You have done your keyword research, optimised your pages and website and you are doing well organically for your related keywords. The next step is to increase your traffic by targeting search queries and building your business branding with Google answer boxes or rich answers.

Finding and Targeting Search Queries

Over time your sites content begins to appear for certain search queries that you may not have specifically targeted, but Google feels they are related but not quite specific enough to warrant a high position in search results.

We now need to identify these search queries where Google feels our content and site is relevant, just not quite right. Your next SEO step is to identify the search query, the page or content and fine tune it for better positioning or an Answer Box.

Search Analytics in Google Search Console

Log into Search Console and open search analytics. Select Impressions, position and 90 days.
Use Queries to filter for specific queries, these can be how, what, when, where, why or keywords within the site.

 

 

You can filter further to see which pages or page Google feels is relevant to the queries. You can then look at the current content and decide if it needs a new specific page or are you able to modify the current page to fit within the targeted search query.

 

 

Take a note of any additional rich answers for the search query from the “People also ask for” section, can you incorporate some of the queries within your content or new content specifically to satisfy those queries.

 

 

Google Answer Box

There are three main types of Answer boxes or Rich answers:

• List – Numbered or Bullet Points
• Tables
• Paragraph Sections

 
Factors to pay attention to:

• Typically the URL contains the main keyword
• Title typically contains the main keyword and or contains the full search query
• H1 or H2 can contain the search query and answer within the content
• Displayed paragraphs are typically 50 characters in length, be specific

 

Target Additional Answer Boxes, Rich Answers?

Google search console naturally is data from your own site, to target additional search queries that contain answer boxes I use SEMrush.

• Add domain
• Organic positions
• Filter by Featured Snippet

 

 

I would recommend using Search Console first as your content is already appearing as relevant for the displayed search queries and easier to identify, fine tune or create new content. Using SEMrush your content may not necessarily be relevant to these specific search queries and will take longer to build up the authority around these queries for the desired results.