Featured snippet optimization helps you to rank your website for queries that are answered by Google in an answer box.
Featured snippets are the most valuable piece of search result real estate that you can own.
A 2017 study showed that about 30% of 1.4 million queries showed featured snippets. Furthermore, another study done by Moz revealed that 23% of all search result pages include a featured snippet.
Featured snippets are also popularly referred to as position zero by SEO experts because it’s above the traditional #1 ranking.
Featured snippet optimization is crucial for your entire SEO strategy. You can gain 31% more traffic when you rank both on position one and position zero (the featured snippet).
Let’s discuss what are featured snippets and how you can find relevant opportunities to rank your website as a featured snippet.
What is a Featured Snippet?
So, let’s make a Google search with the query “how to start a business”
The box that you see containing a list of items is a featured snippet.
The idea behind it is that Google carefully curates a selection of text from a blog post that specifically answers a search query, crediting the site the snippet was pulled from.
The featured snippet is the first organic result that you come across on the SERPs, which automatically grabs the reader’s attention.
But don’t confuse snippets with:
Rich answers: These are answers provided by Google anonymously, they are usually definitions of general terms, facts, stats, etc for example.
Or the meaning of words
These answers are considered the property of the public domain and therefore don’t require accreditation to the site.
Why is Ranking on Google Featured Snippets Important?
Featured snippet optimization is absolutely necessary for your business because voice search is growing and longer conversational keywords often return a featured snippet.
Here are the reasons why ranking on featured snippets is important:
Reason#1: Higher Click Rates
Hub spot in-depth research revealed that their content got an average increase in CTR of over 114% when they started ranking on Google featured snippets.
So, when your content appears as a featured snippet, it boosts its level of Click through rates opportunity.
Another study of 2 million featured snippets done by Ahrefs revealed that 8.6% of all clicks go to the featured snippet on SERPs.
Since the first result a searcher will come across is the featured snippets, they are more likely to click on the link attached to it for more information.
More exposure means more clicks.
Reason#2: Voice Search Optimization
Voice search queries are rising in popularity. Statistics show that 41% of adults use voice search at least once per day. Therefore you will want your content to be relevant and optimized for those queries.
Since answers given to these queries are featured snippets, ranking for it will be a major win.
With more than 85% of Paragraph snippets result in voice answers, it’s obvious that voice searches mostly and often refer to featured snippets.
Reason#3: Brand Image Boost
When your content ranks on featured snippets, it establishes your niche authority and boosts the credibility of your brand.
Featured snippet optimization also helps to boost the overall SEO of your site.
Featured snippets insinuate “Google thinks I am the best out of the gazillion content out there”. Which is a pretty cool recommendation that gives your brand image a boost.
Because this sets you above the pack, and imprints the impression in the mind of your site visitors that your brand is highly resourceful.
Therefore, they can keep going back to your blog whenever they need related information.
Reason#4: SERPs Domination
When you make a google search, the featured snippets dominate the first part of SERPs which forces your attention on the link the snippets were pulled from.
Therefore, ranking on featured snippets boosts traffic to your website.
This is very valuable if your ranking is low, as you get to steal potential traffic from #1 organic result.
So, you don’t need higher google rankings to grab attention.
Note: Although most posts that get to position zero are already ranking on the first page, you still get a shot even if you don’t rank high. Because according to Getstat, 70% of snippets come from sites that aren’t in the top-ranking organic position.
Types of Featured Snippets
There are mainly four types of featured snippets:
- Paragraph
- Lists
- Table
- Videos
Let’s learn about each one of them in detail:
Paragraph Snippets
This usually involves providing a definition to a certain term, or a brief explanation for a search query. It usually features an image, not necessarily from the site though. It typically involves queries with “what” “when” and “why”.
Lists
This result gives answers in a list form, it can be numbered if it is in a particular order, for example, if the search query involves “how” or steps or bulleted if it is in no particular order, like types, top, and best of the search query.
Tables
This gives answers in a table form, like data, chart, prices, rates, analysis, etc.
Videos
These are videos from YouTube, Google provides video snippets if the search query needs a more illustrative answer. For example:
The best way to understand something as technical as soldering is through a video that best explains in comparison to a blog post.
Now that you know what Google featured snippets are, the importance and types, the next thing is to know how to rank for these featured snippets.
8 Hacks to Rank on Featured Snippets
Looking to boost your Featured Snippet Optimization with some cool hacks?
Below are 8 sure-fire hacks you can implement to rank on featured snippets.
Hack#1: Rank on Google’s First Page
It’s no rocket science that featured snippets are awarded to URLs that already rank on the first page of Google.
Now that’s the information you don’t want to overlook in your quest to rank on featured snippets.
The first thing is to work towards accelerating your current rank status, most featured snippets are from content that already appears on the first page of google.
Moreover, if your content already ranks on the first page or rank #1, your opportunities to appear on featured snippets are limitless. All you need to do is scale your rankings to attain position zero.
Format and structure your content (as mentioned in the next sections) to fit Google’s standard for featured snippets.
But, if your content is yet to rank on Google’s first SERPs, no worries here are a few tips to improve your rankings:
- Create high quality and valuable content: If all your content does is brush the surface of a topic, then what you are telling your readers is that your site can’t give them all the details and they should check other blogs. Instead enrich your content with visuals, details and all your readers need to know on the topic being addressed. Here is a copywriting guide that will help you to prepare great content.
- Your headlines should be irresistible: You have heard it countlessly and it’s becoming a cliche, but it’s the truth. Your headlines are the determinant of your content clicks and views. If your headlines are trash, regardless of how good your content is, no one will read it. Write your headlines like you are writing your sales page copy, it should be enticing and click-worthy.
- Reduce your bounce rate: If people don’t stay on your site long enough, it tells Google that your site visitors are not having a great experience, therefore your ranking dips. So, remove whatever might put off your site visitor.
Hack#2: Optimize Your Blog Posts
As mentioned earlier, there are 3 most popular types of featured snippets for blog posts, so optimize your content to capture those opportunities.
1. Definition: Provide a brief direct explanation of the topic addressed preferably in a 40-50 word range that is easily comprehensible. It should be straightforward and unassuming of any previous knowledge.
Here’s an example:
The answer to the query is simple and concise.
Here’s a bonus tip: Have a question tag or a descriptive subheading on the top of the answer, this way Google finds it easier to pull out snippets from your content.
For example, here’s a search result from a query “What is value chain analysis?”
When you click on the link, the answer is under a subheading titled “Definition”
2. Lists: If it is a list that is ordered, then it should be numbered or even better, labeled for easy reading and comprehension for both Google and humans.
For example, if you are writing a step by step guide, you should number it 1 or step 1 according to the process.
You should also maintain consistency all through the process, if you use 1, in the beginning, don’t continue with step 2 or vice versa.
Here’s a bonus tip: Make your list enormous as possible, this way it will be truncated, so that readers will be obligated to click on the link to get the full list. Thus, driving traffic to your site.
This featured snippet promises more, compared to the one below:
This featured snippet has already dished out all there is to the list, whilst the image above will prompt web visitors to click on the link to view more items.
Google usually truncates lists that are more than eight items, so try making your list longer than eight.
3. Tables: Use this snippet opportunity to clearly lay out the data in your content. Google doesn’t formulate the tables, most table snippets are from content with already created tables. Ensure to include your table tags <tr>.
So, if you are going for a table snippet, you want to make sure you actually create a table and not scatter your data around in a format that is confusing.
Here’s a table snippet:
When you click on the content, there’s an actual table in it:
Bonus Tip: Make your table rows longer than 4, so that Google will truncate it and drive traffic to your site.
Hack#3: Discover Snippet Opportunities
There are ways to find several snippet opportunities that you can plug into. What’s the best way to see what has worked? Going down the lane of history. Which brings us to our first tip.
Use Google to check out SERPs with featured snippets.
Pick up a potential keyword, what answers do you think people are searching for in regards to that term. For example, if my seed keyword is “Email Marketing”, people will likely be seeking the what, how, and why of email marketing.
Google Autocomplete suggestions
and “people also ask sections” will give you a myriad of content ideas that your competitors are ranking snippets for.
You can also check out below the page where related searches appear for more snippet discovery.
This way you know what the public wants to know about these keywords.
With your list of potential keywords, search each of them and take notes of those with a featured snippet and the type of featured snippet shown.
For example, I searched Email marketing strategy, this came up:
Hack#4: Research Keywords
Featured snippet optimization is incomplete without the selection of correct keywords.
Keyword research is the crux of SEO, and it’s no different when it comes to ranking for featured snippets.
Customize your keyword research to aid you in ranking for featured snippets.
There are a variety of tools like KWfinder, SEMrush, and Ahrefs to help you filter out keywords that have featured snippets.
Run keyword research on your domain and that of your competitors, to see which Keyword you are ranking feature snippets for.
Also, doing this Keyword research will help you see if there’s a keyword you are ranking high for that has a featured snippet.
To use SEMrush, simply go to your SEO toolkit
and click on your Organic research tool
type in the domain of your competitor
Scroll to the bottom left of the results page and click on SERP Features with “Featured snippets” in them.
This provides you with a list of all the keywords for which your competitor has ranked featured snippets.
So, you go ahead and create content based on those keywords and format it with hacks mentioned in this post.
With the featured snippet opportunities, you discovered as mentioned earlier, answer lots of the search queries presented to boost your chances.
Check your current organic positions with SEMrush, enter your domain then select two filters: Top ten keywords and features filter, then go ahead and select featured snippet it will now show you top ten rankings and those with a featured filter.
Research keywords that are familiarized with feature snippets, this will help you narrow down your keywords more effectively to the only target featured snippets.
You can take the help of tools like Serpstat, Authority Labs, SEMrush topic research to help you research keywords effectively.
When you have your list of potential keywords to target, head over to the SEMrush keyword magic tool.
and enter a seed word, I typed VPN services
then go to advanced filters and select featured snippets,
you get to see available featured snippets and opportunities to rank.
Here are some featured snippet keyword facts:
1. Keywords that are question-based are 480% more likely to have a featured snippet.
For example, “why” keyword questions almost always produce a paragraph featured snippet, and “how” keyword questions have a 52% chance of populating a list featured snippet.
2. It’s no wonder that the maximum number of featured snippets are triggered by long-tail keywords having a low search volume.
Note: A tool like Moz can help you determine the CTR percentage of keywords, this gives you the vivid image of the type of featured snippets you want to avoid.
Because some keyword featured snippets won’t lead to clicks, so beware of satisfying your audience on a snippet without leaving them tasty for more.
Hack#5: Target Optimal Word Counts
A study by SEMrush where they analyzed over 10 million keywords and 1 million domains, found out that most featured snippets have a length of 40-50 words.
This featured snippet is 47 words long. Here’s another that is 42 words long.
While Hubspot analysis suggested up to 58 words.
Sticking to these word counts boosts your opportunity to rank on featured snippets.
Bonus Tip: Adhere to the word count of the type of the header and intro of the featured snippet you are going for, for example: This is a list post, the intro’s word count is 11.
Hack#6: Format Your Content
Your content needs to be formatted and well structured for Google and humans to easily read your content. Formatting your content is one of the essential aspects of featured snippet optimization.
Write in sections, paragraphs, be sure to classify all parts of your articles, this way your content is organized and snipable.
It’s important to use headers to organize your content, use the h1- h6 tags to differentiate the headings and sections.
Using these tags will efficiently structure your content for Google:
- h1- is for blog post title,
- h2 for your subheadings
- h3- for headings under your subheadings and
- h4 for headings that fall under h3.
- <p> tag for paragraphs, which usually serve as answers to search queries.
- <tr> tag for your tables
- <l1></li> For lists
This is the language Google understands, therefore make sure your content speaks it. Your headings should be in line with the questions people ask.
Your answers should be direct and easy to understand. Your intro sentence should be direct and simple.
Bonus Tip: Include the summary of your content, (especially list) either at the beginning or end of your content with a descriptive heading.
For example: Here’s a list featured snippet
See how it was summarized at the beginning of the content:
This makes the content list easy for Google to pull and also gives readers the ability to navigate easily.
Hack#7: Answer FAQs
FAQ stands for frequently asked questions. People often ask questions related to your business.
You need to capitalize on such questions and make your site visible for such question queries for proper featured snippet optimization.
You can do these in two ways:
1. You can either have a section on your site, where you answer common questions your audience asks.
or
2. You answer multiple search queries related to the topic in a single blog post.
For example, if you are writing on Influencer marketing, one of the frequently asked questions is “How much do brands pay Influencers?”
That should also be a section in your content, don’t forget to put the question above the answer paragraph.
The “people also ask section” on SERPS which continues to expand when you click on a question will present so many questions you should answer in one blog post.
Hack#8: Employ the Use of Words That Generate Featured Snippets
Surprising! I know. There are words that if you include in your blog post will give the opportunities of a featured snippet and words that will lessen the likelihood of your chances. Probably, one of the best hacks for featured snippet optimization.
Well, STAT did a very interesting study that revealed:
- Common word themes that often generates snippets
- Word themes that generate less featured snippets
Word themes like Finance, Maths, and Time easily generate featured snippets.
The other type of word themes that often generates featured snippets was no shocker: Question-related queries like what, when, and how. Word themes like transition, requirements, and status are also a major part of the snippet generator.
While word themes involving local and geographical queries rarely generated featured snippets.
Finally, queries or keywords that are subjective with modifiers like reviews or best have low featured snippets occurrence rates.
Additionally, queries that are themed under Info/Help like in-depth tutorials, guides, and resources didn’t trigger featured snippets.
Extra Hack: Experiment with videos and images. There are also video snippets as illustrated earlier.
Even written content comes along with image snippets.
If you have a high-quality image that appears on the featured snippets, when a web visitor one clicks on that image, it automatically drives traffic to your site.
Landscape images with a 4:3 aspect ratio are Google preferences, plus you should add a descriptive alt text in your potential image.
In the same SEMrush study mentioned above, the top performers of featured snippets have around 12 images in their content.
For a chance to have your video featured, include a voice transcript which will boost the chances of Google recognizing the text and have it featured.
Conclusion
Featured snippet optimization is no doubt a wise and beneficial move. But it can be tricky sometimes with Google’s constant algorithm changes.
However, these hacks if implemented will significantly increase your traffic and boost your chance of appearing on featured snippets.
Begin by:
1. Working towards ranking on Google’s first page then
2. Optimizing your blog posts to target snippet opportunities
3. Discover Snippet Opportunities
4. Do a detailed Keyword Research
5. Format and structure your content
6. Target Optimal word count
7. Answer FAQs
8. Employ the use of words that generate feature snippets
And don’t forget to experiment with images and videos.
Finally, track your performance, use tools like SEMrush or Ahrefs to see the impact of your effort and any positive changes.
Also use Google Analytics to track the organic performance content, CTR, and other established KPIs.
Have fun experimenting with keywords in this process.
You can now get to the action with these hacks and have your content rank on featured snippets.
