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Featured Snippet Guidelines

by | Mar 1, 2018 | Marketing, Web Development

Being an expert in a field is a wonderful thing. Applying that expertise and sharing it with others is even better. By now we’ve all been searching for something Google and seen a Featured Snippet (like the ones in this post) at the top of their organic search results. In looking at these snippets that 3PRIME has helped clients create you will notice that each one provides the best answer to the very specific search query or question in the most succinct and informative way possible. These are just a few of the examples of Featured Snippets that 3PRIME has helped develop. They include very specific car transportation routes, a niche mechanical device for filtering light, and answering what it means to be eligible for SSDI. Featured Snippets don’t replace organic search results and aren’t necessarily directly related to the first or even second organic result of any search. What Featured Snippets do is seek to best answer a search query and show that above any website search results, allowing a user to get a short answer without having to visit a site at all.

How to Get Noticed and Featured by Google

  1. Use long-tail and highly targeted keywords
  2. Be mindful of page titles and descriptions
  3. Create in-depth content with easily digestible and structured information

Use long-tail and highly targeted keywords. Oftentimes Google will show a snippet for very specific keywords or a question that a user searches for. The more specific and targeted your content is to a keyword or query, the more likely you are to get a Featured Snippet. Identifying and utilizing long-tail keywords within your content will ultimately provide Google with more opportunities to feature your content.

Be mindful of page titles and descriptions. The titles and descriptions of your pages provide Google and other search engines with insight into the content of your page. Page titles provide some of the best opportunities to provide Google with highly relevant keyword data and information about page content. Optimizing page titles to include unique and relevant keywords that a user is searching for holds tremendous weight with Google. Optimizing content for all aspects of Google is important for obtaining a Featured Snippet. While it is true that a Featured Snippet does not necessarily correlate to the first organic search result, being on page 1 does help boost the likelihood of being featured.

Create in-depth content with easily digestible and structured information. When writing content that you hope to be featured by Google the first thing is to make sure that you are thoroughly answering the query. Signaling to Google through the use of hyper-focused, long-tail keywords is a great place to start, but certainly not the only thing that matters to Google. Two other pieces that are often missed when writing highly specific content is ensuring that it can be displayed as a Featured Snippet in such a way that it answers the question that someone types into Google. The other piece is to fully develop content. While you want Google to be able to pull a list or short piece of content to fill in a Featured Snippet, the page itself should be robust and full of well-developed and informative answers to the search query. Long-form content is important to Google insofar as ranking a page for providing a thorough answer to a search query or question. What is generally meant by long-form content is a page with over 1,500 words, with very thorough, well-written, and exceptional content.

When creating a page to answer a question and hopefully obtain a Featured Snippet, don’t be afraid to research and provide a long, thoughtful, fully fleshed out answer- it’s exactly what Google wants. Combined with best SEO practices and targeting highly specific keywords and queries you’ll position yourself much better in Google search engine rankings and be that much closer to getting a Featured Snippet and improving traffic to your website. Focus and speed are essential in today’s world, with the average attention span dropping from 12 seconds to 8 seconds over the past 15 years it has become more paramount than ever to give quick, easily processed and understood information. Google wants to provide its users with easy to read and identify information, so the next time you are creating new content or adding to your web presence in any way ask us how to optimize for a Featured Snippet. It will help guide you to positive results. Whether you’re looking for website design, web development, or you’re not sure what you need to take your site to the next level 3PRIME is here to help you figure it out.