Do you know you can even rank above #1 search results on Google?
Yes, that’s possible!
But how?
By acquiring featured snippets.
Featured snippets are the little piece of information that mostly appears at the top of Google search results just after ad listings.
This feature was introduced by Google to provide faster and quick answers to searcher’s queries.
And now more than 19% of the SERP have featured snippets.
If you don’t want to miss out on this huge traffic opportunity and want to stay ahead of your competitors then you also have to start winning featured snippet spots for your content.
But the question is: How you can optimize your content to easily win featured snippets?
That’s what we’re going to find out in this post.
In this post, we’re going to show you how you can easily win featured snippet spots for your content with some little tweaks.
So are you ready to know the secret sauce?
Let’s dive right in.
What is Google Featured Snippet?
Featured snippets are the short snippet of texts or lists that appears at the top of the Google search result even before the #1 spot.
Here’s a real-life example of a featured snippet.
It gives information to the user about any topic or question without having to leave the search result and go on some another website.
But eventually most of the time, people do click on the result for finding out some detailed information.
Featured snippets are generally referred to as the #0 ranking spot of SERP and it attracts a lot of eyeballs.
There are many types of featured snippets that you can see online and some of them are table snippets, paragraph snippets, and bullet lists snippets.
We’re going to discuss about these different forms of snippets later in this post.
But for now, let’s move on to the next section of this post and find out how the whole Google’s featured snippet system works.
How Does Google Featured Snippets Work?
Google usually displays featured snippets for any particular search term when they determine this will help users find the answers quickly.
There are no such parameters on how Google selects a particular highlighted section for featured snippets.
It’s the algorithm that finds and selects highlighted text sections that would make a good fit for featured snippets.
Types of Featured Snippets
Featured snippets usually come in different formats depending upon the search query.
There are currently four types of featured snippets that you’ll frequently see in the Google search results:
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Table
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Paragraph
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Lists
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Video
Google shows these featured snippets depending on the information the user is looking for.
For example, if you search for “best monitor”, you’ll most probably see a list featured snippet.
On the other hand, if you search “how to check monitor”, you’ll see a video featured snippet.
So, the type of featured snippet a user will see varies a lot.
And if you want to optimize your content for featured snippets, first of all, you have to understand what type of featured snippet would be the best fit for your topic.
Now let’s quickly go through each of these featured snippet formats to get a better understanding of that.
Table Snippets
Table snippets are used for visualizing any sort of data or records.
Here’s an example of table snippets.
Table snippets are the most popular format of snippets and surprisingly a large percentage of the whole featured snippets are table snippets.
This snippet is really useful for the user because it directly shows the right data to the user in a very simple manner.
Paragraph Snippets
This is the most common featured snippet that we all have encountered multiple times in our life.
This snippet provides brief information to the user about any particular topic by highlighting a certain part of the text from the page.
Here’s an example of a paragraph snippet.
Lists Snippets
List snippets are great to show the user a particular list of products, things, places, or a step-by-step process.
If you search anything list type of posts like “best soccer boots” you’ll probably encounter a list featured snippets.
Now list snippets can be inform of unordered bullet points or by numbers (This depends on how the site has formatted their post).
Here’s an example of a list of snippets
Video Snippets
Video snippets are very rare but these days Google is pushing up and preferring videos more in the search results.
So if you optimize for video snippets, it can be hugely beneficial for you in the long run.
Video snippets are pulled from YouTube videos and mostly you can see this type of featured snippets for “how-to posts”.
Here’s an example of a video featured snippet:
How to Spot Featured Snippet Opportunities?
Before you optimize your content to win featured snippets, you have to find out featured content opportunities and figure out which content you should optimize for featured snippets.
Only around 19% of the search results have featured snippets and there’s no point to optimize each every content of your website for featured snippets because not every query will get featured snippets.
Featured snippets are for very specific topics only.
So instead of wasting your time on optimizing each and every content piece, figure out which content has the highest chance of getting Google featured snippets.
And then start optimizing your content accordingly.
But the main question that comes up right now is: how you’ll spot featured snippet opportunities?
Well to be honest it’s quite easy
All you have to do is find out search result pages that already have featured snippets in them.
Now you can either create a new piece of content or optimize your old published content to rank for feature snippets.
If you’re already ranking for some keywords and that keyword has featured snippets in the search results, it becomes quite easy to win that featured snippet instead of creating a new piece of content.
Head over to the Google search console, and first find out all the keywords for what your website is ranking on the first page of Google.
Then see what keywords have featured snippets in the search results.
And that is your ultimate target.
Create a spreadsheet and put all those keywords and content URLs into that sheet.
After that, it’s time to optimize your content.
How to Optimize Your Content For Google Featured Snippet
Now that you have a clear idea of the types of featured snippets and how you can easily spot featured snippet opportunities.
It’s time to look at how you can optimize your content to win Google featured snippets effortlessly.
Before you start your optimization process, first of all, you have to figure out what type of featured snippet is already ranking for that search term.
Is it a table snippet, a paragraph snippet, or a list snippet?
Once you figure out that type of featured snippet already ranking for that search term, the main work begins here.
Many people are making this featured snippet optimization process super complicated.
But in reality, to optimize your content for featured snippets, all you have to do is – listen to Google.
Google is already giving you hints and signs on how you can optimize your content to rank for the #0 position.
Let me show with an example.
If you search for the term “best monitor”, you’ll get a numbed list-based featured snippet.
Do you know how Google pulled out that information?
Just by analyzing your content.
Google has become so smart these days and it now does not only scan your content for keywords but also understands the context of the content.
Now for example, if you also want to rank for a list-based featured snippet, all you have to do is format your content clearly.
Don’t include anything at the beginning of the content that’s not important.
Start your content with the list for which the user will read your content.
During our experiment, we’ve also found out that using a table of content also helps a lot in ranking for list-based snippets.
Now, let’s think about this differently.
Let’s suppose you want to rank for a paragraph featured snippet.
How you’ll do that?
That’s even easier, to be honest.
If you want to rank for a paragraph featured snipper, answer the particular query of the user in a very short and brief manner.
You can answer many different questions related to your topic inside your content, but make sure to provide the main solution within the first 2 or 3 lines of the paragraph.
And most importantly, make sure the definition or the answer is completely objective and you’re not including any opinion inside it.
If you want to optimize your content for ranking on a table snippet, you have to include a crystal & clear table inside your content.
Instead of letting Google do the work of scraping and finding data from the different parts of your content, if you include a straightforward table inside your content, it will make Google’s work a hell lot easier and will increase your chances of winning that featured snippet.
Final Words
Currently, featured snippets account for over 19% of the search results.
And these numbers are only going to raise near in the future because it’s a really useful and time-saving feature for the user.
As more voice search and mobile usage will increase, the number of featured snippets will also increase at the same time.
Most importantly, ranking on featured snippets will increase your CTR (click-through rate) and traffic by a large margin.
And will ultimately help you to stay ahead of your competitors.
I hope now you have a clear idea of Google featured snippets and how you can optimize your content to win featured snippets easily.
