The answer box is google’s means of responding to questions that are directly from the top of the search results means so that searchers don’t need to leave the page to get answers. Each answer box contains a link to the source site, and usually an image too. The answer should appear in a light gray box, and it will draw attention to this. This can help with getting extensive keywords to link to your site, especially long-tail search queries that happen in a general site.
For SEO practitioners, the allure of this is that it puts you in position zero, above the first organic search results, and it will also display the ads, then the results, then the organic results. Whether ads are present or not, the answer box is essentially the highest ranking position. It helps with visibility, and it can win the voice search game since this is what the Echo and the Google home use. Usually, the voice search looks for the answer from the answer box.
Ecommerce sites can compete with this for the answer box, and they can respond to questions related to products when they’re searched for. Usually, the 10 shopping sites that you see in the answer box are what is at the top, the answer box shows the 11 percent of the e-commerce search queries. Of 210 sites that were selected from Alexa, usually, the top 10 are major retailers. SEOglarity has defined that these “eligible” sites are ranking in the top 3 positions for a query that triggers this. Why the top 3 though? Well, usually the answer box on this is populated by one of these most of the time.
For many e-commerce sites, you can sometimes go into the subset of queries that contain terms, and information about the brand. Other sites are starting to control conversations with the brand too, and the answer box is worth mentioning.
So why do the biggest brands have trouble with the answer box? Well, sometimes, even if the query contains their own brand, they don’t rank? that’s because they aren’t answering the question that is needed with the exact keywords that the answer box is looking for. So, if you’re an e-commerce site that is looking to improve ranking, sometimes having that answer in the answer box will help you. It will help not just with the phone and internet searches, but it will also help with optimizing your voice searches for SEO.
Remember that when you are looking to improve your own rank and presence, and also realize that using this will help you grow your brand, and in turn, improve your SEO game. The answer box is underrated, and people don’t talk about it for some reason, but it is something that can make or break the searches that you do. that’s why it’s important to consider trying to get into the top ranking and get the answer bo all sorted.
