Google is evolving its search engine results page with new features and characteristics. These functionalities assist content creators and webpreneurs in growing their businesses online, attracting potential clients, and outshining competitors.
One such add-on is the featured snippet. Besides being a crucial aid to professionals in the digital domain, featured snippets make it easier to meet user search intent with crisp answers.
Content marketers and analysts strive to model and tailor their content and websites for the featured snippet position to survive in this cutthroat digital domain. Some even take professional help from agencies like Authority Magnet to quicken the featured snippet acquisition process and achieve top positions on SERPs.
What Are Featured Snippets?
When a user searches for a specific topic, the search engine returns a text box, answering the immediate query of the user. For example, if you enter the search query, ‘How to make a DIY birthday card,’ you’ll receive a procedural list or DIY video depicting the step-by-step process of making a birthday card.
Once you enter the search query, Google analyzes your request and inputted keywords, scrapes the web, finds best-suited content excerpts, and provides an improved user experience.
This quick-response text box is called a featured snippet.
In other words, snippets that appear at Position 0 or before the SERP results, offering prompt answers to a searcher’s informational or long-form queries, are known as featured snippets.
Users may find them in texts, tables, lists, and video content formats.
According to Google, “Featured snippets are special boxes where the format of a regular search result is reversed, showing the descriptive snippet first. They can also appear within a related questions group (also known as “People Also Ask”).”
But why would you want your content to rank in Position 0 on the search results page?
Notice how the featured snippets contain links to the websites where Google has pulled out the text extracts.
Users generally flock to that web page if the content serves the user’s intent and possesses linking profiles or suffices other Google ranking factors.
Besides increased organic traffic, featured snippets are highly effective for local business profiles with a specific target audience.
Note: Whether optimizing yourself or taking expert help from agencies like Authority Magnet, remember the tricks and trips in implementing local SEO parameters that escalate your digital business growth.
Different Types of Featured Snippets
Featured snippets don’t have one singular framework that fits all content format types. Search engines like Google offer varied snippet kinds for specific information types.
Identifying the searcher’s content needs and which snippet type suits your format increases your chances of being a part of the featured snippet bandwagon. There are four main types of featured snippets that searchers often find in Google:
1. Definition Box
It’s a featured snippet type providing direct, concise, and descriptive definitions to online searchers.
Note: Definition boxes appear when users look for straightforward queries like word meanings. Similarly, paragraph boxes emerge when users seek additional information.
For example, enter ‘photosynthesis’, and obtain a definition box that explains the process in just 40-60 words. Remember that Google prefers snippets short in length.
2. Table
When a searcher looks for data-oriented results, Google generally pulls the tabular representation of data and features them as a snippet. For instance, Google will provide a table of numbers if the user asks for standard trouser sizes categorized per country.
Tables present compared values or statistical figures between two components and more. Search engines return such tables because of queries like ‘top-earning tech companies between 2015 to 2022’.
3. Ordered List
Such featured snippet types generally demonstrate procedures or anything that requires following instructions or steps. Web admins use them to showcase important features of objects, identify products, and explain the process of constructing or making objects.
If the searcher asks for ‘how to set up a blog’, Google will return an ordered list explaining the pathway to publishing or writing a blog.
In another instance, search engines use ordered lists to rank objects according to specific parameters. For example, ‘best books to read’ will show a list of books according to readers’ reviews.
4. Unordered List
Such a snippet type doesn’t follow any specific order, chronology, or parameter. It’s a simple listicle that shows no additional information.
It could be ’10 Domain Authority Checkers’ or ‘5 Female Cricketers from the National Team’.
5. Videos
Besides Google’s written content, YouTube’s visual assets often appear as featured snippets and are one of the most popular snippet types. Utilize this opportunity to create visual content on trending topics.
If the video serves the purpose of the query and has the right search intent, the search engine will rank it higher and present it as a featured snippet.
In most DIY search queries, videos appear as the possible featured result.
How Are Featured Snippets Important?
A featured snippet box is here to simplify a user’s research journey with prompt answers. You no longer have to visit numerous web pages to find an exact answer.
In a nutshell, a searcher can scan through the snippet box to procure a basic answer without browsing other websites.
As a result, the featured snippet spot is one of the most coveted positions.
Why?
That’s because it has all the readers’ attention, and the chances are high that the user will visit that web page.
Some of the crucial benefits of featured snippets are:
1. Boosts Click-Through Rate (CTR)
One of the reasons digital marketers aim for a featured snippet spot is the opportunity to receive more organic clicks through unpaid search results. As per Search Engine Land’s studies, a featured snippet above the 1st ranking article gets 8% of all clicks.
Thus, when you acquire Position 0, your SEO metrics improve with the surging CTR.
2. Enhances No-Click Searches
Often searchers don’t click on any website because the featured snippet already supplies them with the exact response. Check whether SERPs have featured snippets before curating content on a specific keyword.
In other words, if your target keyword has a featured snippet, you’ll receive fewer CTRs than keywords lacking snippet boxes.
3. Improves Your Domain Credibility
Featured snippets make your web page appear credible before the audience. They’ll likely return to the website and consider your content the most reliable online information source.
4. Presents Your Content as Organized
It enables content creators to evaluate their articles. When Google selects an excerpt from your web page, it shows your potential audience values your content creation.
5. Helps Virtual Assistants
Often featured snippets help virtual assistants to return results as voice searches. Moreover, almost 58% of internet searchers use voice searches to look for answers.
How to Optimize Your Websites For Featured Snippets?
Web admins can improve their holistic SEO performances with featured snippets. Here are a few ways you can optimize your website for featured snippets:
1. Look For Featured Snippets Opportunities
Scan through the SERP and understand what Google prioritizes in a webpage to select it as a featured snippet. For that, pick a target keyword that has a featured snippet and observe how the snippet content delivers the result.
This procedure makes understanding the snippet concept and optimizing the content simple. There are two ways to conduct this keyword study:
- Manual Searching: You can check each keyword individually. Then create a record of phrases or words that have featured snippets.
- Search with Tools: Save your efforts and use online tools like SEMRush and AHREFS to trace keywords with potential snippets. They help you procure lists with keywords that lack featured snippets.
2. Optimize Your Content
Formatting is an essential aspect of getting accepted as featured content. Therefore, the next step involves optimizing and drafting content in ways that impress Google to select it for Position 0.
Popular content types are:
- Definition: Draft your content in short paragraphs within the 40-60 word limit. SEO experts often suggest not to include any opinions in your definitions.
Definition boxes give word-for-word descriptions, almost like a dictionary entry. This helps if the content bears a ‘What is..’ subtitle.
- Tables: The table is one of the popular snippet types when a user looks for comparisons or numerical data about specific objects. According to Backlinko, Google doesn’t formulate a table by scraping data from all parts of your article. Instead, it presents the table that already exists.
In other words, embed tables in your content to deliver precise data representation.
- Ordered List: Lay out your content headings and subheadings so that Google crawlers can understand them through NLP (natural language processing). To do that, include all the H2 and H3 as clickable items.
Note: You can insert “Step: 1” for the H3s but ensure you maintain consistency.
3. Research Long-Tailed Keywords
Ahrefs has found that featured snippets appear most when searchers enter long-tailed keywords.
To be precise, these keywords are super specific in their search query resolution. Moreover, searchers often use long-tail keywords for voice searches.
Therefore, a content analyst doesn’t just include single or double-term keywords. They optimize their content by considering long-tail keywords that resonate with niche and topically-relevant lingo.
Refer to the People Also Ask search boxes to understand and identify the relevant long-tail keywords that searchers may often ask.
In addition, SEO analysts refer to the queries that Google shows in the search results. These phrases and words act as LSI keywords and increase your chances of featuring in the SERP snippet box.
4. Enhance Your On-Page SEO Efforts
A well-ranking web page with high domain authority has all the chances of getting accepted as the featured snippet. Enhance your SEO efforts by adding several definitions, bullet lists, tables, and videos.
In brief, embed all the necessary features that Google prioritizes in selecting extracts for the snippet box.
5. Scale Your Google Ranking Positions
Remember, Google pulls information and data from those websites that rank higher on the SERP. On the same note, if the website doesn’t appear on the 1st page of SERP, you don’t stand a chance of gaining Position 0.
Therefore, besides formatting content, pay attention to on-page and off-SEO arrangements. From creating navigable site architecture and increasing the page loading speed to making your website responsive to various other devices, websites admin can gradually climb SERPs.
Frequently Asked Questions
Some of the common questions that web hosts often ask about featured snippets are:
A featured snippet is a descriptive and small excerpt of the content at the top of the search engine results pages. Such snippets offer quick responses to the user’s search query.
A featured snippet is around 40-45 words and does not contain long sentences.
With featured snippets, you attract numerous visitors to your website, and Google favors your content over others. Moreover, an eye-catching featured snippet has a higher click-through rate, leading to greater prospect-to-customer conversions.
No, Google’s featured snippets aren’t paid for. These snippets don’t fall under the sponsored ads category, and Google chooses the most relevant text excerpts per the searcher’s query.
Snippet content is the keyword that matches the searcher’s query and offers convenient search results.
According to Ahref’s studies, 99% of all featured snippets already rank on the first page of SERP. Therefore, if your page isn’t positioned on the first results page, the probability of acquiring a featured snippet is near zero.
Featured snippets provide the fastest response to a searcher’s query, enabling them not to keep surfing the internet to meet their search intent. It serves the user a better experience and a prompt answer that saves time.
Most often, featured snippets include paragraphs, tables, ordered lists, images, and videos.
While a rich snippet is the enhanced organic search results, a featured snippet is the fastest response a user gets for their search query, and it tops the SERP.
A rich snippet is the additional information of a webpage. The meta description might not have the information, but the source code stores it.
Verdict
Google’s variegated features and functionalities can be exhausting to emulate. But featured snippets are here to dominate the ranking page of a search engine.
With a host of benefits, these snippet boxes supplement content marketers and web admins who are struggling to acquire that coveted position.
Why?
That’s because featured snippets are on the rise, and earning that Position 0 is the highest rank you can attain without paid advertising.
Therefore, strategize your content formatting and website modification so that your business growth soars high and competitors stay at bay. However, website optimization can be tricky and challenging for an individual.
Contact trustworthy and seasoned SEO agencies like Authority Magnet. Their expert analysts use their niche experience and knowledge to create a domain that attracts multiple footfalls and shows a steady conversion rate.
