Results: Answer Box Search Term Can Change

Proof that Answer Boxes DO Drive Traffic

As stated in Mark Traphagan’s article the Google Answer Box can be good and bad for website owners. To Quote; “some types of Answer Boxes only provide so much information, but many searchers will probably want to know more. In such cases, the link(s) to your site in that box gives you a free trip up to #1 in Google search rankings, with a nice implicit Google endorsement of your site to boot.”

In this article, I will explain how I found an Answer Box, then changed a few on page elements and my Answer Box, in search, changed keywords.

For the record, this was done just by blog posting. and shared mainly via Google Plus. I had no forward intention of this blog post becoming an Answer Box.

I did however have intention on trying to create a way for Google to display the post for a different term (a more relevant and higher volume keyword).

The first sighting:
Originally Martin Shervington notified me that one of my blog posts from December of 2014 was getting a Answer Box result from Google.com (That made my night! Thanks man!)

The post, was ranking for terms “how to get more followers on google plus” and “how to get followers on google plus” and I noticed Webmaster tools showing a 4.55% CTR vs a site-wide average of 1.71% on the keywords.

I thought it was strange that I was getting this. It was not meant to be a step by step article. Yet, in fact after reading it again, it really was.

The post goes deep into the topic of gaining followers. The interview covers many aspects of growing your followers. From the daily routine, to the kind of following behavior to avoid.

There is also a step by step list at the end of the article…. This probably had a greater influence, than expected at that time.

After seeing the Answer Box results and looking into the keyword volume (I used SEMRush.com), I made a few adjustments to the copy so I could target the higher volume keyword, and lo and behold, approximately 10 days later, I disappeared from the original keyword queries, and started to show for the higher volume term.

Then about 10 days ago I shared a post about the results I was getting. Since this was an image post, with one link, social signals we gained and more than likely caused a re-crawl of the blog post generating the Answer Box Result.

To read how this all played out today in the comments, read the conversation on Mark’s share of the original post here.

So, What changes did I make?

The adjustments I made;

1. I added a link to another page on the site (managing a page for a hosting company)
2. I added “So, to recap” in front of the list (I doubt this had any effect)
3. I added a few lines with our CTA’s (Notice the word GROWTH is there twice)
4. If you have any questions about follower growth or Google Plus engagement, get in touch with us and we will help!
5. If you have any questions about follower growth or Google Plus engagement, or your Google Account setup, get in touch with us and we will help!
6. PS.  Get our FREE Brand Page Managers fundamental tips on managing a Google Plus for Business Page.

As a bonus (as if this was not good enough) — Another of our blog posts, that did not rank for this term before popped up (see 3 below).