How To Optimise Your Content For Google Feature Snippets

When businesses find out the opportunity surrounding Google feature snippet blocks they get eager, as they should! Between organic visibility and brand awareness and authority. There’s a ton of opportunity for brands to capitalise on with these small boxes shown at the top of the search engine results page. But what exactly is a Google Featured snippet and how do you get them? 

What are Featured Snippets?

Google Featured Snippets, also known as Google answer boxes or quick answers, are the short snippets of text that appear at the top of Google’s search results as a quick answer for a searchers query. The content that appears on a Featured Snippet gets automatically pulled from web pages in Google’s index. Some common types of Snippets include definitions, tables, steps and lists. 

How Are Snippets Important For SEO?

Features Snippets affect SEO in two ways. 

Firstly, Featured Snippets are a great opportunity to get more clicks from organic search results without having a high rank on Google. Research shows that Featured Snippet gets approximately 8% of all clicks, so if you’re able to get your content on Featured Snippet your organic click-through rate will get a significant boost. 

Second, Featured Snippets boost the number of “no-click searches” or when a Google user doesn’t click on any search results, that’s because Feature Snippets often already give that person the answer they need. 

(H2) How Do You Create Content For A Featured Snippet? 

The best place to start is doing research on a topic rooted in SEO keywords. Google Trends is a great place to look for any overarching topics you might want to write about. From there, look for specific long-tail search queries using tools like Google Keyword Planner Tool or Keyword Tool. 

Though there are a lot of key factors to consider when creating a Feature Snippet it’s important to note that depending on which style of content you’re writing, your content should be structured and optimised differently. 

Types of Featured Snippets

There are four main types of Featured Snippets: 

Definition Box

This is text snipped designed to give searchers a short, snappy and concise definition or description. Definition boxes are mainly used by Google to answer “what is” queries. These definitions are short and sweet, on average they are between 40-60 words long. 

The Table

This is when Google pulls data from a page and shows it as a table. 

The Ordered list 

This is a list of items shown in a specific order. These are often used for queries that need step by step instructions. It can also be used to rank things in a specific order. 

The Unordered List 

Finally, the unordered list is Google’s way of showing a list of items that don’t necessarily need to be in a specific order. 

Key Takeaways On Featured Snippet 

Featured Snippets don’t last forever. Just like your traditional SEO optimisation, there’s no set it and forget it option. If your strategy works, there’s a high possibility that your Feature Snippet ranking could last a few days or a couple of months. Though Featured Snippets are a great way to increase your brand’s awareness, digital authority, and rank, if you find that it doesn’t work for you don’t feel disheartened. Your thorough keyword research and well-formed content are still a great asset for your site.

The successful use of SEO  can deliver massive wins, if you’re looking for a good starting point, our talented team at RankingCo are more than happy to help you make your way to outranking your competitors. Get in contact with us today and see how we can help you achieve your business goals.