A previous study revealed that Featured Snippets account for an average of 35% of the total clicks. This makes Featured snippets among the SERP's most coveted elements. They provide a golden opportunity for your content to jump to the top of search engine results pages, even if the “conventional ranking factors” such as backlink strategies and the applications of SSL certificates have placed you at the bottom of the tables.
This report will discuss the various approaches to optimizing your content for featured snippets.
So, What are Featured Snippets?
Featured snippets refer addinged selected results featured on the top of Google's organic results. They aim to answer users' questions instantly without the user having to necessarily open a web page. They are referred to as “featured” because they appear ahead-running spots on the search engine results pages.
Featured Snippet In Picture
The screenshot below shows a featured snippet for the search “What is the benefit of an SSL certificate?” SSL certificate ensures that data is encrypted when it travels between two ends. It is, therefore, to choose such an SSL cert that is low budget and offers higher encryption. A few examples we like are-, buy a Comodo SSL certificate, which is one of the cheapest SSL certificates and provides standard encryption. By clicking on the featured snippet, you learn the impacts of SSL certificates without visiting the actual web page.
SSL certificate is also necessary to improve the content in Google Featured Snippets. You can also click on other featured snippets, such as the ones indicated, to get instant answers to these questions without having to visit the actual web pages.
Tips To Increase the Smoothness of Content For Google Featured Snippets
Include “What Is” Headings In Your Content
A perfect way to get Google featured snippets for your content is to include “what is” headings. Such headings provide a perfect signal to Google that the text you provide below the title is helpful as a featured snippet. So many pages that appear on Google's featured snippets have this format. Other than the “what is” format, you can use other title wordings such as when was? Why is? How is? And many more similar question titles.
Ideally, you will have to answer the questions as close to the top of your content as possible. For blogs, answering the question below the introductory paragraph is an excellent strategy. Google is able to know the exact text to be pulled from the text and include it in the featured snippets.
Be as Factual and as Organized as possible
Google tends to have a soft spot for steps, lists, and numbers. We have seen this often whenever featured snippets appear with step-by-step guidelines, years of birth, and several lists. Adopting factual, well-structured, and figure-driven content that provides enough meat on the bone is an excellent strategy for earning featured snippets.
While structuring your content in this manner is great, there is absolutely no markup for doing so. Google tends to pick up numbers, figures, and table content naturally. H2 and H3 headings makes things decipherable for both Google and content readers.
Provide Content that Fulfills the Searchers' Intent
One of the most a must-have considerations in optimizing content for featured snippets is knowing the search intent associated with every triggering query. The search intent is simply the reason why a user has typed a query in a search engine.
There are three potential searcher categories. They are potential customers, competitors, and influencers trying to persuade your potential clients to buy your products. While writing website content, you must pay attention to the needs of your potential clients and influencers. Each group will have a different searcher intent.
Since a featured snippet provides a single room for a single answer, you must structure your content to provide a perfect answer to every searcher's intent. The content could be in the form of a specific answer, a comparison, Video Content, or an infographic.
Include A FAQ Schema
an FAQ schema is an excellent way to mark up common questions. FAQs will appear below your content, and you might end up doubling your traffic and earning a higher CTR. Since FAQs provide answers to the exact questions people ask, they give you a chance to feature your website content in featured snippets.
Analyze Competitors Snippets
I have said this before, and I will say it again, competitor analysis is worth one's time. It is the key point of everything. And doing a competitor analysis to find out their featured snippets strategies is something you should consider. The trick here is to find the featured snippets your competitors are ranking on.
While conducting competitor analysis for their featured snippets, you must also consider finding out whether Google brings out the featured snippets for the keywords you are currently using. Once you have all this information at hand, it is time to go ahead and structure your content using similar or more advanced content strategies that intend to outperform your competitors.
Google's “People Also Ask” Section
Regardless of the nature and reach of your Business or blog, checking the “people also ask” for related questions will help you a lot. The section will give you better insights into what people really need and the topics Google would prefer. According to a Moz study, the “People Also Asks” section has seen a whopping 1723% growth in the search engine results pages since 2015. It is huge, isn't it? It needs to be because of its weight in matters of SERPs, featured snippets, and Organic Discovery at large.
Leverage Images
I am a memorable advocate for a multi-intelligence website. A website that conveys a text-based message through excellent images, videos, and infographics is preferred by Google over web pages that entirely depend on word blogs. Have a look at this graph.
From this graph, it is crystal clear that one in every three featured snippets includes an image, and the number has been increasing over the years. But why would Google prefer image-based featured snippets to text-based featured snippets?
Images help you craft and tell a story in a better manner. And it is even more interesting to learn that you do not have to be a professional photographer or an expert to create images. a tool such as Canva will help you to design and add top-quality images to your website. High-quality images will lift your conversion rates and lift your Google ranking.
Pages with featured snippets are dominating people who are searching. It would be best if you started using them. With featured snippets, you get to receive the highest ranks without ads. This report has provided some of the seven proven strategies you can take to improve your website content for featured snippets.