In the fast-paced world of digital marketing, staying ahead of the curve is essential for business owners like you. As you navigate the ever-evolving landscape, one question lingers: What makes certain websites stand out and captivate audiences while others struggle to be noticed? The answer lies in the power of featured snippets—a hidden gem that can revolutionize your online presence and unlock remarkable opportunities for growth.
Imagine having a virtual billboard that commands attention and entices potential customers to explore your offerings further. That’s precisely what featured snippets can do for your business. These coveted positions at the top of Google’s search results have the potential to be the game-changer you’ve been seeking.
Here are some of the reasons why featured snippets are important:
Featured snippets matter because they give your website prime real estate on search engine result pages (SERPs). By appearing at the top, you grab users’ attention and increase your click-through rates. Plus, they establish your business as a trusted source, boosting credibility and authority.
Now, let’s explore everything you need to know about featured snippets and how they can transform your digital marketing strategy.
Why Should You Care About Featured Snippets?
In short, featured snippets help improve your SEO. They act as a powerful signal to Google that your website is a valuable resource for users. SEO, and that featured snippet position in particular, offer a wide variety of advantages for not just your website, but your business.
More Visibility
Featured snippets appear above the organic search results, making them highly visible to users. This prime real estate increases your brand’s exposure and attracts more clicks, driving traffic to your website.
Increased Traffic to Your Site
Ranking in the featured snippet position can lead to a significant boost in organic traffic. Users tend to click on the featured snippet first, as it provides an immediate answer to their query. By capturing this position, you can outshine competitors and attract more visitors to your site.
Take this client, for example. Their post is ranking for multiple featured snippets, and they’ve gotten an additional 400+ visitors to their site over the last 3 months.
Credibility and Authority
Being featured in the snippet position establishes your business as an authoritative source in your industry. Users perceive featured snippets as reliable and trustworthy, which enhances your brand’s credibility and boosts customer confidence.
I created a page on jewelry SEO for our website, and we’re ranking for the featured snippet position for the search term SEO for jewelry websites. Securing this featured snippet position indicates that search engines consider our content to be highly relevant, accurate, and authoritative.
By appearing at the top of the search results and providing concise, insightful information, we’re establishing our marketing agency as a credible source of expertise in the realm of SEO for jewelry websites. This visibility reinforces the perception that we possess the knowledge and skills necessary to address the specific needs and challenges of the jewelry industry.
Competitive Advantage
Securing the featured snippet spot allows you to surpass your competitors in search engine visibility. Even if you rank lower in the organic search results, appearing in the snippet position gives you a competitive edge and draws attention away from other listings.
Take the following search results for the keyword how to guess ring size, as an example. Which of these are you going to be most likely to trust and click on to learn more?
Normally, people will choose the featured snippet since it stands out from the rest of the results.
What Do We Know About Featured Snippets?
To put it bluntly: quite a bit. Chasing down featured snippets has become almost a sport to us. We’re always trying to find the best, fastest, most out-the-box techniques to claim that coveted first position on behalf of our clients.
When I say it’s almost a sport, I’m serious. There are Starbucks lattes on the line, not to mention the internal acclaim, glory, and shoutouts in the team kudos channel.
Through countless hours of research, testing, and trial and error, Jonathan has developed a system that we’ve used to rank many pieces of content. Internally, we half lovingly half jokingly refer to posts we create using this system as SNOPs– snippet optimized posts.
This is a great example. This SNOP ranks for 46 keywords, and ranks in the top position for not 1, not 2, but 11 featured snippets.
(And no, this isn’t even the record number of featured snippets for a single post. That title belongs to Sydney, who wrote a post that ranks for a whopping 16 snippets.)
We’re also not the only ones who think we’re pretty good at this: we’ve been featured in other articles (like this one on Hubspot) offering insights into how to get that snippet position.
SNOP til ya drop, amirite?
I’m Sold: I Want a Featured Snippet Post
So you want a SNOP for yourself? I can’t say I blame you. If this is a service you’re interested in, there are a couple of things you need to know:
- Half of the SNOP battle is figuring out the perfect longtail keyword. So if you have a highly specific search term in mind… I hate to break it to you, but it might not be possible. What we’ll do is a lot of research into related keywords, and then when we create the blog post, we’ll include a button back to that product or service you’re dying to sell.
- We make no guarantees. We can’t guarantee a SNOP to rank perfectly, nor can we offer a your-money-back type of sitch (sorry). Regardless of whether or not it ranks. It’s the same amount of effort on our part. What we can do is follow best practices and the patterns we’ve seen work before.
If you want to hear more about SNOPs, don’t be afraid to reach out. We’d love to discuss what opportunities are out there and leverage your unique expertise to provide Google with the perfect answer to provide your ideal customers.
