Google’s featured snippets, also known as “Position 0,” are a type of organic search result that appears at the top of the search engine results page (SERP) in a special box. Featured snippets are designed to provide users with quick and concise answers to their search queries without requiring them to click through to a website.
This section will cover everything you need to know about Google featured snippets, including what they are, how they work, and how to optimize your content to appear among them.
Google featured snippets are a type of search result that appears at the very top of the SERP, above the traditional organic search results. They usually appear in a special box, often with an image, and provide a concise answer to the user’s query. Because of this, you should spend significant time creating high-quality and valuable content.
Google uses algorithms to analyze the content on web pages and determine which are the best candidates for a featured snippet. There are three different types of featured snippets your page can appear in:
These provide a short answer to the user’s question in the form of a block of text. They are designed to answer the user’s query directly, which may result in fewer clicks on the keyword. A good goal for many websites is to gain visibility in this type of featured snippet. To optimize your content for this, SEMrush conducted a study to find the best length for a snippet, (undersökning för att ta reda på bästa längden).
These provide a list of items that answer the user’s question, such as a recipe or a step-by-step instruction.
These display information in a table format, such as a comparison of products or services.
Google featured snippets are important because they give your content the opportunity to appear at the very top of the SERP, even if it doesn’t rank #1 organically. This means your content can be seen by more users and can drive more traffic to your website than it otherwise would.
In fact, according to Search Engine Land, snippets account for about 8% of organic clicks ( står snippets för ungefär 8% av klick som sker organiskt), which is why you want to optimize your content for rich snippets so your website can get a traffic boost.
Additionally, featured snippets provide quick and easy answers to users’ questions, which can improve the user experience and make them more likely to engage with your brand.
To optimize your content for a featured snippet, it’s important to identify keywords with high search volume and low competition. These keywords have a high chance of triggering a featured snippet. By selecting the right keywords, you can increase the likelihood of your content appearing at the top of the SERP.
To improve your content’s chances of appearing as a featured snippet, you need to create a short and clear answer to the user’s question. The answer should be between 40–60 words for the search phrase. Use simple language and avoid technical jargon. This makes it easier for Google to understand and evaluate your text.
HubSpot does this excellently by clearly showing and explaining the keyword they want to be visible for.
What you want to do is answer the search phrase objectively without including personal opinions. Your snippet should respond to the user’s question as if they were reading it in an encyclopedia.
By structuring your content into clear sections with the help of headings and lists, you make it easier for Google to extract relevant information when evaluating for list snippets. By applying <h2> and <h3> tags to your lists, you make it easier for Google to crawl your website and retrieve this information.
To improve the quality of your website, it’s important to be consistent in what you do. If you choose to structure lists in a certain way, make sure to stick to that. The same applies to everything else on your website, headings, lists, paragraphs, and more.
Google does not create its own tables from the information on your site. The search engine will use already existing tables that are displayed in SERPs. Therefore, you should only use tables where it makes sense to do so. For example, to compare different products or services, or to explain various terms or similar information.
<tr>Your goal as a future SEO expert should always be to create value and make things as simple as possible for others. By using <tr> tags when creating a table, you ensure that Google can read the table in an optimal way.
Long-tail keywords are more specific and better match the user’s search intent than generic keywords. It also turns out that most snippet results are optimized for long-tail keywords.
Of course, it’s important to optimize your content to appear in snippets. However, you should first focus on getting your website to rank on the first page of the SERPs.
A study by Ahrefs found that 99% of snippets shown come from pages that are already ranking on the first page of search results. This is reasonable, since the top ten pages displayed in search results have already been identified by Google as trustworthy sources.
Google featured snippets offer a valuable opportunity for your content to appear at the very top of the SERP and drive more traffic to your website. By optimizing your content for featured snippets, you can increase your chances of being featured and provide a better user experience for your audience.
Just remember to identify potential keywords, answer the question concisely, use headings and lists, and optimize for long-tail keywords to improve your chances of appearing in a featured snippet.
Google rolled out the Max Snippet update in January 2020, which limited the length of snippets shown in search results, so keep in mind the importance of concise and relevant answers for featured snippets in Google’s search results.