For some time now, the goal of any business that produces content as part of its marketing strategy is to take first place on the search results page. However, the definitions of SEO success have been modified!
Now, in addition to being in the first place of the results, the objective is to reach a position in Google, whose official name is a bit more complicated: Featured Snippets.
Do you know what is it about?
In this post, we will unveil the mystery; to explain the importance of occupying this position; and talk about the main types of Featured Snippets. We will also give you some tips to achieve this goal.
Why is it important to occupy a position in Google?
You should have already read that people use Google to find answers, mainly about “what is something” or “how to do something”.
The search engine understood the message, adapted to consumer behavior and created a way to solve these questions quickly: the answer boxes or Featured Snippets.
When a person asks a question, the Google robot searches for a fragment published on the Internet, which shows exactly the information that is searched.
In this way, the user receives a direct response, without having to visit the website where he is.
The Featured Snippet appears at the top of the results page, drawing the reader’s attention.
As you can deduce, it is very important to conquer this position. Because if another website appears in this answer box and answers the reader’s question, this user may not even visit your page.
Therefore, Google positioning is a competition that you have to win.
In addition, reaching a position in Google brings you several benefits.
First, your content becomes a reference, as it is understood to offer the best possible answer for the question in question. And this highlight can also generate more clicks, more visibility and even more sales.
What are the types of Featured Snippets and how to conquer them ?
There are three types of answer boxes:
- Paragraph,
- List
- Table.
There is no exact formula to get a position in Google, because the search engine has never disclosed the election criteria clearly.
However, who has SEO experience has already detected some practices that can help you achieve that goal.
Understanding these practices will probably change the way you write on your blog and these changes can guarantee many clicks.
So it’s worth it, right? Here are some fundamental tips, check them out!
Paragraph snippet
The most appropriate way to conquer a snippet of this type is to answer user questions directly.
Identify the keywords related to your business that may generate questions and create a satisfactory, complete and summarized answer to this question.
If the question that was introduced in the search box was about the “color psychology”, explain what it is in your post.
As the positioning space in Google is limited, the search engine will give preference to answers that have an average of 45 words or 293 characters. The largest snippets, found by a MOZ study , had 97 words and 752 characters.
List snippet
To conquer a list snippet, you must abuse this format in your blog.
So, instead of creating a text to explain that in order to succeed when opening the business itself, the reader has to study the market, investigate what their competitors are doing, identify opportunities , create strategic planning and make a budget of each element necessary to The operation of the company transforms these suggestions into lists.
The result would be:
How to succeed when opening a business :
- Study the market in which you want to act;
- Find out about what your competitors are doing;
- Identify the needs of consumers that other companies do not meet;
- Create strategic planning;
- Make a budget of each item necessary for the operation of your business.
It is important to note that you should worry about the size of the list, since the space of the box is limited. Ideally, do not exceed 64 words.
In our example, which were the steps to open a company and succeed, we dealt with 5 topics in 41 words.
However, there is a trick to get readers to your page: try to make the list with a larger number of items.
Google will show the first steps in the box and, under them, the “More items” option will appear. If the reader finds it interesting, he will click on the link and get to your page!
Table snippet
To place your table in Google positioning there are also some tricks.
The first thing is to use this format in your content. Again: instead of a paragraph or a very long list, transform everything into a table.
Some examples of content that could become tables:
- Nobel Prize winners and their categories,
- team names and the number of championships,
- meanings of each color in marketing,
- income tax rates,
- Compare fuel prices in a certain country and so on.
The tables can even be an alternative for those who want to advertise and place their content on top.
If your business uses this format to display your products and prices, this is an interesting way to appear in Google’s positioning.
As for the size, the tables seen in the snippet hardly have more than three columns.
For the lines (also called rows), you can use the same reasoning as the list: make a longer table, so that Google shows the option “see more” or “x more rows”, as in the example screen. This is an opportunity to take the reader to your website.
How to get to the positioning in Google?
Despite these tips on the format of the content, there is an even more important attitude to reach the position in Google: forget that you are the business owner and think with the mind of the consumer.
Put yourself in his place, discover what doubts you have and the most relevant way to answer them.
Identify the main keywords related to your business, give preference to the longer ones and think about what are the questions that may arise in the client’s head.
If you can find and answer the right questions, you will have a much better chance of reaching a position in Google.
In this way, your business will also be seen as a reference in the virtual world, you will get the attention of consumers, you will attract people to your page and you will have an increase in conversions.
And remember: Featured Snippets is a recent feature. Like all the news, they are still being improved.
It is important to “forgive” some errors that may appear and mainly be aware of the changes. Thus, you can optimize your content and benefit from Google positioning.
Did you like the post? So how about sharing it on your social networks and showing these tips to your friends? You can also use them to generate more clicks and conversions. Give them a hand!
Did you see how we provide the same information, but in a different format: the list?
This type of content is much more likely to conquer snippet when the user is looking for “how to do something.” Therefore, it serves for recipes, step by step or simply for a sequence of information, such as “largest companies in the world.”
