How Do You Score a Featured Snippet?

If you’ve got any amount of SEO on the brain, you’re trying to score featured snippets for your site. But are your snippets up to snuff?

Google’s Featured Snippets

The Google Snippet – and more specifically, a Google Featured Snippet – is a short collection of relevant information (usually answers to questions) that appear at the top of a SERP. These show up just after the advertisements but before the rest of the page’s organic content and give your content an enviable competitive advantage.

Craving some influence and brand exposure? You might expect consumers to click away from a SERP once a featured snippet has answered their question, but the CTR of featured pages increases from 2 percent to 8 percent. These pages also see a sharp uptick in organic traffic.

So, how can you ensure that your snippet is Featured Snippet-worthy?

Craft Unique and Valuable Content

Okay, so this one’s obvious. The best thing you can do to boost your content’s SERP ranking and Featured Snippet potential is craft strong content. You have 150 words (max), so you need to use them wisely.

Google’s crawlers – and consumers – place a lot of emphasis on the perceived value of content. Relevant, unique, helpful answers get priority placement in search results, so you need to make sure you’re creating material that your users will find valuable.

Your content should answer pain-point questions. Try advising searchers on the best ways to navigate your industry, and share the niche details of your work with your audience. Get intimate!

Prepare for Voice Search

Voice search is becoming increasingly popular among consumers today, and you need to build potential snippets with spoken answers in mind. When your audience asks Cortana, Alexa, or Siri for help, featured snippets are the answers they’ll hear. Make sure you optimize your content accordingly.

To prepare your snippet for this kind of attention, you’re going to want to research question-oriented keywords. These keywords are typically long-tail keywords, and they’ll likely be hyper-specific to your industry. AnswerThePublic and SEMrush are both great tools that’ll help you identify long-tail keywords that are question-oriented, better preparing your snippet for today’s mobile audience.

Aim for Page One

Remember—you shouldn’t spend the whole of your creative time on a snippet if you’re not already aiming for the first page of a search. As you’re trying to craft the perfect snippet, zoom out and consider the rest of your platform.

Does your site have an FAQ page? How have you integrated SEO into your other content? Where do you rank in Google’s index compared to your competitors?

Crafting a strong snippet is essential to garnering a broader consumer audience. Snippets, however, are the icing on top of an SEO cupcake.

Your snippet needs to be information-rich and SEO smart, but without equally smart and original content to back it up, you’ll be putting in creative hours for lacking results. Be prepared to put in some work to score a Featured Snippet spot. It may take a while to get there, but the results – social and economics – are more than worth the effort.

Conclusion

Is your company in need of help with featured snippets? MV3 Marketing Agency has numerous Marketing experts ready to assist you. Contact MV3 Marketing to jump-start your business.

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