4. @shellyfagin
Why Care about Featured Snippets
Google told us it’s not going anywhere
Trust Signals for your Brand
50% of all Searches will be Voice Searches by 2020
Voice Search Pulls the Answers from Featured Snippets
19. @shellyfagin
Which Format Should you Use
Questions: Paragraph Content
How-to & Instructions: Ordered Lists
Comparisons: Paragraph (with a few exceptions)
A features snippet is a summary of an answer to a user’s query that Google displays at the top of their results. The summary is extracted from from a website along with a link to the site and sometimes an image pulled from the content.
In January, Danny Sullivan published a blog post letting us know Featured Snippets are around for the long-haul.
When a featured snippet is chosen by Google, Google considers you a reliable, trustworthy authority for that query and hopefully eventually that topic.
Questions, Prepositions, and Comparison queries dominate featured snippet results
We have discovered that in order to be a contender for the Featured Snippet, you must rank in the TOP 5 Organic Positions. Forget the top 10. 94% of snippets pull from one of the top 5 results.
So when you are beginning to optimize and win snippets, start first with your easy wins. Look for queries where you are already ranking in the Top 5 spots.
Questions, Prepositions, and Comparison queries dominate featured snippet results
To find queries that triggers a featured snippet but you do not currently own, try this filtering trick in SEMrush.
To find queries that triggers a featured snippet but you do not currently own, try this filtering trick in SEMrush.
Use this query modifier to check if you would own the snippet if the current owner did not.
To find queries that triggers a featured snippet but you do not currently own, try this filtering trick in SEMrush.
89% of Questions are formatted in paragraph form
Prepositions are meant for lists, though paragraph form does equally well it is believe that a well-optimized list will out-perform paragraph form
Long Form Content Must be Scannable, especially on mobile
Start off your formatted content with a heading tag that clearly states the query or answers the query
For example: If the query is “How to get rid of rats in your house, add a header that state “Best Types of Mouse Traps”
Don’t get overly descriptive with your headers and title tags ie. “How to Make The Most Yummiest Pizza you’ve ever Tasted” go simple with “How to Make the Best Pizza”
Don’t have walls of text. Break it up with Images. Closely match your Alt text to the matching header and place it either to the side of your content or immediately below to increase the chance it will be included in your snippet. We’ve seen a lot of examples where Google will use the image from a different result, mixing the images and content, if you don’t have one in your content.
When studying the content that’s been awarded the most snippets, we found an average of 33 citations within the content. Back up your claims!
Analyze your competitors content. Can your answer be better? More descriptive? Include more visuals?
When I am searching for a product and I want a list of the Best available, I’ll add 2018 to my query
Once you’ve finished your optimization, visit GSC and have Google fetch your newly optimized page. I’ve stolen the Featured Snippet in as fast as two days and bumped up from 5th to 3rd organically as well. If you don’t see changes after about a week, go in and optimize some more and keep at it until you’ve snagged it.
Don’t assume these queries won’t convert. We have a local client who’s snippet ranks for queries related to “Hot Water Heater” problems and we get a ton of local conversions. When you are working on a new content strategy, use a tool like SEMrush to discover all the queries and content that your competitors own a features snippet and use those as guidelines for creating new, better content and go steal some more snippets.