Featured snippets: how they can level up your business

Google, the world's most used search engine, has created a revolution in online business. Nowadays it is necessary to have your website listed on Google for more traffic and sales. That is why more time, money, and professionals are spent on SEO (Search Engine Optimization), which can be complicated sometimes. That being said, here is when the featured snippets appear. Featured snippets are an answer to a question that appears directly on top of (or beside) the search results and it is usually very accurate and descriptive, with most often more than one link pointing towards authoritative pages.  This kind of information is very important for small companies because it is a chance to have your business rank higher on Google, without investing so much money and time.

How to get featured snippets?

This is pretty easy using the correct SEO techniques. You just need accurate knowledge of how search engines work and especially Google's algorithm "Penguin”. One of the most important aspects of getting featured snippets is to create valuable content on your website, which means unique and accurate information with a lot of relevant keywords. To accomplish this, there are many ways like creating your blog, writing articles, creating infographics, recording videos, and many more. You should also use other SEO techniques like optimizing the meta tags of your website (i.e. title, description, h1 tag, URL & ALT tags ), building links to your website using high-quality do-follow backlinks from high authority websites, and directories, avoiding black hat techniques and so on. But, one of the best ways to get a featured snippet is writing an article about your product or services, having it published on several websites like Forbes, Inc., Entrepreneur, etc. Then include inside that article your unique keywords plus a link to your website. You should also send your article to Google and ask for a featured snippet, but please be aware of the fact that Google can't guarantee you will get it. By doing so, you accomplish 3 things: getting free traffic from Google, improving SEO ranking for keywords used in your article or/and website, and finally a featured snippet to place on top of your ad.

Great, but what is the real deal with featured snippets?

Featured snippets are very important for small businesses (which don't have much time and money invested in SEO) because it is a good chance to be displayed on the top of search engine results without spending anything. And even though a featured snippet does not directly bring in traffic, it has a lot of other benefits in long term. In the case your business is a non-profit or public/government organization, getting a featured snippet can be even more important. This way you will have the chance to rank higher on Google and get a free promotion without spending money.

How can featured snippets help your business?

As you already know, the companies that invest more in SEO are usually on top of search engines. This can be very frustrating for small businesses which don't have much money or time invested in SEO. So getting a featured snippet helps them to rank higher on Google and get a free promotion without investing anything. Getting higher on Google doesn't only affect your search engine ranking, but also helps to create brand awareness, make prospects aware of who you are and what you do, all this with zero investment. Also please remember that featured snippets don't last forever, so there is a big chance that once you get one rich snippets google snippet for a specific keyword, in a few weeks you will have to fight for it. This way the major players on the market will start competing with your company and try to take back what belongs to them. By doing this they can easily push you down from Google search results.

So, what can you do to get back on track?

There are three main things that we consider very important when it comes to maintaining your snippet. The first one is creating valuable content around the same topic with relevant keywords, the second thing is optimizing meta tags of your website, and lastly building links from high authority websites instead of directories. See Types Of Content That Google Prioritizes For Featured Snippets

Types of Features Snippets 

Answer box

An answer box is a small lightweight snippet presented on top of a search engine result page(SERP) that offers a direct answer to the user's question. It might be a list, table, or paragraph. To do SERP checker uses SERP checker tool and an SEO SERP checker to show the results of a search. Google launched Answer box feature to provide the searchers with brief and accurate answers to their questions immediately without leaving the SERP.

Carousel results

Carousel results are displayed as thumbnails underneath the search engine result page and allow you to provide extra images or videos of your business When the carousel is also shown for commercial queries, it's quite profitable for businesses to be displayed as one of the best something. We assume that carousel is formed based on the HV brand keywords, so to get there you need to boost your branded search traffic.

Large carousel results

Large carousel results are displayed as thumbnails underneath the search engine result page and allow you to provide extra images or videos of your business

Right/Top/Bottom paid block ads

Paid blocks are paid ads that most of the time appear in between search engine result pages. They can be displayed either on the top or bottom of the page or on the right side of the search results.

Side/Top/Bottom shopping block ads

Shopping blocks are displayed on top of the Google Images search results page and allow you to provide more information about your products.

Featured snippets

If you enter a simple question into the search box, Google most likely shows you a Featured snippet — short summary of information related to your query (it’s not always texting content, it could be some video from YouTube). Unlike the answer box, the info shown in the Featured snippet is taken from one of Google top-10 search results. Google determines which site presents the most relevant content. Moreover, it's not always the first one, it could be any of the top-10. Besides the brief answer to the question query, the Title, image and link to the URL this answer in parsed from are also displayed.

Route map

  Route map snippets provide a map of routes to your business on Google Maps. These types of snippets can't be easily found in one place and appear on top of Google pictures or news search results page. Local pack snippets provide common terms for featured snippet packs on the page

Related Questions Boxes

Related question boxes are presented in two different ways: Either in the form of a list with links to more information under each one of them on a search engine result page Or as an answer box (the box that provides an answer to the user's question) which is displayed on top of Google images, videos or news search results page and can't be easily found in one place.

Top stories for query

Top stories for query snippets provide an answer to the user's question in form of a list with an image and a paragraph. This type of snippet appears on top of Google pictures or news search results page.

Images for request

Images for request snippets provide an answer to the user's question in form of a list with an image and a paragraph. This type of snippet appears on top of Google pictures or news search results page.

Related queries

Related queries snippets provide an answer to the user's question in form of a list with an image and a paragraph. This block appears for all analyzed keywords Google shows suggestions for. By clicking on any option in Related search, you'll get to a new SERP.

Knowledge graph

Knowledge graph snippets are directly displayed on top of a search engine result page with an image, paragraph, or list which offers the answer to the user's question. Every single snippet has two main parts: Entity – the title of an article/website/business and link to it Answer - what the website owner needs to provide

Knowledge graph with a map

Knowledge graph box snippets are directly displayed on top of Google Images or News results page with an image, paragraph, or list which offers information to the user.

Conclusion

As you can see, Google has a lot to offer when it comes to featured snippets. Be sure that your website is up to date with the latest guidelines and that it's 100% accessible to Google crawlers. Also, make sure that you offer answers to the widest possible range of questions that are commonly asked around your industry. Finally, take advantage of Google's knowledge graph feature to rank well for specific queries which are very important in terms of driving traffic to your website.