While launching a website for your business can help you reach a wider audience, it can be difficult to stand out from the crowd, especially when everyone seems to be competing for a spot on the first page of results pages. However, that’s where featured snippets can come in handy!
What are Featured Snippets?
Featured snippets are small excerpts from a website that provide a brief but informative answer to a user’s search question or query. These snippets show up at the top of search engine results pages (SERP) before any search result, making them very desirable for websites that are looking to differentiate themselves from their competitors.
Google selects these featured snippets based on how its algorithms have indexed the website, only displaying pages that meet a query’s specific search intent to deliver a quick and convenient response to users. When a user clicks on the source of the snippet, he or she will be immediately brought to the section where the featured snippet can be found.
Types of Featured Snippets
Paragraph Snippets
Paragraph snippets provide a quick and concise response to a user’s search query in the form of a short paragraph extracted from a website, with the most important parts often highlighted for easier reference. These snippets are meant to give users a direct answer without having them click and scroll through an entire website.
List Snippets
List snippets present information in structured lists to give users a short but clear summary of the information they’re looking for. These can either be in a numbered list or bullet points, with the former being used for ordered lists and the latter being used for unordered lists.
Table Snippets
Table snippets organize information and display it in a table or chart with rows and columns, allowing users to easily visualize and digest structured information and make comparisons if needed.
Video Snippets
Video snippets showcase video content directly in the results pages, particularly when Google determines that the user’s search query is best answered with a video. This type of snippet allows users to conveniently watch the video without having to navigate to another website or platform.
Why are Featured Snippets Important?
Featured snippets provide a unique opportunity for websites to stand out. Here are some benefits that you can expect when your website is chosen as a featured snippet:
- Online Engagement and Visibility: Users are much more likely to engage and interact with websites on the first page of results pages, but featured snippets are known to sit on position zero as they can be found above the organic search results. This will give your website a massive boost in visibility and increase the chances of users clicking on your website.
- Brand Authority and Trustworthiness: Google is very selective about the websites that it features in its snippets, employing highly advanced algorithms to crawl through and index every website available. When your website is shown in these featured snippets, it can present your brand as a trustworthy source of information that delivers high-quality content, which can foster a level of trust with users and audiences.
The type of featured snippet that your website appears in can also provide some unique advantages:
- Paragraph Snippets: Paragraph snippets provide users with quick and easy answers to their queries without requiring them to go to another link. Should the users look for more information, they can choose to click on the link and be taken right to the section where the snippet is located.
- List Snippets: List snippets compile information and present it in a structured and readable format that the actual website may not necessarily reflect, making it much more convenient for users to read through and understand.
- Table Snippets: Table snippets compile data in an easy-to-read manner that lets users make easier comparisons between columns.
- Video Snippets: Compared to other types of featured snippets, video snippets can be a nice change of pace and give users the information they need in a much more engaging and dynamic format. These snippets also often highlight the specific chapter or timestamp where the information you’re looking for can be found.
How to Optimize Your Website for Featured Snippets
Google employs several automated systems and algorithms to figure out whether a website would make a good featured snippet and help users find the information that they’re looking for more easily based on their search request. With this in mind, there are a few things you can do to optimize your website and increase its chances of being featured in a snippet:
Paragraph Snippets
Make sure to use headers throughout your article, as this will help Google better understand the query or question you’re trying to answer. Your answer should be written in a straightforward way and kept within 300 characters, which is more or less the character limit of these snippets. Finally, make sure that there are no errors or mistakes in your content, whether in the accuracy of the information or the grammar and punctuation.
List Snippets
While headings are important in earning a list snippet, that doesn’t mean that the list needs to be written in the way that you want it to appear in results pages. Google’s systems and algorithms are highly advanced and can compile and extract the list items without including the paragraphs and media in between.
However, if you can, then it can be extremely helpful to include the actual numbered or bulleted list on your website. If there are paragraphs in between each list item, then you can emphasize the list item by putting them as headers.
Table Snippets
If you want your website to land a table snippet, then the best thing you can do is to have an actual table in your content. Make sure that you use specific headers that indicate the data that it contains and that you name the entire table in the same manner.
Video Snippets
Google’s crawlers can go through different forms of websites and media, including videos, which means that quality matters. That means that any voiceover in your video should be clear and well-paced, especially as this will make the generation of the transcript much easier and more accurate.
Google also favors videos that are created to answer a specific question or query. Finally, make sure that you’ve uploaded your video onto YouTube and that you make the most of the timestamp functionality of the website to break down the video and make it easier for users to understand.
The Takeaway
Featured snippets provide users with a quick and simple response to their search query or question, allowing them to find the information that they’re looking for without having to navigate through several websites. From an SEO perspective, these snippets are highly desirable as they can increase the visibility of your website, while also establishing your brand as a credible source of information and increasing the organic clicks your page receives.
