If SEO were an Olympic sport, it would be race walking.
Everyone is after that first place slot – but it’s a long, slow, and strategic path to getting there.
By now, just about every marketer knows the basics of how to rank.
Find and target the right keywords.
Create high-quality content that your audience is looking for.
Prove time and time again that Google should value your content – and that it’s worth showing off to their users.
It’s a tedious and time-consuming process.
And if you do happen to make it to the top slot, it can be snatched away by a competitor at any moment.
Do you ever wish there was a shortcut that would allow you to breeze right past the competition and secure your slot at the front of the pack?
There is an underutilized market that might allow you to leapfrog your competition in a ranking list.
Featured snippets.
Featured snippets can act like your race track to first place.
By targeting this up-and-coming feature, snippets can help you rank highly in less time.
What are featured snippets?
When searching on Google, have you ever noticed the text boxes that jump out and answer your question before you ever even make it to a website?
Well, that is a featured snippet.
These descriptive boxes flip the traditional Google search result listing around.
Rather than giving you the headline, URL, and website first, you get the information, otherwise known as the “snippet.”
Featured snippets can come in many different forms.
First, we have the paragraph featured snippet.
Do a quick Google search of “why is the sky blue,” and you’ll be met with this result:
This box breaks down exactly what makes the sky blue is an example of a featured paragraph snippet.
The paragraph featured snippet is the most basic of all the snippet forms.
However, it’s the standard response to questions like “who is…” and “why is…”
For “how to” questions, you’re likely to get a list featured snippet.
Let’s say you clogged your drain and you’re looking for some help before calling the plumber.
You jump on to Google and search “how to unclog a drain.”
These are probably the results you’ll get…
Like the paragraph featured snippet, a list featured snippet provides the details first.
While less common, how to questions may also bring up a new kind of featured snippet – a video.
Let’s do a quick search for “how to braid hair.”
The featured snippet you’re given is taken straight from YouTube. You can watch the content right on the results page.
You’ll also notice that the snippet offers additional options to make your search more specific.
These are known as refinement bubbles.
Refinement bubbles help to narrow down your search without needing to start the search over.
Another popular type of featured snippet is the table.
You’re most likely to see a table featured snippet after searching for comparisons or statistics.
Here is the result when you search “biggest growth industries” in Google.
As you can see, the CollegeBoard table is pulled directly to the top of the SERP.
Featured snippets like these now appear in about 30% of Google results.
However, featured snippets can cause some complications when it comes time for Google users to go back to your site.
According to a study from Ahrefs, only about 8.6% of clicks go to the featured snippet.
Compared to 19.6% of clicks to the first natural search result, this is a major difference.
However, those 8.6% of clicks can still drive a massive wave of traffic to your website if you were previously struggling to reach the top of a SERP.
Featured snippets also have the added benefit of making your content competitive for voice searches.
With an estimated one billion voice searches each month, it’s an area you can’t afford to ignore.
When a user performs a voice search, the response played back to them is often a featured snippet.
In fact, Moz did a study to see how many featured snippet searches would deliver a voice response.
Pulling 1,000 searches that contained featured snippet results, they performed voice searches to see if the response matched.
71% of the time, the answer was yes.
However, they then broke down these results based on type.
Text snippets were 87% likely to be featured as a voice response.
List responses appeared about half the time, while tables only came up about a third of the time.
When we think about the nature of voice search, this isn’t too surprising.
While lists and tables make for great visual results on a traditional search engine, the ease of reading a snippet makes text much more practical for voice search.
As more and more individuals purchase voice-powered smart speakers, the need for appropriate responses will only become more important to brands.
However, there is no guarantee that you’ll land a featured snippet slot.
Like all things SEO, getting your content placed in a featured snippet slot takes some planning.
Here are the steps you need to follow to secure a featured snippet slot of your own.
1. Create content that answers a direct question
Featured snippets typically appear as a result of a direct question.
Moz posted a study on featured snippets where they compared results using the following question starters.
They found that most of these questions delivered paragraph featured snippets.
Questions beginning with “does,” “why,” and “are” resulted in paragraph featured snippets about 99.9% of the time.
“How” and “have” questions resulted in list featured snippets while “which” questions were the highest for table featured snippets.
Let’s take a look at the featured snippet that appears when you search “how to tie a tie.”
When you type this question into the search bar, you’re given a featured snippet.
However, let’s look what happens when you simply search “tie a tie.”
The results are much more basic.
Rather than the featured snippet, you’re given images and traditional results.
Simply targeting keywords associated with questions isn’t enough. To land the featured snippet placement, you need to be sure to include a direct question.
Let’s look at the way some other questions turn up on Google.
Say I want to learn more about who Mark Cuban is. I go to the search engine and just type in “Mark Cuban.”
This is my result.
While I’m able to pull some key information from this listing, the snippet isn’t the primary resource.
However, let’s turn my search into a question.
Here is my result for searching “Who is Mark Cuban.”
By simply adding the “who is” to my search, we get an entirely new featured snippet.
Again, you’ll notice that the source of the featured snippet is not the same resource from the first search.
To secure the featured snippet placement for yourself, you want to be sure you’re targeting direct questions – not just keywords that may appear within the question.
If you’re trying to secure a list featured snippet, focus on “how to” questions.
Use “which” when trying to target table featured snippets.
Stick to the basics. “Who,” “how,” “why,” “when,” and “where” are all great places to start.
One way to cover a number of questions at once is through an FAQ or Q&A page.
Moz was able to help an orthodontist increase organic sessions to their website by 46.10% by targeting featured snippets through a Q&A.
A FAQ or Q&A page can help you cover many questions without overwhelming your visitors.
By providing short, scannable responses to questions you get asked frequently, you can provide high-value content to your target audience while also increasing your chances of getting a featured snippet slot.
However, you want to be strategic about the questions you target.
Which brings us to our next point…
2. Find the ranking opportunities unique to your audience
What is one of the key best practices when doing SEO?
Keyword research.
But what is one of the most important things to consider when doing keyword research?
Your audience.
If the keywords you target aren’t used by your audience, you may turn up in a search, but you’re not going to get any clicks.
Featured snippets work the same way.
Targeting just any slot is a waste of time and resources.
Instead, you want to get your featured snippets placed at the top of searches your audience is already looking for.
You can identify these ranking opportunities in a few different ways.
First, start with keyword research.
To rank for a featured snippet, you need to be among the Top 10 results for that keyword 99.58% of the time.
To identify snippets you may be able to be featured for, consider what keywords you’re already ranking highly for.
Next, think of a basic question that applies to your industry or business.
For this example, let’s use “what is AI.”
Here are our results.
While this doesn’t show a featured snippet, what we do get are some additional questions people are also searching for under “People Also Ask.”
Users can click one of the “People Also Ask” questions and get a short response.
These “People also ask” questions can be a great place to start learning about what your audience is looking for.
There are a few different ways you can find the questions your audience is asking.
One of the best places to look is on Quora.
Quora has 190 million monthly users, all asking questions, providing answers, and engaging in conversations.
Here is what you find when you search “what is AI” in Quora.
In addition to a response, you’re also shown a list of related questions.
Like the “People Also Ask” section from your Google search, these questions can give you an idea of what people want to know.
Another great place to generate potential questions is Answer the Public.
By typing in a keyword, Answer the Public will generate some question responses.
No comments:
Post a Comment