Introduction: What Are Featured Snippets?
If there’s one thing that has helped Google to retain its position as the #1 search engine over the decades, it is its ability to constantly improve the search experience of its users.
Launched in 2014, Google’s ‘Featured Snippet’ algorithm has a boon for users and brands alike as it directly pinpoints users to the best answer matching their query. This answer is usually a paragraph, table, list, or video that is selected by Google’s Featured Snippet algorithm from the top 10 links that made it to the first page of SERP (Search Engine Results Page). It is highlighted separately in a box and is placed at the top of the SERP.
Tip: If there are any relevant ads for that search query, then it is placed above the Featured Snippet. ‘People Also Ask’ (a Google Rich Snippet Feature) and organic results for the search query are placed below the Featured Snippet.
The following is an example of Google’s Featured Snippet:
As a leading SEO Agency in New York, here, we would like to share with you tips, tools, and strategies to make the most of Google’s Featured Snippets.
What Are the Different Types of Featured Snippets?
There are four different kinds of Featured Snippets that are displayed by Google on the SERP.
1. Paragraph: These are short, paragraph-based answers that are usually based on questions that start with ‘What’ or ‘Why’. Around 70% of Google Featured Snippets belong to the ‘Paragraph’ category, with an average of around 42 words (or 250 characters).
The screenshot in the previous section on the query “what is a meta description” is an example of a paragraph-based Featured Snippet.
2. Table: Tables are ideal for comparisons (e.g. product rankings, queries that involve identifiers like “top 3”, “best”, “worst”), conversions (e.g. “1 USD = how much in INR?”), as well as prices, rates, and so on.
Around 6.3% of Featured Snippets are of the Table type. They have an average of 5 rows and 2 columns.
3. Lists: List-based articles or listicles are perfect for queries whose answers come in the form of ordered or unordered lists. E.g. “Top 10 ways to lose weight quickly” or “Best SEO practices of tech startups”.
On average, 19% of Featured Snippets are of Listicle type.
4. Videos: Video snippets are ideal for ‘how-to’ queries posted on google. E.g. “How to bake an eggless chocolate cake at home”. Only 4.6% of featured snippets are of the video type, the average one being 6 minutes and 35 seconds in length.
How Can Featured Snippets Help Your Brand?
1. Increased Digital Exposure: Being featured in Featured Snippets means that your content and brand name pop up right there at the top of the SERP when a user keys in a query into Google.
Your content is highlighted by Google, which means that it is not lost among the other search results. Besides, if your content gets picked up as the Featured Snippet for multiple search queries related to a topic or field – bingo!
Our SEO experts at Agency Couch – the leading SEO Agency in New York – vouch for the fact that multiple selections of your content in Featured Snippets will help you to unlock exponentially increased digital exposure for your brand.
2. Content Stickiness: Google does not change its selection of Featured Snippets every other day. Once your content gets picked up by Google’s algorithm as a Featured Snippet, you can bet on it to remain there for quite a while – unless you give Google a reason to take down your content (like failing to update your content when required). This underlying content stickiness is great for brands who are looking for a positive ROI from their content.
3. Trust and Credibility: People use Google because they trust it. The fact that Google has a selected your content for Featured Snippets builds trust, confidence, and positivity among users about your content. Obviously, that’s not enough in the long run. As the leading Digital Marketing Agency in New York, we can tell you that you will have to live up to it by ensuring consistent quality for the rest of your content.
But on the whole, Google’s Featured Snippet is great to build content credibility of your brand among your target audience.
4. Boost in Rankings: According to the “Ahrefs’ Study Of 2 Million Featured Snippets”, nearly 30% of clicks of the #1 ranking page can be “stolen” by the featured snippet.
What does this mean?
This means that 30% of the users who were supposed to click on the top-ranking organic search result won’t do so (because they already got the answer in Featured Snippets). You can use this to your advantage. Even if your website is not in a position to beat your competitors in the overall ranking yet, you can easily beat them with respect to a specific search keyword by getting featured in Featured Snippets.
How to Optimize Your Content Strategy Make the Most of Featured Snippets
#1 No Separate Strategy Required
Take it from us – the leading SEO Agency in New York – there is no need for a separate content strategy to attain success with Featured Snippets. Take a look at the following tweet by Danny Sullivan, Google’s Public Liaison of Search, posted in 2020.
With this tweet, Sullivan has made two things clear: 1) Featured Snippets result is not repeated in the organic results. 2) If a website hopes to make the most of Featured Snippets, they have to fare excellently in organic rankings consistently. Therefore, ranking well and being featured as Featured Snippets are correlated, and not mutually exclusive. Hence, a separate content strategy is essentially pointless.
Having said that, there are ways in which your current content strategy can be better optimized for Features Snippets, as discussed below.
#2 Good Keyword Research is Key
1. Target the Right Keywords: You can (and should) create a separate keyword list that you would like to target for Featured Snippets.
Ideally, these should be search strings with a lower keyword difficulty index, phrased as question keywords, contain at least one long-tail keyword, and should be the ones that are yet to be tapped by your competitors.
Tip: Similarly, if the query that you are targeting has already been answered by Wikipedia, you are less likely to succeed in replacing it in the Featured Snippet.
2. Use the Right SEO Tools: How do leading SEO agencies in New York come up with keywords that bring results?
One of the most reliable ways to generate the right keyword pool is to take a deep dive into a good SEO tool like SEMRush or Moz. Study the keywords that the tool is throwing at you while focusing on parameters like search volumes, competitive index, and keyword difficulty in order to make the right choices.
3. Monitor the Other Elements of SERP: Other elements of the Google SERP like ‘People Also Ask’ and ‘Also Found on This Page’ are also great hotspots for keyword generation. This is especially true with respect to targeting Featured Snippets since all the elements on the SERP are a part of Google’s parent search algorithm.
4. Keep an Eye Out for Social Media: Whether it is LinkedIn, Twitter, or question-based platforms like Quora – your audience’s content needs can be mined best from social media. Social media listening is now considered an important aspect of SEO research, and it is no different when it comes to Featured Snippets.
Tip: Anticipate your audience’s questions and answer them promptly to stay ahead of the curve.
#3 Content Quality is Paramount
1. Match the User’s Search Intent: We can’t stress this enough – poor content is simply not going to get you anywhere. No matter how much you invest in keyword research, if you are not matching the user’s search intent, Google will toss you aside.
Tip: Give the user the exact information that they are looking for without fooling around – that’s the first rule of content quality.
2. Opt for Long-form Content: User intent is the precise reason why long-form content is in vogue. However, it is not enough to write lengthy posts. Do justice to the topic by exploring all the relevant aspects in-depth, structure it well (more on Content Structure in the next section), and create actual value with your content instead of writing fluff. Allow Google to trust you enough to pick up your content for Featured Snippets.
3. Maintain Content Hygiene: Typos, grammatical errors, long, winding sentences, confusing phrasing, missing punctuation marks – these constitute a strict no-no for Google. Improve your chances of making it to Featured Snippets by writing crisp, meaningful sentences and building a good flow. Take proofreading seriously – it will save your face from Google and audiences alike.
4. Update Frequently: Google is all about sharing the most recent and relevant information with its users. As the leading SEO agency in New York, here are our two cents: update your content on a regular basis.
Tip: You should also check if the content you are creating tends to change frequently with time. For e.g. the answer to the following query: “Who’s is the current #1 player in the world in Men’s Tennis?” – is likely to change frequently.
#4 It’s Not Enough to Get Featured
1. Get Your Branding Right: When you are creating content that is likely to get picked up for Google’s Featured Snippets, get creative by inserting your brand name somewhere in the answer. Remember – getting featured is not enough. It has to translate into visibility and traffic for your website.
SEO experts at leading Digital Marketing Agencies in New York will all tell you the same thing: brand exposure does not come easy. You have to work hard to make your brand name visible whenever the opportunity arises.
E.g. let’s take a look at the following screenshot:
While the Featured Snippet came from Data Science PM, their brand name is not really visible anywhere except in the URL. Instead, brand names like Gartner and VentureBeat are hogging the user’s attention.
Tip: Adding the brand name to the content or the webpage header would have done the trick here.
2. Don’t Lose Sight of the CTR: Featured Snippets can be made more interesting such that users feel compelled to visit your website to read more. This in turn will positively affect your click-through rate or CTR. Watch out for the CTR when you are creating content since the boost in your website traffic will come from this.
How to Optimize Your Content Structure for Featured Snippets
#1 Target the Right Featured Snippet Format
When creating content, make sure that you are targeting the right Featured Snippet format – whether it is the paragraph, table, list, or video. This will help you to tailor your content structure accordingly to make it more appealing to the audience as well as Google.
#2 Adopt a Layered Structure to Help Google Understand Your Content Better
Classify your content into categories, tags, topics, and sub-topics.
- The categories and tags will become a part of your website’s navigation.
- The topics will translate into blog titles.
- The sub-topics will become the sub-headings within the article.
Next, make sure that you ask the question in your article and immediately follow the question with the answer. This is the content that you will be targeting for Featured Snippets.
Cover the topic in-depth and elaborate on the answer to the question further in the article, if possible.
Tip: Add branded images where necessary (and possible) to improve your chances.
#3 Follow Other SEO Best Practices for Content Structure
As an experienced SEO agency in New York, here’s what we recommend – get your SEO basics right before anything.
This includes:
- using SEO-friendly options like Schema markup tags
- perfecting the URL structure
- creating a catchy and keyword-rich Title Tag
- inserting relevant meta descriptions
- hitting the right keyword mix and density
- Improving the page load time
- using question keywords in the headings/sub-headings.
Tip: For image searches, add proper alternative descriptions and captions.
Make sure that internal and external links within the content are well referenced with citations, where applicable. Lastly, investing in link-building will also boost your website’s ability to get chosen for Featured Snippets.
Conclusion: Keep Experimenting Till You Hit the Jackpot
While you must steer clear of the obvious red flags (using obscenity, wrong facts, or derogatory content, for example), you can generally experiment with your content to see what works. Since SEO is not an exact science, you will either have to go through the long and tenuous process of hit and trial by yourself or bank upon the expertise of leading Digital Marketing Agencies in New York like Agency Couch.
Over the last few years, we have successfully helped agencies manage their SEO and Digital Marketing projects better by offering hands-on expertise to their clients. To get started with our world-class Digital Marketing and SEO services, get in touch with us at getintouch@agencycouch.com.
