When Google selects a website to display a Google Quick Answer, they are helping to cast this site as an authority on the subject. The site that displays the answer does not have to rank first on the page-- it can fall into organic position 2-4-- but this site gets to appear at the center of the page as Google’s resource on the subject. Gaining this authority can help you increase your brand awareness and reputation, and thereby bring you interested traffic.
At BrightEdge, we monitored the impact of Google Quick Answers in terms of traffic and click-through rates and saw a clear increase for those that were chosen for an answer.
How do I optimize my page to appear on Google answer box?
- Make sure that your website provides the answer in a clear, easy-to-understand manner. Remember that the algorithm is what generates the answer, so your text should be easily cut out of the rest of your content for the Quick Answer box.
- Have a site that offers an excellent user experience to improve organic rank and readability
- Make sure that the page with the answer is part of a site structure and has references coming from other pages that have related topics
- Make sure the pages are a part of an XML Sitemap to make it easy for Google to crawl the page and find the answer.
Google Quick Answers is a part of the Google quest to provide users with immediate answers and improve their user experience. By optimizing for this feature, you can increase your site’s own visibility as well as your traffic rates, thereby growing your brand.
