What is a Featured Snippet?

A featured snippet is a section of specially selected information that appears at or near the top of a Google search results page. A snippet is a piece of text, an image, or a video from a website that immediately answers the search query. After being sent to the website, viewers can click on the featured snippet’s response to discover more.

Featured snippets are also mentioned in an article on Blog Post Formatting. Please have a look at it.

Why Do Featured Snippets Matter?

Featured snippets push your website to the top of the search engine results pages (SERPs), making it significantly more clickable on mobile and desktop. Their popularity on Google may be a sign of brand authority, which can help users see you positively.

According to SEMRush, highlighted snippets on mobile displays typically take up 50% or more of the screen. They also occur more frequently for long-tail keywords, which suggest precise intent at a given phase in the sales funnel.

Visitors who are more likely to become customers might be targeted by brands. They might be able to guide such a person towards conversion with the correct blend of helpful content, user experience, and calls-to-action, among other things. 

The Benefits of Featured Snippets

There are a few advantages to having highlighted snippets in addition to appearing at the top of SERPs:

• Audience behavior insights – show you what your visitors do when they arrive at your content to understand more about their goals;
• Higher brand authority – Google and readers are both likely to think your website has more relevant material produced by professionals;
•  A higher click-through rate (CTR) varies depending on the content of the featured snippets, but in general, having more eyes on your SERP entry can help your CTR.

Will featured snippets always increase traffic to the site?

Because your site would show twice in the search results — first in the featured snippet, then in the regular listings – the featured snippet was virtually always a traffic winner in the past.

However, Google updated its algorithm in January 2020, and information from the highlighted snippet no longer appears on page 1 of the results. This implies that if your site is in the first or second place in the search results, obtaining the highlighted snippet might cost you, visitors.

You must be careful about the highlighted snippets you target after the Google upgrade in 2020. Providing an answer to a query such as “how many inches are in a foot?” won’t bring you any traffic because the highlighted snippet provides all of the information the user requires.

Featured snippets that begin to address hard queries, such as “what is SEO?” might be targeted instead. When a user’s question can’t be answered completely in a highlighted snippet, they’re more inclined to visit your site for further information.”

If you’re in position 1 and are concerned about losing traffic, your web developers can add code to your site that opts you out of highlighted snippets.

How to have more of your website’s content highlighted in featured snippets

1. Find opportunities in your existing content

The majority of the time, Google pulls highlighted snippets from the top ten search results. If you already have material that ranks well, you can easily tweak it to target highlighted snippets.

You can check what phrases you’re ranking for in the top 10 search results if you use Google Search Console (which is free). Use Google to search for each term and check whether a highlighted snippet appears in the results.

Take note if a highlighted snippet appears but is from someone else’s site. Simply by improving your content, you may be able to compete and take the highlighted snippet.

2. Keep your answers short

Most paragraph-style highlighted excerpts are between 50 and 60 words long. So, if you’re utilizing the question-and-answer structure, aim to confine your first responses to about that length. If you need to go into further detail on the answer, do so in a separate paragraph or as part of a different question.

Because most replies cited by Google Assistant are 30 words in length, keeping your answers brief can also help you target voice search questions.

3. Target featured snippets in your new content

It’s probably not worth it to create fresh content just to be included in a snippet. If you’re currently publishing material, though, you may improve your results by focusing on highlighted snippets.

Use a keyword research tool to acquire ideas for search queries and relevant keywords to incorporate when developing fresh content. Some tools, such as Moz and Ahrefs, will show you which search queries are currently producing highlighted snippets.

4. Include the search query within your answer

We don’t know how Google’s algorithm works, but we do know that it seeks content that is highly relevant to search queries. Incorporating the search keyword and associated words into your response signals to Google that the material is more relevant, increasing your chances of winning the featured snippet.

Take note of how the highlighted snippet’s strong phrases all connect to the title.

How can you encourage more visitors to visit your website by clicking on your highlighted snippet? People won’t always go through to learn more because featured snippets are designed to provide quick and easy answers.

5. Leverage YouTube

Many businesses use Google Snippets to target content, but they’re overlooking another opportunity: video. The need for video is quickly increasing, making it an important sector to concentrate on. Furthermore, video viewers are highly engaged, with 65 percent watching more than three-quarters of a video. In fact, 59 percent of executives think that if a topic has both text and video, they are more inclined to choose the video. Here are some suggestions for getting your content noticed. 

–  Title of the video: Give the video the same name as the question you’re attempting to rate.

–  Create a voice transcript: Because Google seems to grab text straight from this audio transcript, your chances of ranking may suffer if you don’t include it.

– Create high-quality content: Make sure the video content completely covers the solution to the query, just like the text, so people don’t press “back” when watching.

Take use of video and include the following strategies into your content and Search Engine Optimization Strategy. By doing so, you’ll be able to tap into a side of Google Snippets that few marketers are making use of.

6. Add a Q&A page to your website

Site owners that sell items or services will benefit from Q&A sections. By responding to issues on these pages, you display your knowledge. Most importantly, they provide you with more chances to appear in a clip. Show the information that most people in your niche want to know when creating a Q&A page. Provide full replies in brief paragraphs that are simple to understand.

Is it useful to try to optimize for featured snippets on Google?

It’s not easy to optimize for Google highlighted snippets. It necessitates a great deal of effort, which includes:

– Following SEO best practices.

–  Creating lengthier material and appropriately arranging it.

–   Creating high-resolution photos and re-uploading them on a regular basis. 

If you do all of the above, you’ll not only improve your chances of being included in a featured snippet, but you’ll also improve your chances of ranking higher organically.

Conclusion

Although earning featured snippets may appear to be a lot of work, keep in mind that if you’re currently producing material, you’re almost halfway there. A few easy changes, such as employing header tags and producing ‘how-to guides, will help you win them. The most crucial aspect of it all, though, is that you provide meaningful, in-depth material. Almost all featured snippets come from the top search results, so creating quality content and increasing your site’s authority will pay off in the long run.

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