What is Google’s Featured Snippet? How to Optimize for Google’s Featured Snippets?

The most important thing here is to lay out your page so that certain steps or lists of items are presented in a manner that Google can understand easily.

Particularly, you need to cover every item or step in H2 or H3 text. And present every item as a subheader. This can be done when worthwhile SEO audit checklist is performed.

You should use headings for section titles.

To make the order of your items or steps neat, you can include text like “step 1 or 1” in every subheading. Here is an example:

One of the most essential things that you need to keep in mind is that consistency is very important. Therefore, if your present step 1 as “Step 1: Do A”, don’t make your second step: “Step 2: Do B”.

Rather, choose to present your steps like this:

Step #1, Step #2, Step #3…

Or like this:

1., 2., 3…

It is suggested to prefer “Step 1” or “1” because it is convenient for users to get along. But Google can understand both.

5. Be factual and organize well

Google prefers to see steps, numbers, and lists in the content. Most often than not, answer boxes mention the actual ingredients, time to cook, number of steps, year and city of birth, and so on. This is one of the real reasons for hiring an SEO company because they are well aware of the type of content, Google prefers.

In the paragraph where you are introducing the answer to the question, ensure to list useful numbers and names. Try to be factual.

A study showed that comparison charts and lists are a convenient way to get featured because Google prefer structured content. In fact, if the content is effective and informative, Google would pick up a table from another site if that other site has a table:

Image name: Starbucks pricing table from a different website.

This shows how much Google prefers well-structured, number-driven, and factual content.

Let’s say you are a baker and you want to teach people how to make a perfect cake. You are not going to have much luck going after “batter” alone, so it is important to be strategic and choose your keywords correctly. Saying that, to know about keyword difficulty, read why keyword difficulty is important.

This is where featured snippets come into play. The more words in the query, the higher the possibility of the search engine returning a featured snipped, as per your data:

● Of keywords with a single word, only 5% are featured in a snippet

● Of keywords with 5 words, 20% are featured in a snippet.

● Of keywords with 10 words, 55% are featured in a snippet.

The perfect way to increase the length of your keywords is to keep in mind the questions your audience is asking about your products and services. Longer queries can mostly reveal intent, as well because they are more specific compared to shorter ones.

Also, you can earn a featured snippet for shorter keywords such as “cake batter”, but you will have more readers in a specific part of the sales funnel when you get a featured snippet for a particular keyword. This might have made you understand why are keywords important.

You might, for instance, deliver an authoritative answer to the question “How can I make a cake?” and get in a featured snippet in return. This will bring you many potential visitors because of the recommended intention behind the query.

7. Organize the structure of your pages with headings and paragraph tags

A clear page structure looks important and semantically relevant to the target keyword.

There should be a section on the page where the search query appears in a header. The content you are focusing on to bring it in the featured snippet should be placed in a <p> tag directly below the header.

8. Optimize Your Page Around Several Different Long Tail Terms

Most featured snippets show up when people search for long-tail keywords to improve website online presence for your business.

Queries that people utilize for voice search are the best examples of such types of search.

The point you need to note here is that you don’t just need to optimize your content for featured snippet keywords that many people are searching for but you also need to optimize for featured snippets that show up long tail versions of those terms.

For example, you can see many pages on the internet that are designed to rank for a bunch of long-tail featured snippets.

It is like mini-FAQ page.

So, how can you know which long-tail keywords you need to target?

For this, you can check out the “People Also Ask” section in the search engine.

There you will find related phrases that Google considers closely related to the keyword you have searched. You can use popular Google tools too to find out the keywords.

There are many long-tail queries that people could answer on that same page. Queries that Google shows readers in the search results.

9. Implement SEO Tactics

If you are done preparing content for users, now is the time that you to help Google understand what the page is all about.

Listed below are some SEO techniques that work for featured snippets:

● Perfect URL structure: Keep your URLs short, basically 3 to 4 words.

● Title tag: You can use various tools to create a catchy title tag that suits the pixel requirement.

● Meta description tag: Use tools to make the most of the pixels available and write catchy and keyword-specific meta descriptions to increase the highest clicks.

● Heading tags: Use question keywords. The actual impact of content writing is massive here.

● Image Alt attributes: For every graphic, ensure you use descriptive alt text to assist Google understand what the image is all about. The majority of the content that has been successful has images with alt attributes.

● Internal links: Help Google analyze your website’s most important pages. If you have successfully taken a position in a featured snippet, you need to support the rankings of your best pages with it.

● External links: Let Google decide which external websites you trust and present credibility.

● Schema markup tags: Assist Google to identify what your page is all about and recognize elements like tablets.

● Link building: Create links to assist Google to understand your site’s authoritativeness.

10. Use High-Quality Images & Videos

Your websites or offers should be available for people who have various perception styles and you can call it multi-intelligence. In this situation, you should convey your text messages with attractive and high-quality images. This is also considered as a profitable SEO Strategy.

More than half of featured snippets include an image, and the number of snippets featuring an image is growing.

And it could be understood easily why it is so. Featured snippets with images are catchier than snippets without images.

It is highly recommended to use a top-notch tool to design images in a snippet. With a good tool, you can customize your visuals by including some frames, icons, and shapes. Basically, using high-quality images boost your conversion rates and affects your Google ranking in a positive manner.

Apart from high-quality images, don’t ignore using videos. Videos are considered as an incredible engagement rate when it comes to asking a specific question.

Plus, in high-quality video content created with the help of basic content writing tips, you can utilize video transcripts to permit Google to put your text in a featured snippet.

11. Browse Google’s Own “People Also Ask” Sections

It doesn’t matter what your business or service is about, you should check the “People also ask” section created by Google for related questions. By checking it you will get a great insight into some questions related to your topic.

As per many companies, PAAs have seen 80% growth in SERPs. Research has also shown that a single People Also Ask can be in 21 unique ways in search engines.

It’s amazing and huge, isn’t it?

When you look for more questions and read their answers, more questions will come to the table, and this way you can expand your search area. Also, it will increase the exact advantages of SEO.

12. Know the Questions Your Audience Is Asking

Typically, search terms start with one of the following sayings:

● How does
● How do
● How to
● What is
● Why do
● Why does

An excellent way to counterpart your content to the questions of searchers is to emphasize on long-tail keywords.

13. Create Content That Answers Questions

The entire model of Google’s Featured Snippets is to deliver the finest answers to searchers’ questions. You should create content in a manner that must answer the questions of your customers. Merely then, you will view a probability of ranking in the #0 position.

Google prefers to feature an answer which was given within one paragraph.

A study shows that the average length of a paragraph snippet should be within 45 words, so let it should be kept in mind when you are writing an answer to get featured. Here, you can get benefit from professional seo content writing solution.

This does not mean that your articles will have to be one paragraph long. These days Google is preferring long-form content that is divided into logical subsections as well as features eye-catching images.

Even if you don’t believe that cornerstone content gets special treatment in SERPs, aiming for long articles will assist you to add related questions in one piece.

You just need to adjust your content a bit:

● Ask the question through your article ( It could be a subheading)
● Instantly follow the question with a one-paragraph answer.
● Explain it thoroughly in the article.

This technique can lead to higher user retention as it makes every piece of content better structured and way easier to read.

14. Improve Your Google Rankings

It is one of the most important things to optimize your content for featured snippets. If your page does not rank on Google’s first page, the possibility of getting in a featured snippet is very low. With correct content marketing strategy, you can increase the possibilities.

In fact, as per a recent study, 99% of all featured snippets come from pages that already ranked on the first page of SERPs.

This totally makes sense if you think about it deeply. The first page is a list of Google’s best, and most trusted content regarding that specific topic. So they are not about to pull out information from a website on page 10, even if it is very informative and well-structured.

So apart from formatting your content right manner, you also need to rank on the first page of Google to increase the possibility of getting in the featured snippet.

15. Produce High-Quality Content

Here are a few simple tips on writing excellent quality content that is more probably to get featured:

● Analysis content into small parts
● Use several media (screenshots, infographics, etc.)
● Clarify a process in simple steps
● Write in a manner that even a learner can hold the topic
● Write user-centric content

You should write content according to valuable website content writing tips so that you can give proper answers to searchers’ questions.

16. Use Question and Answer Pages

These segments are previously saying the questions of your target user.

Though, you need to ensure that Question and Answer pages have entirely the relevant information your target customer could be looking for.

Featured snippets are almost like every other Google feature and they will continue to evolve.

It can be very exciting and rewarding to research and discover new ideas to encourage them to improve the SERPs for every website.

Conclusion:

Getting content looked at in Google’s Featured snippet is very tough, but not at all impossible. If your content answers seekers’ questions, your possibilities to get featured will enhance by several folds. Here, if you want professional guidance, reach LinkBuildingCorp. We are working in this industry for many years and have successfully created a network of a satisfied customer through our SEO solutions.

You can trust us for improving your website’s reach and ranking in SERPs. Contact us today at +91-9205356986 or request a quick quote.