As a digital marketing consultant, part of my job is to keep an eye on my clients’ search engine rankings and spot any changes that might help them rank higher.
I’ve noticed that over the years, Google has gradually added more information to the search results to help enhance the search experience. One of these welcome additions was the introduction of featured snippets which Google keeps refining and changing every so often.
What are Featured Snippets?
Well, when you search for something these days, Google usually pulls your answer from a website that they think contains the most relevant information. The answer is presented in the form of featured snippets and they often take up plenty of space often at the very top of a search results page. They are meant to give searchers concise, direct answers to their questions directly from the search page without them having to click to a specific result. The main difference between a featured snippet and an answer box is that the former cites websites while the latter doesn’t.
General Types of Featured Snippets
Generally, featured snippets come in 5 types:
- Paragraphs – About 50% of all featured snippets are paragraphs. These simply just have text, occasionally with pictures and then citations of websites.
- Lists – Lists can be in either bulleted or numerical format and 37% of featured snippets are in this format. Lists may also show pictures.
- Tables – Sometimes Google decides the best way to pass information is to use a table instead of paragraphs or lists.
- Videos – Other times Google decides the best answer to your query is found in a video. The interesting thing is that they’ll only show you a snippet of the video which they think is relevant to your query.
- Accordions –These are relatively new and are usually below the other kinds of featured snippets. If you click on them, they expand to show more featured snippets.
How to Rank in Features Snippets
Here are some handy tips to help you rank better on featured snippets:
- Do your research and know which featured snippet keywords give your site the highest ranking in the search page. There are many tools to help you do this.
- Also, do your research and learn your searcher’s intent. What kind of content do your searchers want to see and what type of content best conveys the information they’re looking for. For instance, your keyword might be “baking a cake” and you see that most results show up as pictures and videos. This means that you have to match your content to these results by making it in video format too.
- Provide concise, succinct answers and content. For featured snippets, Google loves short, precise and relevant information.
Reach out for more insights on how you can leverage featured snippets or other SEO techniques to give your business a boost.