Even though many people said that SEO would become irrelevant by now, it’s now more critical than ever. That’s because SEO has changed a lot since Google introduced new rules. Gone are the days when people used to spam keywords without context and do a couple of on-site tweaks to get a good SEO score.
Since then, anyone who wanted to compete in the ranking space had to take a more focused approach. This made competition fierce, and everyone is creating content to make their sites more visible to Google and viewers.
Everyone wants to get on top of SERPs and reap the benefits of organic traffic. Featured snippets are essential for a serious SEO strategy. Here’s how they can be used.
Featured Snippets Explained
Featured snippets provide short information that gives general answers to internet users in their searches before they even decide to visit a page. This information is automatically pulled out of a page and contains:
- A quote about the page from some other site;
- Page link;
- Title of the page;
- Page URL.
Featured snippets are also called “answer boxes,” increasing traffic in a particular way. Yes, featured snippets try to give a short answer about some topic, and they often do. However, if the user wants a more detailed explanation, there’s a big chance that they will click on the site with the snippet.
99% of the time, featured snippets are attached to the first position on the search query. They increase click-through rates and lead to more organic traffic. In other words, it’s precious to get snippets on your pages. Now let’s learn more about featured snippets and how they look.
Different formats of featured snippets
The main goal of featured snippets is to give short but valuable answers. However, they can come in different formats and sometimes have other goals. Here are the formats snippets can take: More Read google pixelbook 12in
- Questions in the “people also ask” form;
- Videos (mostly YouTube);
- Tables;
- Bulleted lists;
- Ordered lists;
- Text snippets;
- Rich snippets (rich results).
The formats are also pulled automatically and generated by Google. This is why it’s generally a good idea to create content with a mixed structure. Google can create several different snippets for the same piece of content.
In most cases, featured snippets also have an image, but this image is selected from another source and not the page it leads to, so don’t get confused by that. However, there is no image when the snippet is in video format.
How to find searches that activate featured snippets
In many cases, snippets are triggered by content optimized for keywords phrased as questions, comparisons, or presuppositions. They give solid results for keywords of this kind within high-volume searches.
However, since the competition is growing, making your content stand out can be difficult. In many cases, snippets are also captivated by queries that have a low number of monthly searches. In other words, they can easily be triggered by long-tail keywords and detailed inquiries.
Simply put, you can go both ways, but the goal is to find a search query that can either give good results based on volume or find searches that aren’t used but are likely to be typed by some people.
Getting featured snippets
Reaching that Rank 0 isn’t that easy, and it requires lots of effort and research. But even then, nobody guarantees that you’ll get the spot. However, there are certain things that you can do to put your pages on Google’s radar.
Create in-depth content that offers value.
Content quality plays a vital role in whether you will reach Rank 0. First, you need to optimize your content for desired keywords within search queries. It should also have a clear structure and be well-written.
The answers and information you provide should be concise and provide value. Don’t make the answers longer than 50 characters because this is usually the wrong signal for Google. In other words, it should keep visitors engaged. If people bounce off from your content right away, Google won’t notice it.
Check out what others are doing.
One of the best ways to get Rank 0 is to offer better alternatives to current content. Do searches for different phrases you want to rank for along with other variations to see what pages currently offer snippets and what they do.
This could help you brainstorm ideas. On the other hand, make sure to check the content that has snippets, and if you feel you could do it better, try coming up with an alternative piece that offers better information.
On the other hand, you can also find content that doesn’t have content. This means that there’s a good chance of creating content for that search query that will quickly reach Rank 0.
Secure the snippets you already have.
The battle of featured snippets never stops, and you should always look to keep those you already have. To do this, keep your content updated, provide answers as well as questions within the same page, and adjust the format of your content with the snippet you’ve been assigned.
You can use various tools to track how many snippets you’ve been assigned. You just need to type in your domain to get results.
Conclusion
It’s essential to work on optimizing your content consistently. Snippets are an integral part of SEO optimization. Keep in mind that this is a long process. You will see better results even before getting a snippet if you’re doing things right.
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