Abstract
Ensuring search engine visibility is one of the key tasks of marketers nowadays. Besides regular organic results, other forms of rich content results appear on Google including the Google Answer Box. In this chapter, the author analyzes the factors that determine the chance of a website being excerpted in the Google Answer Box. Moreover, he uses a simulation to examine the most probable weights of three factors on the final rankings within the search engine results page. The created framework for constructing the assessment of factors can be used to develop similar models for different niches and keywords and utilized by organizations from various sectors. Adopting these findings by organizations and including them in their content and marketing strategy will have a positive impact on search visibility and thus translate to efficiency of marketing campaigns.
TopBackground
Consumer behaviour has changed significantly over the past decade, with the internet being one of the catalysts of this change. Nowadays, people have much more information available online than ever before. In the “old days”, they had to rely on the word of mouth, test magazines or their previous experience to select a brand or a product that will have the required level of quality and suit their preferences. Also, when search for other information that does not necessarily directly relate to goods’ purchases, it needed a lot more effort to get to the results. Nowadays, with advanced algorithms of modern search engines, finding an answer to anything is lightning fast and typically requires less effort than before. Consumers can also rely on product reviews that are now integrated in various types of websites including search engines, local directories, social networks and specialised review sites. These, along with the company’s own website(s), have a chance to be included in the search results when users search for a particular product, brand, review, or just a related information.
Key Terms in this Chapter
Search Visibility: Or search engine visibility is an indicator showing how visible an organization or a product is in the search results for various relevant keywords.
Search Engine Marketing: A marketing approach focusing on increasing search visibility by using two main tools: search engine optimization and paid advertising (also called pay per click).
Google Answer Box: A type of result on the search engine results page offering a text snippet directly answering a search query. It is displayed on top of the regular 10 organic search results on one page.
Domain Authority: An indicator of the overall relevance or importance of a website’s domain introduced by the company Moz and ranging from 1 (very low) to 100 (very high).
Google Knowledge Graph: A technology enabling Google to provide more detailed information on major events, characteristics of people, geography, weather, and many more categories of search queries.
Search Engine Optimization: A strategy and implementation techniques aiming at increasing search visibility of an organization, aiming at driving more traffic from organic search results to a specific website.
Search Engine Results Page: Or SERP is the page in a search engine (e.g., Google, Bing, Yahoo) showing search results for a specific search phrase.