
Optimising for Google Featured Snippets. Our Simple Guide
If you haven’t previously heard of Google Featured Snippets (FS), make it your business to learn more. These are the expanded descriptive search results which appear as a prominently displayed special box near the top of the search engine results pages (SERPs).
Do the optimisation correctly for FS and Google will gain a better understanding of search relevance. Initially, some websites saw dramatic improvements in traffic and organic visibility, although this wasn’t, it seems, destined to last. Here, we give you some pointers about making the most of this powerful tool.
Types of Featured Snippets:
Paragraph Featured Snippets
These account for some 70% of FS, with some 42 words plus 250 characters apiece. Mainly informational in nature, these titles generally start with ‘What’ or ‘Why’.
Listicle Featured Snippets
These typically represent just under one in five FS, and usually they consist of six items and 44 words. There are two types – ordered and unordered lists.
Table Featured Snippets
Just over 6% of FS are these type. With two columns across five rows, they contain up to 45 words.
Video Featured Snippets
Just under 5% of Featured Snippets fall within this category – and they usually last just over six and a half minutes.
Optimising for Featured Snippets
As well as identifying your competitors’ FS, you need to understand the searcher intent behind every query triggering a featured snippet. You will also have to create content which is better than your competitors’. It should meet the requirements of your target audience. Here, you can play your part by writing in simpler, shorter sentences to enhance readability and by focusing on research rather than opinion-based content.
Content, clearly, must also be highly organised and well structured. To organise content to get featured snippets, you also need to add question keywords to the heading tags. Identify the questions keywords with a good search volume and have them in your heading tags.
At the same time, don’t forget to add relevant graphics, ideally custom-made and with real-life rather than stock pictures, to avoid looking too generic.
Implement some SEO tactics
There are a number of these which work especially well for featured snippets, from URL structuring to title, meta description and heading tags and Image Alt attributes and link building. Essentially, you should continue optimising your content until you notice a featured snippet from which you can track results.
Final thoughts on featured snippets
Google has introduced a couple of new elements for 2021, including a button to click on for the content within the FS to be read aloud. Additionally, there’s an ‘Also covered on this page’ section below the main FS section which picks up heading tags you have included.
Finally, FS are not available for e-commerce pages.
How we can help
Talk to us at Front Page Advantage about featured snippets to drive traffic organically while enhancing your brand’s reputation. We have the SEO skills, experience and knowledge to help you make the most of this invaluable tool. Get in touch to learn more.