Google Snippet

by Nick Berns | Apr 22, 2021 | On Page SEO

What are Google Snippets?

Google Snippets, also known as Featured snippets, are snippets of information to quickly answer a search query. The snippets are usually displayed from informational search queries and are found at the top of the search result page. Google automatically extracts the content of these snippets from website content that it deems informational enough to answer a question.

Is it good or bad for SEO?

Since Features snippets are found at the top of a search results page and outrank all search results (also known as position zero), this can either be beneficial or painful for your SEO.

On one hand, it can be beneficial because it is at the top of the search results. Data shows that users are more likely to click the top search results that those with lower-ranked ones. Since Google only shows a snippet of your content, users trying to find more information will most likely click your link. So, knowing how to get your page featured is one way to get a click-through rate boost.

On the other hand, featured snippets can be a pain because some users deem the content inside featured snippets enough to answer their questions, resulting in a “no-click” scenario. Data tell us that the click-through rate of organically ranked webpages, where a featured snippet is shown, is significantly lower than those without featured snippets. So, it is best to check if a specific keyword you’re targeting has a featured snippet.

This, however, does not mean that you have to automatically avoid keywords that have a featured snippet. You should also factor in search volume and competition to see if it is worth gunning for these keywords.

What should I do to get featured in a Google Snippet?

In the event that you do decide to optimize a keyword with a featured snippet, here are some tips that you can use to increase the likelihood of your content being featured:

Check that type of featured snippet is used. Google uses different formats of featured snippets depending on what type of information best answers a search query. This can be a definition, a table, a list of instructions or a list in general. Knowing what type of featured content Google is featuring on that keyword already gives you an idea as to what type of content are you going to add/optimize on your webpage.

Structure your webpage based on user needs. Since most featured snippets are shown in searches that are informational in nature, create content that answers these questions. Add definitions, create mini FAQs, or use a Q&A format in your content. Don’t forget to wrap those questions in H2 tags so that Google can quickly crawl them and post the answer to that question directly below it.