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Everyone is looking to gain more attention from search engines like Google. Featured snippets may be the way you can get great volumes of traffic without being ranked #1.
To make data reachable, coveniable and enhance the user experience, Google recreates its own SERP and continues to do so quicker than digital marketers and website owners can catch onto the trend.
As such, the only way to catch on to the trend is to understand how you can leverage features snippets to outflank more established competition, including Google, for keywords on the site and customers for years to come. And here’s how:
What are Featured Snippets anyway?
There are numerous featured snippets formats, all showing up at the top of the search results, making them a highly desired search engine result for savvy businesses. These bits of text at the top of many informational searches in Google can drive a ton of attention towards your website and can be an invaluable tool for marketers.
Featured snippets are the direct answer you get to your question that appears in a formatted little box above the organic search results. The featured snippet must contain a summary of the answer that a user has searched for, a link to the page, and the page URL and title. The interesting thing about them is that one doesn’t necessarily need to reach a top-ranking position on Google to appear in the snippet box and have a very high click-through rate, which can result in a session increase of up to 516%, according to a study.
Google’s search engine identifies a user’s query and then finds the pages that best answer the query. However, there is no secret trick or way to pledge that your website will show up in the snippet area, although it would be great.
Like SEO, using featured snippets to reach higher SERPS ranks means you’re optimizing your page (or making it as user-friendly as possible) for search engines and Google to acknowledge that the information on that page will be the most useful for this equation and also has a summary that google can attach to that feature box nicely. There are no ads for the question; the Featured Snippet shown in the answer box is above position 1 of the SERPs. The directions are shown in a few steps before the user has to tap a single link.
Types of Featured Snippets:
- List
- Paragraph
- Video
- Accordion
- Tool or Calculator
- Rich answer
Why Should I Care About Featured Snippets?
Most inexperienced beliefs assume that features snippets would negatively impact those who actually click through the pages within the result. This actually isn’t the case. In fact, featured snippets have considerably increased the click-through rate of the results ranking within it.
By and large, you get much more click through to your content when you appear in the featured snippet, but this becomes highly important as the search volume for a query surge.
For high traffic keywords, showing up in the featured snippets means an average increase in CTR, and that’s even if you’re ranking #1 on the first page.
Now that you know why to know that featured snippets implementation is a valuable SEO strategy, there are a few things that you should consider as you attempt to conquer your own placements.
Rank for Featured Snippets: Best Practices
According to a study on rich answers, featured snippets analyze over 100 000 examples and 850 000 search questions. The study shows that Google offers some form of a rich answer, almost 20% of the time.
How to make your snippets digestible for Google?
- Start with Looking at Your Ranked Content
Google looks for websites that rank higher in the SERPs to give that featured snippet placement. Still, by using the right website rank checker and an SEO tool of choice, you can find out which pages of yours either rank in the top 10 or could rank in the 10 if you improve them. Depending on what tools you use, find which of your website pages rank in the top 10.
- Start with Keyword Research
Want to make some content and reach the top 10 rankings? Then you should start with some keyword research and find the questions that your audience is asking. Research forums, or gauge from your own experiences, and determine some basic questions that people search. Once you’ve found your questions and keywords in hand, write convincing content that gives the best answer and enough information to the user. Then use the following steps to develop your content to help you create the featured snippets while keeping in mind your regular best SEO practices.
- Give a direct answer and optimize it according to the format.
Make sure you include a direct answer beneath the heading tag in a single paragraph – and be direct. Keep the answer near the top of the page to show its importance. The answer shouldn’t exceed 40 -50 words long. It should be clear, descriptive, and answer the query in a way that makes some logical sense.
Keep the language simple: sentences should avoid passive voice and should not be too long. If an answer is a bit more difficult, try to break the answer into readable steps in a numbered or bulleted list format.
To check the readability of your content, try stepping back, looking at it and asking yourself: would users who are not in the industry be able to read this and understand it? Am I using lingo and jargon that is confusing? Put yourself in the user’s shoes and view things from their perspective.
The clearer the message, the higher the ranking. Make sure your message comes smoothly, and always have a useful picture with your snippet list, paragraph, or table. Google is now showing snippets with their image, and if you don’t have a proper picture, Google might show one from another website.
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