How to Optimize for Google Featured Snippets: A 12-Step Guide

5. Create/Update the Content Outline

By now, you have the content topics, their targeted keywords, type of featured snippet, its search intent, and a pool of SEO recommendations from competitors’ snippets.

If you’re writing new content, you need to create the content outline. And if you’ve already written the piece, you may need to revamp the outline as per the research gathered above.

6. Create Content Better Than the Competition’s

• Cover the basic information users expect in content based on the user search query and its intent.
• Add more value than competing blogs by including statistical data, rich media, examples, pointers, etc.
• Write in simple and shorter sentences to improve the readability of the content.
• Focus on research-based content over opinion-based. Citations help Google better understand your content.

You should always aim to create the best content — that is, content that delivers value for years, like the piece below.

7. Validate the Content

Once you have the content ready, double-check that it meets your needs for:

• Your target audience.
• Defined user search intent.
• Targeted keywords.
• Suggestions listed.

This check is vital to ensure you’re on the right track towards getting a featured snippet.

8. Organize Your Content for Readers & Search Engines

Well-organized content is easy to scan through, read, and understand for users and search engines.

Here’s an example of how you might organize a piece of content to give it good structure.

I recently tweeted about how you can turn a paragraph featured snippet into a listicle just by organizing and creating content accordingly.

Whether Google picks up your page for Featured Snippet or not depends on how you create & organize your content. The query here starts with Is, so technically you can expect a paragraph FS. But, if you use this Q in your content with pointers, it can turn it into a listicle FS. pic.twitter.com/9lERfkHDwt

— Himani Kankaria (@himani_kankaria) June 4, 2021

9. Add Question Keywords in Heading Tags

Organizing your content to get featured snippets is incomplete without adding question keywords to the heading tags.

Pick up the relevant question keywords with high search volume and put them in your heading tags. Most of the featured snippets you see on Google start right after a heading tag.

Look at an example below:

The right question keyword phrase in the right place can make all the difference.

10. Add Relevant Graphics

Graphics play a crucial role in owning a featured snippet, especially for the paragraph and listicle-type featured snippets.

Try to use real-life pictures or custom-made graphics rather than stock images to improve the users’ experience and avoid appearing generic.

Add as many images as your content requires.

11. Implement SEO Tactics

Your content is ready for users. Now you need to help Google understand what the page is all about — and quickly.

Here are some SEO tactics that work for featured snippets:

• Perfect URL structure: Keep your URLs short, ideally three to four words.
• Title tag: Use Coschedule Headline Analyzer and the SEOmofo snippet optimization tool to create a catchy title tag that fits the pixel requirements.
• Meta description tag: Use SEOmofo to make the most of the pixels available and write user-centric and keyword-specific meta descriptions to drive the highest clicks.
• Heading tags: Use question keywords, as discussed above.
• Image Alt attributes: For all graphics, make sure you use descriptive alt text to help Google understand what the image is all about. Most of the best-performing content has images with alt attributes.
• Internal links: Help Google identify your site’s most important pages. If you achieve a featured snippet, you want to support the rankings of your best pages with it.
• External links: Let Google know which external sites you trust and demonstrate credibility with your citations.
• Schema markup tags: Help Google understand what your page is about and recognize elements like tables.
• Link building: Build links to help Google understand your website’s authoritativeness.

12. Keep Optimizing Your Content Until You Achieve a Featured Snippet

With this process of optimizing for featured snippets in place, I check the results at 7, 14, and 21 days.

If I see an improvement in impressions, I’ll work harder for clicks. Be sure to track the differences in impressions, rankings, and CTR in Google Search Console, and traffic and visibility in Semrush.

Keep on optimizing your content until you see a featured snippet and can track results from it, such as:

What’s New for Featured Snippets in 2021?

Recently, the SEO industry noticed two new features on Google Search results for featured snippets.

“Hear this out loud” Button

When you click on this button, the content is read aloud while the text is highlighted alongside.

Fascinating feature in Google’s search results. The content within the Featured Snippet can be read out loud by pressing the ‘Hear this out loud’ button. Text is highlighted as each word is read out loud. Thoughts? Good for accessibility? h/t @MusingPraveen @Suganthanmn pic.twitter.com/POmPz184Zu

— Brodie Clark (@brodieseo) June 1, 2021

“Also covered on this page” Section

This section appears below the main section of the featured snippet and picks up the heading tags that you’ve added to your page.

Now you have another reason to better organize your content using heading tags!

Frequently Asked Questions (FAQs) for Google Featured Snippets

Here are some of the most frequently asked featured snippets questions I get from SEO professionals.

Why Might Featured Snippets Be Removed?

Your featured snippet may get removed automatically or manually by Google if it comes under:

• Dangerous content.
• Deceptive practices.
• Harassing content.
• Hateful content.
• Manipulated media.
• Medical content.
• Sexually explicit content.
• Terrorist content.
• Violence and gore.
• Vulgar language and profanity.
• Content that contradicts with the content by experts in the fields of civic, medical, scientific, and historical.

If you fall astray of Google’s policies, you may lose the featured snippet. Of course, you might lose it if a competitor does a better job of answering that query, too.

Are Featured Snippets Available for Ecommerce Products or Category Pages?

No. Ecommerce products can get featured listings on Google SERPs using Google Shopping and Product Listing Ads (PLAs).

However, ecommerce websites can still own featured snippets for their guides and blogs.

Featured Snippets vs. Rich Snippets: What’s the Difference?

Featured snippets are picked up from the web page’s content to answer a user query, while rich snippets are an enhanced organic search result.

If your search result has reviews attached to it, that’s a rich snippet. If your web page provides information to users in a bit more detailed way on the first position on SERPs, it’s a featured snippet.

Learn more about optimizing for rich snippets here.

How Do Featured Snippets Work?

To understand how featured snippets work, let’s break down Google’s patent on generating snippets based on content:

When Google receives a search query, it tries to find the best result to match it. And when Google is ready with the list of search results, it follows the below process to pick up the relevant featured snippet from the top 10 search results:

1. Identifying the text features within a keyword-based sentence to check its eligibility to rank as a FS.
2. Determining the break features that would indicate the place where the keyword-based sentence can be truncated on a featured snippet.
3. Calculating and assigning the snippet score to identify the strength of the snippets.
4. Selecting the snippet with the highest snippet score.

That’s how Google selects a website for featured snippets and works to provide the relevant information quickly to the users.

Go, Get Your Featured Snippets Now!

Google’s featured snippet format focuses on providing information to the users on its platform itself. However, not all information can be displayed in 40-45 words.

Hence, they can be a great tool to boost your organic traffic.

Use the above guide to own featured snippets and become a thought leader in your industry, giving your brand reputation and organic traffic a boost. If you’ve optimized your site well, conversions will follow!

More Resources:

Image Credits

All screenshots taken by author, June 2021