Table of Contents
What Are Featured Snippets?
Featured Snippets are short snippets of text that appear at the top of Google ’ s search results in orderliness to promptly answer a searcher ’ second question. The contentedness that appears inside of a Featured Snippet is automatically pulled from web pages in Google ’ s index. Common types of Featured Snippets include definitions, tables, steps and lists .
Why Are Featured Snippets Important for SEO?
Featured Snippets affect SEO in two ways .
inaugural, Featured Snippets are an opportunity to get more clicks from the organic search results… without higher Google rankings.
In fact, many SEO experts refer to the Featured Snippet box as “ Position # 0 ” because it appears above the traditional # 1 spotlight .
According to Search Engine Land, a Featured Snippet gets approximately 8 % of all clicks .
then if you ’ re able to get your content in the Featured Snippet, you can give your organic click-through-rate a dangerous promote .
For case, we were recently able to rank in the Featured Snippet for this keyword :
According to the Google Search Console, our constituent CTR for that page is 13.7 % .
second, Featured Snippets increase the phone number of “ no-click searches ”. In other words, when a Google user doesn ’ deoxythymidine monophosphate click on any of the search results .
That ’ randomness because the Featured Snippet much gives person the answer they ’ re looking for .
therefore, before you decide on a specific keyword, it ’ s important to note whether or not the search results have a Featured Snippet. If then, according to an industry sketch by Ahrefs, you ’ ll get fewer clicks compared to SERPs without a Featured Snippet .
That ’ s not to say you should mechanically toss out a keyword if there ’ s a Featured Snippet. After all, SEMrush reports that 11.84 % of all queries have a Featured Snippet .
Which means that it ’ second going to be hard to completely avoid keywords with a Featured Snippet .
It ’ randomness more that, along with competition and monthly search volume, Featured Snippets should factor into your procedure for choosing keywords .
Types of Featured Snippets
There are 4 main types of Featured Snippets that appear most often in Google ’ s search results .
1. The Definition Box : This is a snip of text designed to give searchers a address, concise definition or description .
For example, when you search for “ rich snippets ”, there ’ s a definition corner at the top of the results .
definition boxes are normally used by Google to answer “ what is ” queries. here ’ s an example :
As you can see, the definitions that Google tends to use are short circuit and sweet. In fact, SEMrush found that the average definition Featured Snippet is between 40-60 words farseeing .
2. The table : This is where Google pulls data from a page and displays it as a mesa .
here ’ s an example :
3. The regulate tilt : This is a number of items presented in a specific regulate. Google tends to use Ordered Lists for queries that need a set of steps .
They besides use arrange lists for lists that rank things in a specific order, like this .
4. The disordered list : This is Google ’ mho way of presenting a list of items that don ’ t need to be in any especial order .
For model, our list of keyword research tools international relations and security network ’ thymine in regulate of best to worst. It ’ s just a list .
Which is why Google just presents each joyride that we list as a simpleton list, without any data that ranks them one way or the other .
How to Optimize For Featured Snippets
Find SERPs With a Featured Snippet
Your beginning step is to look for a search results page that already has a Featured Snippet .
( In early words, Featured Snippet opportunities ) .
That way, you KNOW that Google wants to show a Featured Snippet for that term. In fact, they already do !
besides, you can see what type of Featured Snippet Google wants to show for that term ( The Definition, Unordered List, and so forth ). Which makes optimizing your page for that specific type of Featured Snippet ace childlike .
For example, when you search for “ best glaze water system bottles ”, you can see that Google has an Unordered List Featured Snippet at the clear .
There are two ways to look for SERPs that have a Featured Snippet .
first, you can search for a bunch of keywords one-by-one. then if you have a number of electric potential keywords to target, you can search for each one and jot down whether or not the results for that condition have a Featured Snippet .
second, you can use a tool like SEMrush and Ahrefs to zero-in on keywords with a Featured Snippet .
For model, when you run an organic Keywords report on Backlinko using Ahrefs, you can filter out any keywords that don ’ t have a Featured Snippet already .
Optimize For That Specific Featured Snippet
adjacent, it ’ sulfur fourth dimension to optimize the content on your page so Google chooses to use your capacity in the Featured Snippet .
here ’ s how to optimize your content for the 4 most popular types of Featured Snippets .
The definition : You need to provide Google a short-change ( 40-60 password ) snip of text that they can directly use in the Featured Snippet. It besides helps if you have “ What is x ” directly above your definition .
here ’ s an case of this type of frame-up on one of our pages .
And because we ’ rhenium giving Google a word-for-word definition they can use, we got in the Featured Snippet spotlight within a few months .
HubSpot takes this a mistreat further. They actually design little boxes in their capacity that attend just like a Featured Snippet .
I don ’ thyroxine think you need to go this far. But it does go to show that format is KEY for getting your contented in the Featured Snippet. specifically, the closer your content looks like a Featured Snippet, the more likely it is that Google will use it .
The alone other thing to keep in mind is that you want your definition to be objective. In other words : preceptor ’ metric ton include an opinion on the topic either direction .
Remember : Google doesn ’ t want opinions showing up as definitions. so, even if you have a hard feel about the subject, do your best to write the definition without any emotion. In fact, you should write the definition like a dictionary entry .
For exercise, you can see that our definition for “ nofollow links ” sounds like it was pulled directly from Webster ’ s Dictionary .
The table : From my own analysis I ’ ve found that Google tends to get content for table Featured Snippets from tables .
In other words : they ’ ra not collecting data from respective parts of your page and presenting it in mesa form. rather, they ’ re basically scraping tables that already exist .
For exemplar, check out this table Featured Snippet.
well, when you look at the source of that subject, you can see that it ’ s literally the claim lapp postpone .
As another exercise, we recently compared the top 4 backlink check tools .
And one of the ways that we optimized for the Featured Snippet was to present a set of the data in the form of tables .
How you code these tables depends on how your web site is set up ( and whether or not you use WordPress ). But in cosmopolitan, a long as your HTML uses the
to present the data in a table, Google should have an slowly time “ reading ” your board .
The Ordered list : The key here is to lay out your page so that the specific steps or lists of items are presented in a direction that Google can well understand .
specifically, you want to wrap every item or gradation in H2 or H3 text. And stage each item as a subheader .
To make the order of your items or steps crystal clear to Google, you can even include text like “ Step # 1 ” or “ 1. ” in each subheading. here ’ s an case :
The most authoritative thing to keep in mind is that consistency is samara. thus if you present step # 1 as “ Step # 1 : Do X ”, don ’ t make your moment pace : “ step 2 : Do Y ” .
alternatively, show your steps like this :
dance step # 1, Step # 2, Step # 3…
Or like this :
1., 2., 3…
I personally prefer “ Step # 1 ” over “ 1. ” because it ’ mho easier for users to follow along. But Google can understand both .
For example, this post lays out a 9-step SEO scheme .
Each footprint in the summons uses the demand lapp format ( “ Step # 1 ”, “ Step # 2 ”, etc. ) .
We besides wrap each step in an H2 tag .
Optimize Your page Around respective Different Long Tail Terms
Ahrefs discovered that the huge majority of Featured Snippets show up when people search for long-tail keywords .
( retentive tail keywords=terms that people use in search engines that are ace hanker and super particular )
Queries that people use for voice research are perfect examples of this character of search .
here ’ s an example of a traditional search .
And here ’ s a colloquial, hanker fag end version of that lapp search question .
The takeout here is that you don ’ t just want to optimize your contented for Featured Snippet keywords that lots of people search for ( like “ what is SEO ” ) .
You ALSO want to optimize for Featured Snippets that show up when people search for variations and long dock versions of those terms .
For example, you can see that we added sections to this page that are designed to rank for a bunch of different long tail Featured Snippets .
It ’ second about like a miniskirt FAQ page .
so : how do you know what long stern keywords to target ?
I recommend checking out the “ People besides Ask boxes ” in the SERPs .
These are related questions that Google considers close related to the keyword you precisely searched for .
For exemplar, one keyword that we ’ re in the Featured Snippet point for is “ YouTube Description ” .
And that rank is a send result of optimizing our subject for the definition snip .
That said : there are lots of farseeing chase queries that we could answer on that same page. Queries that Google shows us right in the search results .
Speaking of scaling…
Scale Your Featured Snippet SEO Efforts
If your page ( and locate ) has authority, you can rank your unmarried page for dozens of Featured Snippets .
The key to scaling this up is to add lots of definitions, ordered lists and early formats that Google loves to put into Featured Snippets on your page .
For model, you can see that HubSpot has one “ main ” definition at the crown of most of their pages .
But they besides toss in respective questions and answers on a single page .
Improve Your Google Rankings
It ’ south one thing to optimize your content for Featured Snippets. But the truth is : if your page doesn ’ triiodothyronine already rank on Google ’ s inaugural page, your opportunity of getting in a Featured Snippet is practically zero .
In fact, according to the Ahrefs study I mentioned earlier, 99 % of all Featured Snippets are from pages that already ranked on page 1 .
This makes sense if you think about it : the first page is a list of Google ’ s best, most sure content about that topic. So they ’ re not about to pull information from a locate on foliate 11… even if it ’ randomness formatted perfectly .
therefore besides formatting your content the right way, you besides need to rank on page 1 to have a real shot of getting in the Featured Snippet box .
For example, this page from our site ranks “ # 0 ” as a Featured Snippet .
And we only got featured there after we cracked Google ’ s first page for that term .
Learn More
How to Optimize for Google ’ mho Featured Snippet Box : This video shows you how to increase the odds that you ’ ll rank in Google ’ randomness Featured Snippet section .
How To Be Featured On Top Of Google : An cheerful, in-depth tutorial on Google Featured Snippet optimization .
