Google is continually rolling out featured snippets for a range of queries to offer searchers with answers quickly. And SEO gurus are going gaga over it. After all, another opportunity to prove their grounds and most importantly, a chance rank above the first result itself.
While the excitement is brimming up, let’s help you out with some proven tips and tricks to nail the art of making it to the featured snippets. Wanna know more? Let’s get started!!!
What are Featured Snippets?
Coming from the Horse's mouth, Featured Snippets are the Search Results that appear in a particular block located at the top of the page (Source: Google). They are nothing but the Summary of the Answer to the user's query and is extracted from one of the top ranking web pages. It includes a link to the page, the page title, as well as the URL.
It appears something as shown in the following image:
How Can You Increase Your Chances of Getting Ranked on Featured Snippets?
#1. High Ranking is the Key
Getting placed among the top pages of Google Search Results is a dream for most of the websites. What makes them invest in SEO, after all? Thus, the key here is to keep doing what you are doing already.
Ahrefs report suggests that over 31% of all the featured snippets are extracted from top ranking pages on Google. Additionally, 90% of the snippets are derived from the pages ruling the top 5 positions.
Thus, the first tip of the day is to work relentlessly to gain top position in Google SERPs.
#2. Stay Updated of Your Position with the Tools that Showcase Featured Snippet Information
SEO tools take your efforts a little ahead by giving you a comprehensive and clear view of where are you leading to with your SEO efforts. That’s what makes them land up to the systems of almost every SEO Guru and Digital Marketer.
Thus, it is vital to know if you hold the strength to gain that authority to appear in the featured snippets. With the help of top-notch keyword research tools, keep an eye on the keywords that trigger a featured snippet. This will help you to lay out a better strategy targeting specific keywords. On that note, some of the keywords have featured pop-ups enabled, while the majority of them, especially the shorter ones don't.
#3. Restructure the Old Content Keeping Featured Snippets in Mind
Once you have attained clear insight on what keywords to target, go back to the existing content on your website to check how it can be restructured to meet up the requirements.
You can recognize it as a great quick ranking strategy that also saves you ample of time to focus on other parameters. You don’t have to create tonnes of new content and promote the same to level up.
Another add-on here is to keep a check on the featured snippets that you have already won. It can help you multitude to know how other content can be structured to yield results.
#4. Content Structure is an Important Parameters
Snippets exist in various formats. They can be a paragraph, a list of items, or even a table. Thus, make sure to structure the content to match up with one of these formats to find a place among featured snippets.
Intelligent structuring is the key here. For example, if you are explaining how-to(s) like how to ensure great On-demand Music Streaming App Development, laying out in terms of step 1, step 2 and so will yield you better results. On the other hand, if you are comparing two things, structuring it in the form of a table is a more rewarding approach.
The aim is to help Google identify your content as the best source for receiving specific information.
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#5. Paragraphs of Not More than 40 to 50 Words
If the topic/ keyword you would like to rank on needs you to structure your content in paragraph form, the key is to limit it within 40 to 50 words, or at the most 300 characters. Google doesn't love snipping larger paragraphs and thus, something you should be avoiding. Make your paragraphs small and answer explicitly.
In case you need to elaborate on certain parts of the content, you can simply take up an approach that lays out answers in a paragraph immediately after the heading followed by an explanation.
#6. Focus on Long-Tail Keywords and Questions
SEMrush’s study claims that Questions are 480% more likely to have featured snippets as compared to other keywords like prepositions, comparisons, etc. On that note, it is also worth mentioning that it is 90% more likely for such keywords to have paragraph-style snippets. In continuation, the question words like who, what, where, etc. rank better for various types of the snippets.
Thus comes the six tip for ranking on the featured snippet. Focus your content on answering one of the most frequently asked questions. Incline your research to list out all the possible combinations of the long-tail keywords rather than the singular keywords.
Tip for Keyword Inspiration: Check out that “People also asked” section. Higher the number of questions that you can answer in single content, higher will be your chances of appearing in featured snippets.
#7. List-style Featured Snippets Should NOT Target More than Eight Items
Now that we have already talked about what great paragraph-styled snippet looks like, here's food for thought for the ones aiming list-styled featured snippets. The key is to ensure that the list takes up not more than 8 items. In case it does, Google ends up cutting down the rest of the items to "Read More." That would ultimately require the Searcher to click the down arrow to have a comprehensive view, which no one can guarantee.
In other words, if you keep adding more to the list, you only end up making it weaker overall, and that's definitely not a good sign.
#8. Use Right Size for the Images
Excellent images and high-quality content are like the yin to the yang. And it is something that you need to focus on whether you want to land up among the featured snippets or not. Benefiting your content with exceptional presentation, images are a great add-on when you want to deliver maximum with the minimum.
Talking in terms of featured snippets, Google’s algorithm suggests that it preferably goes for landscape images with an aspect ratio of 4:3.
#9. Snippable Content MUST Take Up Top Spot in Your Content
No, that does not guarantee you a position in featured snippets, but it definitely works wonders to augment user experience quotient when the user navigates to your page after clicking on the link in the snippet. You cannot ignore the fact that they have clicked it to find the answer to their query.
If the answer is placed in the middle somewhere, it is more likely for a user to leave the website before they even get down to the solution. Having said that, you don't want to end up showcasing yourself as illogical with the weird content flow.
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Signing Off
Featured snippets are gaining popularity among the Google SERPs, making users more used to these boxes containing answers. And the secret is, that’s what most of us visit even before hitting the first search result.
Winning featured snippets is more of a trial and error affair. If you are still not able to figure out how to get started, begin by having a view of the current position by auditing pages and keywords. This would lay perfect land for you to know the direction you can start proceeding in.
