How To Get Featured Snippets

Help content stand out and drive more traffic for maximum visibility.

Featured Snippets, Rich Snippets, and Structured Data are technical terms you might have heard before. In this article, we’ll explain what they mean and how you can use them to your advantage.

What Are Featured Snippets?

A featured snippet is a summary of an answer to a user’s query, displayed at the top of Google search results. Google extracts this information from a web page, displaying its title and URL. Featured snippets appear in a visually distinct box, capturing the user’s attention. Google showcases this result as “the best response” to the query, allowing users to gather information quickly and efficiently. Example of a featured snippet:
Featured snippets and click-through-rate (CTR)

Featured Snippets get a web page to the top of the SERP in an outstanding position: this means greatbrand awareness. Surely, being featured means getting additional brand exposure in search results.

In some cases, this means that the click-through rate (or CTR, which measures the number of clicks that your result receives divided by the number of times it is shown on Google) can increase, as more visitors can be interested in clicking on your specific result.

However, sometimes the Featured Snippets can give the user a response directly on the Google SERP, decreasing the click-through-rate. In fact, there are a lot of searches that can be satisfied directly on Google with Featured Snippets. Example of a featured snippet which belongs to the “answer” search intent:

 

According to an article by Rand Fishkin 72% of searches on mobile and 34% on desktop result in no clicks. One of the reasons for this is exactly that people do not need to click on the websites when these SERP features satisfy them directly on Google‘s SERP.

IS CTR a Ranking Factor?

We understand how User Experience signals impact ranking results and how the RankBrain component of Google’s algorithm takes these into account.

If CTR were a direct ranking factor, Google wouldn’t reveal it, as this knowledge could lead to manipulation of the algorithm. However, the goal of an SEO agency goes beyond just ranking a website high for keywords. The primary objective is to attract relevant users to a site and help them achieve their goals.

Utilising Enriched SERPs for Meaningful Clicks

First, let’s clarify some technical terms:

  • SERP: Stands for Search Engine Results Page. These can be enhanced by various SERP Features.
  • SERP Features: These are results on Google that go beyond the traditional snippet, which consists of a title, URL, and meta description.

The most common SERP Features are Rich Snippets, which add various visual elements to a result. Let’s explore some types of Rich Snippets:

  • Rich Answer: This isn’t a Featured Snippet because it doesn’t show the source of the information. There is no visible snippet (title, URL, and meta description) from any website as the source.

By leveraging enriched SERPs, we can drive meaningful clicks to our sites, enhancing both user experience and engagement.

Example of Rich Answer Rich Snippit:
  • Knowledge Graph. They’re often extracted from a variety of sites.

Example of Carousel Knowledge Graph: 

Main types of Featured Snippets

Featured Snippets are a type of Rich Snippet that show which site provides the information. They vary based on the type of information they contain. Here are some examples:

  • Text Paragraph: Google extracts a paragraph from a page, considering it the best answer to the searcher’s query. This snippet may include an image and additional information. Providing a thorough answer can significantly boost your site’s click-through rate (CTR).
  • Numbered and Bulleted Lists: Lists that address a query directly can also be featured snippets, enhancing visibility and CTR.
  • Reviews: Featured Snippets for reviews show a short excerpt or an average rating from a website, making it easy for users to see the quality of a product or service at a glance.
  • YouTube Videos: Videos can also be featured snippets, which is why it’s important not to neglect YouTube, the world’s second-largest search engine.

Google typically extracts the additional data that makes a snippet “rich” from the structured data in a page’s HTML. This structured data helps Google understand the content and present it in a more informative and engaging way.

What is Structured Data?

Structured data is a specific type of code designed to be easily understood by search engines. As Google explains:

Google Search works hard to understand the content of a page. You can help us by providing explicit clues about the meaning of a page to Google by including structured data on the page.

Search engines read this code to display search results in a more specific and enriched manner.

Structured data is not a new concept. In 2011, the operators of the world’s largest search engines at the time (Bing, Google, Yahoo!, and Yandex) collaborated to:

“create, maintain, and promote schemas for structured data on the Internet, on web pages, in email messages, and beyond.”
This effort led to the creation of Schema.org, a community-driven initiative aimed at creating a structured data markup schema supported by all major search engines. This markup helps search engines understand the information on web pages, resulting in richer search results.

Schema.org offers a wide variety of markups that you can use to provide additional details about your webpage’s content. Using relevant structured data can significantly enhance how search engines interpret and display your content.

Main Types of Structured Data and their markup

The Person Structured Data markup includes:

  • Name
  • Nickname
  • Photograph
  • Job Title
  • Homepage URL
  • Company / Organisation in affiliation
  • Address

The Event Structured Data markup includes:

  • Event Title
  • Location
  • Description
  • Start Date
  • End Date
  • Ticket Price
  • Url to buy the ticket

The Product Structured Data markup is perfect for e-commerce and it includes:

  • Brand Name
  • Product Name
  • Image
  • Price
  • Currency
  • Product’s availability

The Recipe Structured Data markup includes:

  • Recipe Name
  • Author Name
  • Time Required
  • Preparation time
  • Cook Time
  • Description
  • Nutrition
  • Ingredients used
  • Recipe Photo

Also, there are various other types of Structured Data such as

  • Software application
  • Video
  • Article (a common choice for blog posts)
  • Service (recommended for service-based business websites)
  • and plenty of local businesses such as Restaurant, Attorney, Hotel, Taxi
  

SERP Features can bring the right kind of traffic to the site

Targeting high-volume keywords that drive a lot of clicks can be detrimental if the traffic is not well-targeted, leading to users bouncing back to the SERPs. This type of traffic doesn’t provide value. Your goal should be to attract visitors who genuinely want to be on your site.

For instance, consider a Featured Snippet that indicates a recipe has fewer calories and takes less time to prepare. This specific information is valuable to users seeking quick, healthy recipes, ensuring that the traffic driven to your site is more likely to engage with your content.

Instead of going to the page and bouncing back or having a short visit, which could negatively impact your engagement metrics, this featured snippet brings a more relevant session to your site, made by people who want a lighter, quicker preparation.

Also, using enriched SERPS you can surely get more clicks to your site if you’re providing more content that is more useful and more relevant.

Our expert team is ready to help you optimise your site and drive more targeted traffic

If you’d like to know more or make improvements for your website, contact us today for a complimentary SEO audit and consultation.

 

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