SEO + CX: How to Own Your Brand in Search

What the Answer Box tells us about CX Strategy

While traditional website metrics like keyword ranking, click-thru rate, and page views are good for SEO, it's important to contextualize where they fit into your brand's customer experience (CX) strategy. And as Google adds more features to serve its audience and account for new technologies, this holistic approach is even more important.

The Answer Box Problem

In 2015, Google introduced another new feature: the Answer Box. Perhaps you've seen one:



Getting your website into the Answer Box takes work, but can be achieved by:

- Using keyword searches to let you know what questions are being asked, how your website's being discovered, and wider industry trends.
 
- Adding structured content with clearly defined data types (like tags and metadata) to make it easier for search engines to pick up.
 
- Creating "How To" articles about a specific subject.

- Providing answers in an FAQ-style section, or delivered in bullet points.

- Implementing virtual assistants like Siri or Alexa.

But the Answer Box is an intriguing SEO problem.


On the one hand, you've cracked the code and won the game—your website is the top Google result. That's good! On the other hand, Google has culled the answer from your website in such a way that customers don't even need to visit anymore. Why click through if the Answer Box already gave them the information they wanted? 

So, is the Answer Box good or bad for business?

CX > Web Traffic  

Traditional SEO metrics are used to judge performance because they’re easy to obtain and understand. Take a number from today, compare it to one from a month ago, and it's simple to see how website changes impacted the number of visitors. But sometimes companies stop there, confusing the goal of driving traffic with creating business. Because, while site visits can lead to sales, they are not sales. 

What's needed instead is a paradigm shift from performance to experience.

In today's climate of constant noise and information clutter, it's more important than ever to produce stand-out CX. This goes beyond creating a product and getting it to consumers, and focuses on a holistic approach for cultivating the brand-consumer relationship. And it's that combination of thinking about SEO and CX that ultimately gets you into the Answer Box. 

An inherent part of CX is customer service. While this includes easy-to-locate contact numbers or instant chat, getting into the Answer Box is another extension of the same thought process. It's validation to consumers that the brand is the leading expert and offers trustworthy information.

Evolving strategies for evolving search  

As search engines continue to evolve, it's vital to worry less about traffic metrics than about owning your own brand. If a customer has a question about your product, you don't want a third party being where they're discovering answers. 

And by shifting your content approach from simply what-goes-where to gain SEO wins, to considering the entirety of the CX journey, your brand will weather the seismic shifts of the information landscape's continued evolution. 

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