Featured Snippets - The Abundant Source For SEO In Digital marketing

The nature of SEO has always been dynamic, but are we ready for this constant flux?

To be in the top has always been a priority, be it in life or in GOOGLE SERP. But, does first mean 1, or does it mean a 0?

Don’t be confused, there is a latest update that Google has bestowed upon us and it had never been this interesting.

Let us understand, how being at a zero position can be beneficial for your online business.

As a layman, we have witnessed a lot of features of Google search page, but do we, as marketers, know about them and how to boost business with their given benefits?

Today, let us have a look at what are SNIPPETS, and how they could be the next best thing for your business.

Let us first understand what it means and how you can use it to maximize your digital marketing and be the best in the market.

SNIPPETS is a fragment of search results that show up on the Google SERP. One single search amongst many is what we call a snippet. It usually includes a description, URL, heading and a short description of the website.

SNIPPETS are extremely important, from the SEO aspect as well as for the users. These include a part of the search results and marketers use frequently used search terms in their snippets. It works both ways and thus proves to be helpful for marketers as well as the users.

You can also call it a door to your website.

Now, let us understand what are the types of snippets:

1. Regular Snippet
2. Rich snippet
3. Featured snippet

Regular snippet is the one that we saw in the above paragraphs. The one that is shown amongst the various search results and provides a brief is called a regular snippet.

Rich snippet is the one that provides a little more information than regular ones. They include reviews and rating of the products/services.

Featured Snippet is the best thing you can think of. This snippet is not something you can hack, rather you have to make your way to the top to get to this type of snippet. You have to literally earn this snippet and this is what we are going to discuss further.

Featured snippet is the one that Google thinks, can provide the best solution to the user.

Featured snippet has also been famed as zero position. Because it does not count in the search results but acts as an addition to the results.

They can be made available in any form - table, paragraph or list. These prove to be extremely helpful for the users as they can just glance over it and have a perfect idea about the topic.

EVOLUTION OF FEATURED SNIPPETS:

Featured snippets were born way before we even knew about it. Initially, Google started to experiment with it, aiming to provide quick results to the users.

It was first called “quick results” making its meaning very obvious.

In 2013, snippets were called “quick results” and were known by only a few.

In around 2015, Google started to enhance these quick results and began displaying better search results and they were then named by the community as featured results.

In 2016, this feature started to prove fruitful and was further enhanced to be made easy for marketers as well as users.

In 2017, Google provided a luxury to the users that they can provide feedback for the snippets. This, not only encouraged them to put forward their views but also made it easy to classify good search results.

In 2018, Google officially reintroduced this feature. In the initial stages, the snippets were taking traffic away instead of driving them and that is what caused Google to re-frame and reintroduce this feature officially.

Their main aim remains to cater to the users as well as the publishers and not cause them any loss in any which ways.

Let us now understand the source position of feature snippet and how do they work.

POSITION ZERO

#1 rank was always considered the best, but Zero changed the game.

It has been remarked as position zero by the community and for a very apt reason. Feature snippet is a short description and is usually from a page that is ranking high on the Google SERP. This is not counted as a search result and is counted even above first search result. That is why it is counted as the zero position.

Also, Google is great when it comes to coming up with upgradations and improvisations.

Now you might be wondering if this shows on the Google SERP, then how is Google SERP different from the featured snippets?

SERP Features V/S Snippets:

Now you might get confused between the two so let us first have a look at what are the SERP features:

SERP features are the features that Google provides, to showcase the website on the search engine results page.

As a layman, we have noticed several types of results on the Google page, like: ads, paragraph, table, links, descriptions, etc.

This is what the SERP feature is. To dig deeper into it, let us see some of the features of SERP:

1. Featured Snippets: This has to be an exclusive and the best feature of the SERP feature because you really have to:

work your way up and earn this position.

You can appear in the featured snippet only if your content is up to the mark and it solves the desired queries.

The position for featured snippets is always the topmost but below the AdWords.

2. AdWords: Seems like Google loves to promote ads. That is why the position of AdWords is always the topmost. But with this leverage, comes a price tag. These are not the free version, instead, you have to pay a price for your ad to showcase.

Then, other than this, there are various other features of SERP feature that help marketers reach their targeted audience.

One such feature is PAA: People Also Ask.

This is a drop down option that provides questions to the term that relates to search queries. At times, people are not able to ask proper questions to the answer that they need.

And that is when this comes in handy.

This box is usually placed under the featured snippet box.

For example, if you search “what is Digital marketing?” This is how the PAA would look like:

And when you click on one particular question, it would scroll down to opening an answer that seems similar to the featured snippet. Also, that would add two more relevant questions.

Now that we have learned all about the feature snippets and how does it work, let us get to the real part where we discuss how to actually get to the zero position.

HOW DO SNIPPETS HELP LOCAL SERP?

Local business listing is extremely important especially if you have a specific audience to target.

As we said, Google is quick in making changes and very recently it had introduced LOCAL PACK that, we more often refer to as local searches.

When you search for a query, Google shows you three top results based on the location, that is nearby. Earlier, it used to show seven results but has now cut it down to just three.

These exclusive pack of three results displayed by Google is the LOCAL PACK.

This is extremely crucial if you have a local business and want to increase and enhance visibility.

This is how the local packs show up on google:

According to a recent study, 50% of consumers conducting a local search, visit the store in a day and 18% of those searches lead to making a purchase within a day.

Even, “near me” results have increased 34 times since 2011. This very fact states how important it is for your business to have a local listing.

Furthermore, let us see how featured snippet and local packs have a relation and how it impacts your business.

Because if they co-exist on the Google SERP, they sure are to have a relationship and that is, in some way, going to affect your business.

According to a report in 2017, local packs appeared on 40% of SERPs while featured snippets, only 11%.

Even, according to a 2018 report, pages that show both the local packs and featured snippets are as rare as 1%.

Let us look at it this way,

This indicates that the search results aim to show all the relevant search results conducted on that page.

Be it featured snippet, images or local pocks.

But then again, the chances of both being seen together are relatively lower. But, how can a marketer use this?

Here are some tips that would help marketers appear in local -packs as well as the featured snippets:

• Curate content using more of questions that you think are most searched.
• How to…?
• Why does…?
• What is the meaning of…?
• How much…?
• Enable local business listing to appear on more relevant search results.
• Have a more human-like approach towards curating the content.
• Featured snippet block contains approximately 40-60 words that contain all the information. Write your content accordingly.
• Find out competitor’s snippets using tools, so that you can make your content even better.
• Curate content that is easier to read and delivers information.

After this, let us see how many times the featured snippets appear on the SERP?

There are basically four types of featured snippets that show up on Google SERP.

1. Paragraph
2. List
3. Table
4. Videos

Before going any further, let us take a quick glance at each one of them.

1. Paragraph snippets - this is the most common type of snippet and appears the most on Google. It usually targets to give precise results to long tail keywords or long questions asked by the visitor. Paragraph snippet is usually the result of all types of questions like - “What is”, “How is”, “Why is”, “Who is”, etc.

1. List Snippet - these type of snippets are usually a result to step by step guide answers. List snippets can be both in numerical as well as bullet form. These type of results show up on questions that include words like, “Top”, “Highest”, “Best”, etc.

1. Table Snippet - these type of snippets are a result of comparative results or results based on structured data. The queries that show table snippet results mostly include words like, “Weight”, “Temperature”, “Cost”, etc.

1. Video Snippet - these type of snippets generally appear on Google SERP when the query asked desire a more visual answer.

Video search is increasingly gaining hike and the chances are very high that this type of snippets appears more than usual.

Now the question that arises is how often we see each type of snippet?

The answer may vary according to the changing trends. Google is always a step ahead when it comes to making changes. Therefore, it cannot be actually predicted that, how many time we can see each type of snippet.

Like for now, according to the study, paragraph snippets seems to appear the most. But if we have a look at the changing trends, video snippets are more likely to take over paragraph snippet very soon.

After all this information, a question that might pop up now is -

How volatile are featured snippets?

Well, the answer to this could be really tricky. Everyone or at least those keeping an eye on Google are aware of its constant changes. Google has a tendency to regularly update its algorithms.

This means that it is quite possible that you lose your very hard earned featured snippet result overnight.

But there is a little confusion regarding how frequently the featured snippets change. Usually, it is believed that Google SERP’s are very fluctuating and so are featured snippets.

However, this is not the case. Google does update its algorithm constantly, but that does not mean it keeps changing its results too.

One point is, it is difficult to reach the zero position and be displayed in the featured snippet. But harder than reaching zero is remaining at zero.

The secret of maintaining your position is, keep an eye on the changes that Google is making in its algorithms. All you have to do is follow the pattern and keep yourself updated as per the changes.

If your content is up to the mark and matches the criteria of Google algorithms, you will not lose your featured snippet position.

Featured snippets are volatile, but if you manage to keep up with the changes made by Google, you will be on zero.

FEATURED SNIPPETS AND VOICE SEARCH:

From typing queries to speaking them and getting their results in a jiffy, we know that we are in 2019.

People today prefer speaking instead of typing it out and that is a clear sign we need to think differently for the content.

According to the facts, 80% of the search results in Google assistant are fetched from the featured snippets.

Here are some great ways to generate content that shows up on snippets as well as Google Assistance:

1. CURATION:

As we already discussed, you have to really work on how would customers ask questions and accordingly curate answers.

Earlier, people used to type “home-baked chocolate cake recipe” that would now become “How to bake a chocolate cake at home?” People now prefer to speak rather than type.

Now, what do you think could be the best form for such content? Obviously, list or video format would work the best for this and chances are much higher that it would appear on the featured snippet.

This is especially important for local businesses because of the new trend that people search “near me”. This is the best way local businesses could promote their business.

1. ANSWER THEIR QUESTIONS:

People have questions in abundance. The best content that serves today is the one that caters to their needs and answers all their questions.

In this era, where people speak all their questions, your content has to be precise, crisp and to the point. Straightforward questions seem to be the best way to make your way to the top.

1. BE MORE HUMAN:

This might come in as a little awkward but is not. Write as if you are speaking and that is what wins the game.

This way, you can answer questions and make it more relevant to the customers. Also, one more thing you need to keep in mind is that the content that you are writing should be according to the snippet meaning - question-based.

That is to say that, there are different types of forms - paragraph, list table or video. It depends on what your content is and being selective about the formation of the content.

So this is all you needed to know about the featured snippets. If you have still not updated your content according to the criteria required for zero position, it is high time you do it now.