Featured Snippets: How To Optimize Your Content for Them?

There is something in the SERPs that manages to steal a fairly high rate of clicks from even the top organic results with their flashy images.

Hey, they will become even more popular in the SEO trends of 2021 and will really affect the traffic rates that websites get. Therefore, it may be a good idea to develop strategies to “be one of them” or to be a little more prepared for them: Featured Snippets!

When you search for anything, you notice that featured snippets show you a “quick result” in a box. This result shown may be the concept itself, sometimes a paragraph from which you can extract very useful information, and sometimes a kind of calculator.

No matter it may look like, we are sure that Featured Snippets reduces your clickthrough rates on the first organic result.

Because hey, if you’ve already found what you’re looking for, why keep looking?

This is exactly why featured snippets and SEO are closely related: their main aim is to get to know the user’s intent and present exactly what the user is looking for in a simple way. For this, of course, your real star is content optimization. Sites that do not have much of a chance in organic rankings and have not yet reached the first page get the chance to get organic hits thanks to featured snippets and their traffic turns into conversion over time, naturally becoming featured snippets and SEO work thanks to their user-oriented content.

Hey, it looks like a great opportunity, isn’t it?

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What is Featured Snippets?

Featured Snippets aims to create a direct response to the user’s query on Google with certain keywords, usually with long-tail keywords. The resulting answer boxes can be presented to users in three basic forms:

• Paragraphs: A box consisting of approximately 3 to 5 lines of paragraphs is shown as a featured result. If you wish, you can click the link here and easily go to the site in question. The answer in the box is often meant to give you quick information on the question you ask.
  
  

• Lists: Google often has a great feature for “best” searches. This feature manages to further increase the ux that will allow users to get the information in a list. In this way, it is possible for users to request to enter the site to see the continuation of the list.
  

• Tables: Some responses may be given as a table, again highlighting your site. Usually, variable values ​​such as the price list of a particular brand’s products or interest rates of loan types can be highlighted in a table.
  

Studies show that featured snippets types have a different frequency of use. While the snippets in the form of paragraphs constitute 81.95 percent of all, the rate of snippets in the form of a list (this list can be a bullet or numbered) was determined as 10.77 percent. Table snippets only account for 7.28 percent of all. The possible CTR rate of each snippet type can also be different!

Are They Called ”Answer Boxes”?

Is everything ok? fantastic! Let’s also say this: You can hear that Featured snippets are called “answer boxes” in some sources. In fact, the official name of these fields is featured snippets. We can even say that this word is used for Google’s external link just below the relevant box in SERP. But still, ”the answer box” could be the quick definition of these snippets.

Which Search Queries show Featured Snippets?

Do you need to make content optimizations for featured snippets on your website? In fact, how much advantage this type of optimization will give you may vary depending on the industry your site serves. Google shows snippets more frequently, especially for queries on specific topics. We would like to share a very useful table with you:

A study by Ahrefs aimed to match the queries that were brought to users with snippets with the keywords used in these queries. As a result of this research, interesting results were found.

1. The word recipe was used in 2.3 percent of the searches in which featured snippets are shown. Nowadays, when you do such a search, the possibility of encountering recipes with featured snippets along with calorie information, preparation time, and preparation steps is really high.
2. The word best is used in queries that show featured snippets equally. As we just said, this word can be extremely valuable, especially for featured snippets that are used in list form and show the best of the things in a certain category.
3. The word vs is known as a very important query word that creates answers with featured snippets in the form of paragraphs or tables, especially for situations that require comparison.
   

Which Type of Contents Are Shown as Featured Snippets?

Well, we studied the words. Now let’s take a look at the sectors that are frequently matched with featured snippet results if you wish. In which sectors sites that offer content are more likely to be shown in featured snippets?

• DIY process: Information boxes containing photographs and steps can often be seen in SERPs, especially in DIY contents, where the construction of a particular object is explained step by step. That’s why featured snippets are much more important to you, especially if your website is in this area.

• Health: It is extremely valuable to be able to give quick answers to questions asked in the field of health. These responses can sometimes consist of a single word and sometimes a paragraph.
  
  

• Financial: In particular, calls such as loan packages of certain banks or credit institutions, rates of certain currency types in each other can be presented as boxes.

• Math queries are often displayed directly. It is also known that some of these mathematical inquiries show results directly on the two-dimensional graph. Usually, a calculator can also be displayed in snippets.

We now know featured snippeds much better. So, what should you do to ensure that your content is shown first, especially if your website is serving in an industry with a high rate of snippets? Featured snippets and SEO are highly interrelated. But is there any special optimization work you need to do to appear in snippets? Let’s take a look at this together.

Optimizations for Featured Snippets

So, how can you manage the content optimization process to be eligible to appear in featured snippets in SERPs? We’ve decided to give you a few quick tips!

Using Long-Tail Keywords

We just said: long-tail keywords increase the display of featured snippets, as they clearly reveal the information the user specifically wants to learn. Let’s think like this:

• Is ”rankings and featured snippets” show what you are looking for more clearly?
• Or does the query “how do featured snippets affect ranking?” reveal your intent more specifically?

Remember, Google’s aim is to understand the user intent and accordingly, to provide the user with the fastest response. If you can target the right ones among the long-tail keywords, you can get closer to appearing in featured snippets step by step.

There are many tools you can use for good long tail keyword research. Generally, such inquiries are in the form of questions. You should be able to provide powerful content that can provide the user with the exact answer to the question they are looking for in queries that include various words such as “what,” “why,” “how,”.

Using Google Schemas and Microdata

There was a way to tell search engines exactly what each field on your site meant, in search engine language: Do you remember what that was? Google Schemas facilitate the crawling processes of search engines with their microdata-shaped codes and reveal your chance to provide users with richer results in SERP.

Research has revealed that rankings in keywords or featured snippets are not directly related to Google Schemas. However, providing rich results and telling search engines what is on your site may make the user more inclined to click on your site upon seeing you in the SERP.

And hey, using Google Schemas can allow you to tailor different areas of your site to respond directly to the user intent. After all, you will be thinking with the logic of “what should I mark up as what?”

Setting your subheadings and paragraphs to respond directly

Imagine creating a subheading. Under this subheading, give a clear answer to the title question. Let this quick answer be presented to the user as a separate paragraph. Then elaborate on the subject by moving to a lower part.

Primarily, providing the summary answer can increase your chances of appearing in featured snippets. Because the researches show that the paragraph structures seen in featured snippets consist of an average of 45 words and 293 characters. The highest possible impression is 97 words and 752 characters. As you can imagine, answering a user’s question within a paragraph that would fit these dimensions may increase the likelihood that Google will pick your answer to the featured snippet.

This situation is as follows for other featured snippets:

Google Snippets Are Not Limited to Featured Ones

The snipped types offered by Google do not actually consist of only featured snippets. Google wants to you to make use of various snippets in order to rank results that provide users with more interesting and detailed results in SERP.

Hey, note that the word snippet means “part trimmed with scissors”. In other words, the parts shown in the details of each search result on the SERP are the snippets parts.

Having a rich image as a snippet of a search result in the SERP can call the user to the action and increase the likelihood that the person on the SERP will choose your site to click on. For example, let’s take a look at the following search result:

 You can only enrich this view with the use of Google Schemas and structured data.

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