SEO, PR and Brand Trust – Position Zero and Featured Snippets

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Brand visibility plays a major role in brand awareness and trust.

Improving your SERP (Search Engine Results Page) rankings doesn't just enhance your capacity to attract traffic and potential customers; it also elevates the perception of your business's authenticity in the eyes of your audience.

And there is now another position you should be aiming for to increase brand trust - position zero, or a featured snippet.

In a featured snippet, an excerpt from a webpage comes before the listings. They can be seen either below paid ads but above the organic search results or on the right hand side- as in this example. It’s Google’s way of giving its users quick answers to their search queries.

When a featured snippet appears at the very top of the SERP it is described as occupying?position zero. This means it is the first thing a user will see and the most likely link they will click.

?Featured snippets come in the following formats:

·???????? Paragraphs– By far the most common featured snippet is a 40 to 60 word block that explains the answer to a search query

·???????? Lists?– A bulleted list of steps explaining how to achieve the search query – Recipes and other types of how-to content often appear as numbered lists of steps

·???????? Tables– Sometimes Google will extract information from a page in table form such as a conversion chart for cups to ounces

·???????? Videos?– For some queries, Google may provide a video – once clicked, the video will play right in the search results

?Why do you want to reach position zero?

When people ask questions online, they want answers as quickly as possible. If the information they are seeking pops up right in front of them, they aren’t going to look any further.

Typically a featured snippet is extracted from one of the top-ranking pages for that search query and includes that page’s title and?URL. That’s why occupying position zero can boost visits, click-throughs, and conversions.

As well as growing traffic to your website position zero establishes brand expertise. When your company provides Google’s definitive answer to a question, that makes a powerful statement.?

Top Tip:?Featured snippets are used as voice search results. As voice search becomes more common, this could be a helpful boost.

Aiming for position zero in 2024

How can you get your content ranked in these coveted spots in the new year?

Identify Position Zero Opportunities

Identify opportunities to land position zero. Not every search result has a featured snippet, which can be a good place to start. Find keyword phrases that have a featured snippet you can aim to replace or phrases/questions that lend themselves well to featured snippets.

It can be helpful to start with keywords you already rank well for. Most featured snippets come from high-ranking results, so you can aim to optimize your popular content.

Create content Google favors for featured snippets

Google favors certain types of content for featured snippets. These types of content are more easily picked up and shown to the user. Aim to include:

·???????? Instructions

·???????? How-to

·???????? Definitions

·???????? Prices

·???????? FAQs

·???????? Comparisons

·???????? Simple answers to who, what, when, where, why questions

Create great content that helps users

When it comes to successful SEO in 2024, there aren’t any shortcuts. You need to produce quality content that helps people. Here is Google’s official stance on this:

Any content—not just unhelpful content—on sites determined to have relatively high amounts of ?unhelpful content overall, is less likely to perform well in search assuming there is other content elsewhere from the web that’s better to display.

So, aim for long-form, evergreen content that thoroughly explores your topic and directly answers the question in your chosen keyword phrase.?

Top Tip:?Google uses latent semantic indexing (LSI), which means it understands how words relate. Avoid keyword stuffing and use related key phrases and synonyms to prove understanding.

Remember, you are no longer aiming for number one. In the world of SEO. It’s all about reaching position zero.

If you would like help with a content audit to establish the quality of your content, or your content strategy and SEO in 2024, give us a call 888 243 3470.

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