Google’s Featured Snippets for SEO: Everything Covered!

Google SERPs no longer just limited to the 10-blue-links.

In the last few years, Google has significantly worked to offer more useful results to users through extra features on its results pages.

Depending on the search query, the SERP may contain different features, such as image packs, knowledge cards, rich snippets,…. and featured snippets.

In this in-depth article, we are going to cover everything about featured snippets that an SEO should know! 💡

Table of Contents

• What are Featured Snippets?
• Types of Featured Snippets
  • Paragraph
  • Table
  • List
  • Video
• Featured Snippets Vs. Rich Snippets: The Differences
• Why are Featured Snippets Important for SEO?
• How to Get Featured Snippets?
  • Target the Right Keywords & Go Long Tail
  • Identify Featured Snippet Type
  • Optimize Content for a Specific Featured Snippet Type
• Opt Out of Featured Snippets: Why, When, and How to?
  • How to Opt Out of Google Featured Snippets?
• Commonly Asked Questions on Featured Snippets
• Summary

What are Featured Snippets?

Featured snippets are the special type of search results that appear on the top of the SERPs and provide a summarized answer to the user’s query, without having the user to clickthrough to the website. They appear in a reverse format of the traditional search result, i.e. snippet describing page appears above the blue link.

Featured snippet is also referred to as “position 0” by many SEOs as it appears above the normal search results. They appear for queries with a strong intent,

For example, here’s a screenshot of featured snippet from one of our articles:

In cases like above, Google may also highlight the main answer to the query in the snippet.

The primary aim of featured snippets is to help the user easily find the information they’re seeking, especially the mobile users. The result appearing in the featured snippet may also contain a link to the highlighted section of the page, which answers the query.

For example, clicking the above snippet leads to:

The featured snippets may also appear in the People Also Ask sections of the SERP.

Types of Featured Snippets

Based on the user intent, the SERP may show different featured snippets. The most common types of Google featured snippets are:

• Paragraph
• Table
• List
• Video

Understanding the type of featured snippet that fits the user intent will help you better optimize your content for the “position 0.” Let’s explore each of them with examples.

Paragraph

Paragraph is the most common type of featured snippets. They mainly appear for queries seeking for a specific answer or definition.

Here’s an example of paragraph featured snippet on Google:

In some paragraph snippets, you can also find the main answer in heading about the featured snippets.

Generally, these type of direct answers appear from highly authoritative sites, such as government institutions.

Semrush found that the average length of paragraph featured snippet is 40-60 words.

Table

The table featured snippet visualizes the data. Google directly pulls the table from the best-matching page, and features it on top of the page.

For example, on searching for “WhatsApp users by country 2023,” Google identifies a table from the best search result, and displays it.

List

The list featured snippets are appear for listicles, steps of process, and to rank items.

They can be both ordered and unordered.

For example, the search query “off-page SEO checklist” displays a featured snippet with the items in the bulleted list:

The list featured snippet can also appear to displays steps of a process in a numbered list.

For example:

Video

Textual content is sometime not enough to satisfy a searcher. Therefore, Google features video snippets for such queries.

Featured snippets with videos mainly appear for “how to” queries.

For example, here’s a video featured snippet from YouTube for the query “how to fold a pocket square”:

Featured Snippets Vs. Rich Snippets: The Differences

Featured snippets are picked by Google as the best results and are displayed on the top of the SERPs. On the other hand, the rich snippets appear as results with extra features, such as reviews and ratings. The rich results make use of structured data to display extra information, and do not have any direct relation with rank position.

Here is an example of product rich snippet on Google:

The main difference between features snippets and rich snippets is that featured snippets will almost always appear on the top of SERPs, whereas the rich snippets can appear anywhere, if structured data is added to the page.

How to differentiate featured snippets from rich snippets?

In case of featured snippet, the information appears above the link. On the other hand, rich snippets follow a traditional format of organic results, i.e. information below the link.

You can learn more about rich snippets, their types, and how to get them through this definitive guide to rich snippets for SEO.

Besides this, the SERPs may contain other extra features, such as definition box, knowledge panel, knowledge cards, and ads, which differ from featured snippets.

Why are Featured Snippets Important for SEO?

Featured snippets help the searchers to quickly find the information they’re looking for without having to visit the website.

Here are some benefits you can seek by securing featured snippets on Google:

• Quickly Get More Clicks: One research by Ahrefs shows that featured snippets harness 8.6%. The clicks are less than #1 regular position (19.6%), but it is still worth it if you’re not ranking #1.

• Reserve More Space on SERP: The featured snippet is longer than the regular results, and covers more area. They take up to 50% or more of the screen on mobile phones, making the result stand out. Therefore, they can help in improving brand credibility.

• Filter Out Low-Converting Visitors: The users can skim through the information on the featured snippet, and click on it only if they’re highly interested. Therefore, filtering out low-converting visitors.

How to Get Featured Snippets?

Google uses its own patented algorithm to find the best-match answer to generate featured snippets. You need to format your website content and make it stand out from the rest to get featured snippets.

99% of the featured snippets appear from the pages ranking on #1 on Google, according to Ahrefs. Therefore, if your webpage is ranking on the #1 page of Google, then it has a potential to grab the featured position too!

Here are some practices to start optimizing your web page for featured snippets:

Target the Right Keywords & Go Long Tail

First things first—identify the keywords you want featured snippets for.

Featured snippets are more likely to appear for long-tail keywords with specific intent. Keyword made up of 10 words is likeliest to display a featured snippet.

You can find such long-tail keywords by using tools such as Answer The Public, or by manually playing with the Google search auto-suggest.

Further, you can also use keyword research tools by Semrush or Ahrefs to find out the existing SERP features on the keywords.

For the keywords that already have featured snippets, you need to create content of higher quality to dethrone the competitor. In case of keywords with a strong search intent but no featured snippet, there is an opportunity for you!

Make a list of tag long-tail queries that you want to target for the featured snippets.

Identify Featured Snippet Type

If the chosen keyword already has a featured snippet, you already know the type of content you need to replace it.

It is too easy otherwise as well.

Put yourself into the situation, and find out the search intent of the keyword you want to target.

For example, for the search query – “What is SEO,” you’d expect a answer in a paragraph format from the search engine.

It’s that obvious.

Most of the times, it is easy to crack.

Optimize Content for a Specific Featured Snippet Type

The type of featured snippet you want to target is decided.

Now, its time to create content that fits best into it.

In order to get paragraph featured snippet, you need to answer the search query in the most concise manner. Try to write the snippet in 40 to 50 words or 250 to 300 characters, but don’t stick to this limit. Overall, the chief aim is to provide the best possible answer.

Include the snippet directly under the main heading, and try to use the simplest possible language, with no fluff.

Useful Tip: Avoid using brand names or self-promotional content while writing for paragraph snippets.

In case of tables, make sure to use proper html tags (<th>, <tr>, <td>, etc.) and use descriptive column names to make it easy for search engines to understand the data. Keep the data fresh and relevant to increase the chances of the table being featured.

Similarly, you need to use proper html markup for the ordered and unordered lists to get featured on SERP. In case of numbered list, use the <ol>…</ol>  html tag instead of manually numbering the items.

For example, let’s say you’re writing a listicle on top CMS Platforms.

Use:

<ol>

<li>WordPress</li>

<li>Wix</li>

<li>Joomla</li>

<li>Squarespace</li>

<li>Shopify</li>

</ol>

Instead of:

<p>1. WordPress</p>

<p>2. Wix</p>

<p>3. Joomla</p>

<p>4. Squarespace</p>

<p>5. Shopify</p>

This will help search engines easily identify the list and feature it.

Useful Tip: Include a table of contents to increase the chances of winning featured snippets. This way you can list all the h2 and h3 elements on the page. For the step-wise guides and tutorials, use terms like Step #1: before each of the items for better result.

Lastly, try to include high-quality video and images in the webpage. YouTube is one of the most popular platform with a high number of video snippets. You can also upload a video on YouTube with relevant tags, description, and transcription to aim for the featured snippet.

Other best practices to increase the chances of featured snippet:

• Keep the information updated: Google loves fresh content. Updating the content regularly can increase the chances of your webpage being shown on the featured snippets.

• Optimize headings: This one is most important. Include important keywords in the h2, h3… tags and arrange them logically. Try to include the snippets right under their respective heading or sub-heading.

• Add ToC & jump links: If the webpage is longer than two scrolls, include a table of contents summarizing all the important sections. Optimized jump link URLs for each of the headings.

Opt Out of Google Featured Snippets: Why, When, and How to?

Getting featured snippets may seem fancy to you. But, they’re not always in the favor of webmasters. Sometimes, they can become uninvited guests, and affect the page negatively.

Let’s say your product page already ranking on #1 and later on Google starts showing a featured snippet for the same page. In such case, the overall click-thru rate may drop significantly, resulting into lower traffic.

In such cases, you may want to take the down the featured snippet.

How to Opt Out of Google Featured Snippets?

Google allows you to do that.

Let’s say you don’t want a specific text from your web page to appear on the featured snippet. You can do this by adding the data-nosnippet HTML attribute. For example:

<p>This text can be shown in a snippet

<span data-nosnippet>and this part would not be shown</span>.</p>

Other way, you can also lower the value of max-snippet rule in the meta data to prevent showing a web page through featured snippets. For example:

<meta name="robots" content="max-snippet:20">

Adding the above code in the head section of the web page will limit the characters in the snippet to 20. This can also be useful when you don’t want some content to appear through regular snippets as well.

Commonly Asked Questions on Featured Snippets

How featured snippets are chosen?

Ans. Google uses its own algorithm to find the best answer to a query and shows it through featured snippets.

Can featured snippets be removed?

Ans. Yes, it is possible to remove featured snippet by reducing the max-snippet value in the meta tag.

Are featured snippets paid?

Ans. No, featured snippets appear organically and they’re not paid.

Why are my featured snippets disappearing?

Ans. It may be because your competitor has better snippet or you’ve violated Google’s policy for featured snippets.

Summary

Featured snippets are excellent way to get noticed by users on the SERP. They come with a lot of SEO benefits. But, not for everyone! Therefore, it is wise to target them strategically for best results. In the above article, we briefly discussed different types of featured snippets along with the best practices to achieve them. 🚀

Thank you for reading!