Published on the 21/03/2019 | Written by Heather Wright

But A/NZ companies are not providing answers for Google’s answer engine…

Companies across A/NZ are missing a trick in not capitalising on a Google Search feature which could be used to up their profile and drive new business.

That’s the message from Fernando Angulo, head of international partnerships at marketing SaaS provider SEMrush, who says local companies could reap big returns from upping their digital marketing game – including using Google’s ‘People Also Ask’ feature to achieve better online visibility.

“People Also Ask is a great opportunity for every single company. No one is talking about it. It’s something really new and it’s very easy to be there,” Angulo says.

Google has for some time now displayed topics of related topics and search results in the “People Also Ask” box, something Angulo says brands can use to easily gain increased visibility.

It’s not a search engine anymore, it’s an answer engine.

While American companies have been optimising their content for the feature for several years, Australian and New Zealand companies have yet to embrace the option. Angulo says while 80 percent of one million keywords analysed by SEMrush contained PAA features, only 40 percent were being used by A/NZ companies.

He says ranking in the top few on Google searches should no longer be a priority for companies because featured snippets and the People Also Ask (PAA) box now dominate, with PAA results unlimited – when people click on the results more and more questions appear.

“That’s the new SEO right now, it’s the new search engine model,” Angulo says. “It’s not a search engine anymore, it’s an answer engine.

“If you are ranking in the first second or third place for a key word, say bicycle or how to buy wheels for a bike, your result won’t be shown anymore on the first page of google because you have featured snippets and the people ask box. So it’s not important to be in the first or second place on google, that doesn’t matter anymore.

He says while most SEO optimisation requires work across many areas, including having a well-structured domain and well-known profile, PAA doesn’t require the same work, opening the doors for smaller businesses to garner greater reach.

“With this kind of feature, Google is giving a lot of opportunities to anyone.

“When I arrived in Melbourne I asked Google if it was ok to drink tap water in Melbourne. My question was solved in just a couple of seconds. If any company can do that with their own content, with any single, general question – tap water, experience, dentist, whatever – they are going to gain that result very fast. Because there is not enough competition in the market yet.”

So how does a company format it’s content to get those featured snippets or PAA box results?

Angulo says the easiest method is to include site content with a header featuring one of the PAA questions, followed by a very short answer.

“The average amount of words we found in our survey was from 36 to 38 words – that was the average shown on the results.”

Angulo says SEMrush tests when it changed its own content into the PAA model, showed that Google results reflected the changes within hours.

“Immediately you make those changes, depending on the size of your website, Google is going to change it very fast.

“For us, SEMrush, we saw results in four hours. It’s very fast.”

He says as voice search through the likes of  Alexa and Siri, become increasingly popular, the PAA feature will also becoming increasingly important.

“Any kind of question you’re giving to those devices – smartphones, home devices – the first answer will be taken from featured snippets and then PAA. It is one question and one answer, nothing more. So if you are working with your content and want to be featured in devices, you need to be there,” he says.

“SEO is changing, because the way people are consuming content is different. We live in a mobile era and most of the content we consume is through mobile devices. This kind of content is beautiful for mobile devices.

“So your website needs to be mobile friendly and your content needs to varied. That’s the new SEO. Understand what your user’s needs are and transform that into beneficial content.”