A 12-Step Guide to Optimizing for Google Featured Snippets

It’s no secret that featured snippets are extremely effective. Every SEO professional (including myself) strives to own all available featured snippets for their content.

These expanded, descriptive search results appear in the form of a special box at or near the top of the search results page (SERP). Optimizing for featured snippets (FS) can help Google understand when your page is the best answer for a relevant query that includes one of these search features.

In this column, you’ll find my tried-and-true strategy for optimizing for featured snippets (with examples), my curated content calendar template for featured snippets (which you can copy and use), and FAQs to answer any remaining FS-related questions. You will discover:

What exactly are featured snippets?

• You can target four different types of featured snippets.
• A step-by-step guide to optimizing for featured snippets.
• What has changed in featured snippets?
• Frequently Asked Questions about Featured Snippets

Let’s get this party started.

Read Business Rules to Follow For Your Success.

What Exactly Are Featured Snippets?

The expanded snippets that appear on the first page of Google SERPs are known as Featured Snippets. The goal of Google featured snippets is to answer the user’s question right in the search results.

Google’s definition is as follows:

Users who want to read the entire article can do so by clicking on the URL of the featured snippet.

When Google first introduced featured snippets, some sites were able to achieve two results on page one of the SERPs, resulting in dramatic increases in organic visibility and traffic.

But, as with all things SEO, good times don’t last forever; consider this tweet from Danny Sullivan:

Optimizing for featured snippets entails more than simply including questions in your headlines and subheadlines. It’s a lot more complicated than that.

You Can Target 4 Different Types Of Featured Snippets

When optimizing for featured snippets, you must first understand the various types of featured snippets available.

Snippets from the Paragraph

The paragraph type accounts for 70% of featured snippets, with an average of 42 words and 250 characters.

The majority of the featured snippet titles begin with “What” or “Why,” indicating that they are primarily informative in nature.

Pro Tip: While the majority of “What” question keywords have the highest search volume, you must find question keywords with a low Keyword Difficulty (KD) score to win them.

Snippets from the Listicle

Listicle-type featured snippets account for 19% of all featured snippets, with an average of 6 items and 44 words.

There are two types of listicle featured snippets: ordered lists and unordered lists.

Ordered List

Pro Tip: Featured snippets in Listicle are derived from “How” and “Why” keyword terms. They are your go-to topics if you want to get featured snippets quickly.

Snippets from the Table

Tables account for approximately 6.3 percent of featured snippets. They have five rows and two columns on average, each with 40 to 45 words.

Pro Tip: To optimize for this type of featured snippet, use HTML table tags to format relevant content in a table format. Some people are tempted to create graphics for tables, but this is a missed opportunity.

Snippets from the Video

Only 4.6 percent of featured snippets are video, with an average length of 6 minutes and 35 seconds.

Pro Tip: If your target audience consumes a lot of video content, a video featured snippet is the way to go. Look for keywords with a low search volume, and voila! You have them.

How to Optimize Your Website for Featured Snippets

When you see a competitor ranking on featured snippets, ask yourself one question:

How do I get one of those featured snippets for my website?

Here’s how to get going.

1. Determine the Featured Snippets of Competitors

It’s not easy to steal competitors’ featured snippets.

In Semrush, enter the competitors’ URL and search for keyword groups that own featured snippets.

You now want to:

• The list can be exported.
• Sort them into various types of featured snippets.
• Sort them in ascending order of search volume.
• Emphasize the low KD score.
• And bring them together to begin planning.

Copy this content calendar template to begin planning, implementing, and optimizing your content for search engine visibility.

Remember to include the content topics and type of featured snippet in your content calendar so you can keep track of why you’re optimizing the page.

2. Compile a list of keywords for each FS-owned piece of content

When you’ve finished finalizing the content topics, it’s time to identify the keywords that appear on the content that currently has featured snippets.

In Semrush, click the down arrow next to the selected keyword to see more information about the keyword’s ranking on featured snippets.

Gather related and question keywords and add them to your content calendar.

3. Recognize Searcher Intent

Understanding the search intent behind each triggering query is one of the most important considerations in optimizing for featured snippets.

There are three types of people who look for your keywords:

• Customers who are interested.
• Influencers are people who persuade potential customers to buy from you.
• As well as your competitors.

You’ll be in charge of creating the content for the first two. While searching, each will have a different goal in mind, but it will always be informational (and navigational when users want to click through them).

Because there was only one search intent for a featured snippet, I decided to further categorize them into four groups based on whether they want:

• A specific response.
• A brief response.
• A contrast.
• There is a video.

Get A Specific Answer

In this context, a user search query is a question that requires a specific answer. This type of FS has a lower CTR because people come to get a specific answer and typically do not want or need to read further.

This type of FS can help with the brand building but is unlikely to drive a lot of traffic.

Obtain a Brief Response

The user anticipates a featured snippet of the paragraph or listicle variety, as shown in the types section above. Users will click on the results if they want to learn more.

This type of search query improves CTR as well as brand reputation.

Obtain A Comparison

This type of search query yields a featured snippet in the form of a table. The content of the table is larger than what Google Featured Snippets can display. As a result, this type of search intent is more likely to increase CTR.

Obtain A Video

Finally, if users are looking for “how-to” answers and there is a video attached to those answers, it will have the highest CTR.

Recognize the various types of informational search intent underlying the search query. They are pertinent to the types of featured snippets available, which can assist you in planning and optimizing your content.

3. Conduct a Competitive Analysis

Return to Semrush and launch its SEO content template tool. Enter your keyword or content topic, choose your target location, and press the green button.

You will receive the SEO recommendations for your content listed below in order to plan the content optimization for featured snippets.

Your top ten competitors for target keywords to help you understand who you’ll be competing with.

Key recommendations from them in terms of what your content should contain, how many backlinks it should have, how much readability it should have, and the recommended text length to meet the user’s search intent and expectations.

Suggestions on how they use target keywords so you can use them more effectively.

Simple SEO tips to make your content more searchable.

5. Create/Refresh the Content Outline

You should now have the content topics, targeted keywords, type of featured snippet, search intent, and a pool of SEO recommendations from competitors’ snippets.

You must create a content outline if you are writing new content. If you’ve already written the piece, you may need to revise the outline based on the information gathered above.

6. Create Content Better Than The Competition’s

• Cover the fundamental information that users expect in content based on the user’s search query and intent.
• Increase the value of your blog over competing blogs by including statistical data, rich media, examples, pointers, and so on.
• To improve the readability of the content, write in simple, shorter sentences.
• Prioritize research-based content over opinion-based content. Citations help Google understand your content better.

You should always strive to create the best content possible — that is, content that will provide value for years to come, such as the piece below.

7. Verify the content

Once you’ve completed the content, double-check that it meets your requirements for:

• Your intended audience.
• User search intent has been defined.
• Keywords that are relevant.
• Suggestions have been listed.

This check is critical to ensuring that you’re on the right track to obtaining a featured snippet.

8. Prepare Your Content for Readers and Search Engines

Users and search engines can easily scan, read, and understand well-organized content.

Here’s an example of how you might organize content to give it structure.

I recently tweeted about how you can turn a paragraph featured snippet into a listicle simply by organizing and creating content in the appropriate manner.

9. Incorporate Question Keywords Into Heading Tags

Organizing your content for featured snippets isn’t complete unless you include question keywords in the heading tags.

Choose the most popular question keywords and include them in your heading tags. The majority of the featured snippets you see on Google begin immediately after a heading tag.

The right question keyword phrase in the right place can mean the difference between success and failure.

10. Include Graphics That Are Relevant

Graphics are especially important when it comes to owning a featured snippet, especially for paragraph and listicle-type featured snippets.

To improve the user experience and avoid appearing generic, try to use real-life images or custom-made graphics rather than stock images.

Include as many images as your content necessitates.

11. Use SEO Techniques

Your content is now available to users. Now you must quickly assist Google in understanding what the page is all about.

Here are some SEO strategies for featured snippets:

• The ideal URL structure is: Keep your URLs as short as possible, ideally three to four words.
• Title tag: Create a catchy title tag that meets the pixel requirements using Coschedule Headline Analyzer and the SEOmofo snippet optimization tool.
• Use SEOmofo to make the most of the available pixels and write user-centric and keyword-specific meta descriptions to drive the most clicks.
• Heading tags: As previously discussed, use question keywords.
• Alt attributes for images: Use descriptive alt text for all graphics to help Google understand what the image is about. The majority of the top-performing content includes images with alt attributes.
• Internal links: Assist Google in determining the most important pages on your site. If you get a featured snippet, you should use it to boost the rankings of your best pages.
• External links: Tell Google which external sites you trust and use citations to demonstrate credibility.
• Schema markup tags: These tags assist Google in understanding what your page is about and recognizing elements such as tables.
• Link building: Create links to help Google understand the authority of your website.

12. Continue to optimize your content until you have a featured snippet

With this optimization for featured snippets process in place, I check the results after 7, 14, and 21 days.

If I see an increase in impressions, I’ll work harder to increase clicks. Keep track of changes in impressions, rankings, and CTR in Google Search Console, as well as traffic and visibility in Semrush.

Continue to optimize your content until you see a featured snippet and can track the results.

What’s New in 2021 for Featured Snippets?

Recently, the SEO industry noticed two new features for featured snippets on Google Search results.

Button “Hear this out loud”

When you click on this button, the text is highlighted and the content is read aloud.

“This topic is also covered on this page.” Section

This section appears beneath the main section of the featured snippet and utilizes the heading tags you’ve added to your page.

You now have another reason to use heading tags to better organize your content!

Frequently Asked Questions (FAQs) About Google Featured Snippets

Here are some of the most common featured snippets questions I receive from SEO professionals.

Why Are Featured Snippets At Risk of Being Removed?

Google may remove your featured snippet automatically or manually if it falls under the following categories:

• Dangerous material.
• Deceptive behavior.
• Harassing material.
• The content is vile.
• Media has been manipulated.
• Medical information is provided.
• There is explicit sexual content.
• Terrorist material.
• There is blood and gore.
• Profanity and vulgar language.
• Content that contradicts the content of civic, medical, scientific, and historical experts.

If you violate Google’s policies, you risk losing the featured snippet. Of course, you could lose it if a competitor does a better job answering that question as well.

Is it possible to add featured snippets to ecommerce products or category pages?

No. Using Google Shopping and Product Listing Ads, eCommerce products can be featured on Google SERPs (PLAs).

Ecommerce websites, on the other hand, can still own featured snippets for their guides and blogs.

What Is the Difference Between Featured Snippets and Rich Snippets?

Rich snippets are enhanced organic search results that are derived from the content of a web page. Featured snippets are derived from the content of a web page to answer a user query.

A rich snippet is one that has reviews attached to it in your search result. A featured snippet is a web page that provides users with more detailed information in the first position on SERPs.

More information on optimizing for rich snippets can be found here.

What Are Featured Snippets and How Do They Work?

Let’s break down Google’s patent on generating snippets based on content to understand how featured snippets work:

When Google receives a search query, it attempts to find the best possible match. When Google has completed the list of search results, it proceeds as follows to select the relevant featured snippet from the top 10 search results:

• Identifying the text features within a keyword-based sentence to see if it qualifies as an FS.
• Identifying the break features that would indicate the location on a featured snippet where the keyword-based sentence can be truncated.
• To determine the strength of the snippets, the snippet score is calculated and assigned.
• The snippet with the highest snippet score is chosen.
• That is how Google chooses a website for featured snippets and works to provide users with relevant information as quickly as possible.

Get Your Featured Snippets Right Now!

Google’s featured snippet format focuses on providing users with information about its platform. However, 40-45 words cannot cover all of the information.

As a result, they can be an excellent tool for increasing organic traffic.

Using the above guide, you can own featured snippets and become a thought leader in your industry, which will boost your brand’s reputation and organic traffic. Conversions will follow if your site has been properly optimized!

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