Search Engine Optimization is known to be the first step towards Digital Marketing activity. Marketers aim to bring their website on the first position of Google’s SERP. That’s fair enough, isn’t it? But what if I tell you that there is something higher than first SERP position? Well, you might laugh on it (obviously you will not think for 0th position in SERP). But wait, this is possible! You can use Google’s feature called ‘Rich Answers’.
What is Rich Answer in Google?
Many times you must have observed that while searching for some definition of meaning of some term, phrase or word, there comes an information box just above the first position organic result on the SERP. That particular information box contains the answer of the search query you have entered and that’s the way of Google to answer your question! (Yay! Google not only fetch the websites but it also tries its best to give the direct answer!!)
Google displays the results in 3 different categories:
1. Featured Snippet:
On the basis of the entered search query, Google fetches the answer from the third party website and displays it in the box just above the first position organic search result.
This result will have title of the blog or an article which will push people to click on the link and hence visit the web page which increases the traffic.
2. Answer by Google:
Just like Featured Snippet, this answer is also displayed above the first rank organic result on SERP. These answers are fetched by the Google from official websites or public domain like Wikipedia. See the example below.
You can see that though Google is displaying the answer asked in the query, it also shows the related answers matching with the search query text. In this example, Google is showing the age of other Football players like Christiano Ronaldo, Neymar and Luis Suarez.
3. Rich Cards:
This exaggerates the basic organic search results by making some changes in the existing HTML code of your website. You should have some knowledge of HTML though to use this feature. To add the markup, there is website like schema.org which you can refer.
WHAT IS THE NEED FOR RICH ANSWER?
The beauty of rich answer is that you don’t need to come on the first position of the Google organic result of SERP and still you can be on the top! What you need to do is while writing the content of your website or blog, ask the question and then answer it in the same content.
I suggest you to create the list of questions, query separately and then use them in your regular content of the web page. Follow the question or query with the short and crisp answer. You can achieve so called ‘position zero’ on organic search result by analyzing and understanding what your searchers are looking for on Google. You can also spend some time in research to know which subject of your interest is lacking such rich answers on Google while using particular search query and then you can use the same search query text in your blog or article followed by the answer.
This rich answer will help you generate more and more traffic on your website which in-turn help you in the organic search result also!