Featured Snippets are unique search result boxes that show automatically extracted content from web pages and are displayed at the top of Google’s search results (position 0). The purpose of these highlighted passages is to quickly and pertinently respond to user inquiries. They are available in a variety of formats, such as lists, steps, tables, and definitions. Acquiring a featured snippet position can greatly boost a website’s organic traffic and visibility.
Why Do Featured Snippets Matter and How to Use Featured Snippets to Drive Traffic?
There are two ways that featured snippets affect SEO:
First of all, to understand how to use Featured Snippets to Drive Traffic, without improving your Google rankings, Featured Snippets offer a chance to increase clicks from organic search results.
Because the Featured Snippet box shows above the conventional #1 slot, many SEO professionals actually call it “Position #0.”
About 8% of all clicks go to a featured excerpt, according to Search Engine Land.
Therefore, you may significantly increase your organic click-through rate if you can get your material into the Featured Snippet.
Second, there are more “no-click searches” thanks to Featured Snippets. Stated differently, when a user of Google doesn’t click on any of the search results.
This is due to the fact that the Featured Snippet frequently provides the precise response that a user seeks.
Therefore, it’s crucial to check if the search results include a Featured Snippet before selecting a particular keyword. If so, compared to SERPs without a Featured Snippet, you will receive fewer clicks, per an Ahrefs industry study.
This is not to argue that if a featured excerpt is present, you should immediately remove a keyword. After all, according to Semrush, a Featured Snippet appears in 4.77% of all queries.
This implies that using a Featured Snippet to totally exclude keywords will be difficult.
It’s more important that you consider Featured Snippets when selecting keywords, in addition to competitiveness and monthly search traffic.
Methods for Featured Snippet Optimization
Find SERPs Using a Featured Snippet
Finding a search engine results page with an existing Featured Snippet is the first step.
(Alternatively, chances for Featured Snippets.)
In this manner, you are aware that Google intends to display a Featured Snippet for that particular phrase. Actually, they already do!
Additionally, you can see the kind of Featured Snippet Google intends to display for that phrase (e.g., Unordered List, The Definition). It makes it very easy to optimize your page for that particular kind of Featured Snippet.
You can search for SERPs with a Featured Snippet in two different methods.
You might start by conducting a one-by-one search for a number of keywords. You may therefore search for each of the possible keywords on your list and note whether or not the results for that query have a Featured Snippet.
Second, you can utilize a Featured Snippet to focus on keywords using a tool like Ahrefs or Semrush.
For instance, you may filter out any keywords that don’t already have a Featured Snippet when you use Semrush to perform an Organic Keywords analysis on Backlinko.
Make It Better For That Particular Featured Snippet
The next step is to optimize your page’s content so that Google selects it for the Featured Snippet.
Here’s how to make your material more suitable for the four most common kinds of featured excerpts.
The Meaning: You must give Google a brief text excerpt (40–60 words) that they can utilize right away in the Featured Snippet. Having “What is X” right above your definition is also beneficial.
The setup of your website (and whether or not you utilize WordPress) will determine how you code these tables. However, generally speaking, Google should have no trouble “reading” your table as long as you utilize the tag in your HTML to display the data in a table.
The List in Order: Here, it’s important to design your page such that Google can readily grasp the exact processes or lists of stuff.
In particular, you want to use H2 or H3 text to wrap each item or step. Additionally, display each item as a subheader.
The takeaway
The lesson here is that optimizing your content for Featured Snippet keywords that many people use (such as “what is SEO”) is not enough.
Additionally, you should optimize for Featured Snippets, which appear when users search for long tail and variant versions of those terms.
As an illustration, we have included parts on this page that are intended to rank for a variety of long tail Featured Snippets.
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