More and more Google is providing direct answers for questions asked in search, answers that may keep people from clicking through to web sites. What does this mean for your site, and are there ways to turn answer boxes to your advantage? This deck has the answers!

1. Google Direct Answers
Mark Traphagen | Stone Temple Consulting
@marktraphagen

2. Google’s mission is to
organize the world’s
web sites and make them
universally accessible and
useful.
Get this deck: stonet.co/googleanswersraleigh

3. Google’s mission is to
organize the world’s
information
and make it universally
accessible and useful.
Get this deck: stonet.co/googleanswersraleigh

5. In the beginning…

6. moz.com/blog/the-incredible-shrinking-
serp

7. Tabbed results

8. Table

9. Sliders

10. With Knowledge Panel

11. Form

12. Chart

13. Carousel

14. Image

15. Related items

16. Lists

17. Directly in search suggest!

18. Spoiler alert result

19. Slawski: Possible sources
• Tabular data (example: a Wikipedia info box alongside a
Wiki article)
• Relational tables that display related data in tabular
format (such as a list of U.S. Presidents and basic facts
about each)
• Colon-delimited pairs (such as “Check In Time: 3:00 PM;
Check Out Time: 12 Noon” for a hotel)
• Structured snippets
• Knowledge bases
• Query stream data merged with knowledge bases and
web documents (Biperpedia)

20. stonet.co/RichAnswers

22. Mostly public domain info

23. But notable exceptions…

24. Slawski: Possible sources
• Tabular data (example: a Wikipedia info box alongside a
Wiki article)
• Relational tables that display related data in tabular
format (such as a list of U.S. Presidents and basic facts
about each)
• Colon-delimited pairs (such as “Check In Time: 3:00 PM;
Check Out Time: 12 Noon” for a hotel)
• Structured snippets
• Knowledge bases
• Query stream data merged with knowledge bases and
web documents (Biperpedia)

25. stonet.co/AnswerBoxTraffic

26. Definitely NOT

27. List with linked ellipses

28. List with more items

29. Looks like it shouldn’t, but did!

30. 1. Complex topic

31. 2. Brilliant title tag

32. Megasnippet!

33. Takeaway 1
Make sure you have clear, natural
language in your articles that
directly answers the most likely
questions about any factual
information.

34. Takeaway 2
Every direct answer follows a formula. If
you look carefully at the pages that get
into direct answers for information your
site provides, you’ll see the pattern.
Find it for your pages and structure your
content accordingly.

35. Takeaway 3
Create large or exhaustive lists
that Google can’t fit completely
in an answer box.

36. Takeaway 4
Provide teaser text right after your
direct answer that hints there is
more the reader would want to
know. Chances are that text will get
included in the direct answer,
thereby enticing a click through.

37. Warning!
Answer boxes throw off rank checking
software!

38. Let’s Connect!
• www.stonetemple.com
• +MarkTraphagen
• @MarkTraphagen
Get this deck:
stonet.co/googleanswersral
eigh
THANKS!