How Site Owners Get Ranked for Featured Snippets

Posted by Myles Golden on Jul 16, 2017

Getting the first position on a google search is an achievement that many website owners strive for. However, the effort it takes to get there can be discouraging.

What if I told you there was a way to get to the top of the page without being ranked first? The answer to your ranking problems may be featured snippets.

What is a Featured Snippet?

Featured snippets are small excerpts or pieces of information grabbed from a website with the right keywords. A featured snippet appears at the top of the page, above and before all clickable links. Google provides featured snippets as a quick explanation to your searched keywords to potentially save you the time of scanning an article.

Featured snippets often appear in the form of a paragraph, image, table, or list.

What Kind of Websites are used in Featured Snippets?

If the users of your website will use google to find an answer to one of your frequently asked questions, you’re in luck! A [featured snippet](https://cali-style.com/blog/seo-vs-machine-learning-algorithms "SEO vs Algorithms) may be in your website’s future. Examples of articles or pages that are advantageous for a featured snippet include:

• Math problems
• Financial information
• Information regarding time
• Stipulations
• Wellness and medical information
• How-To processes

Your site is less likely to be used in a featured snippet if its information is only relevant locally, factually, informatively, or if your website is for selling goods. Checking on your competitor’s keywords and format can help you make changes to your website that will land you in a featured snippet.

Here's Some Specifics:

Go through your entire site, and make sure that each page is quality. Remember that to attract links, you need content that is worth linking to. Keep in mind that site visitors are becoming more sophisticated as well as the search engines. Don’t try to fool them with short posts and keyword stuffing.

How to Find the Right Keywords to Achieve a Featured Snippet

Google uses featured snippets to answer users’ questions, so including question-based information in your article will help you become a better candidate.

Relate your information to such words as:

• Who
• What
• When
• Where
• Why
• How

For example, if your website provides information about food allergies, include titles like “How do I know what foods I’m allergic to?”. The user trying to find the information your site provides is likely typing very similar search words.

Content Centric Search -- Content Factoring

For great SEO you should understand how Google decides on the search rankings. It uses “content factoring”. This means that if half of your site’s pages have great content, but half of them don’t—all of your site’s pages will be averaged together to determine the overall quality of your site. Your pages of poor quality content will actually drag down the search rankings of your whole site. To avoid this pitfall of content centric search, eliminate or rewrite any low quality pages you may have on your site. This will help you more than simply adding more high quality pages to try and cover up the low quality pages. If you do this, not only will your search rankings improve, but your site visitors will be more appreciative of your site.

What's Great SEO Content?

Great content is valuable, compelling, and web-friendly. It’s what you would want to see as a site visitor on a site high on the search rankings. Don’t think about SEO exclusively; think about your target audience too. Great SEO puts their needs first, and the search engine bots’ second.

How to Better Your Chances for Getting a Featured Snippet

• Make sure that when a user clicks your link, it is obvious that their question will be answered. This is made possible by displaying a question like “How do I know what foods I’m allergic to?” prominently.
• Pay attention to the neatness and clarity of the coding of your website. To be featured at the top of a search, Google has to be able to read your code.
• Provide evidence that the users of your website are getting what they need.

The best way to receive great results from your website is to make a great website. With stellar service to your users, clear code, and clever use of keywords and format, you’ll be on your way to a featured snippet.

In order to get the best results, engage the help of an SEO professional, and keep in mind that content centric search is really all about keeping your target audience in mind. If you follow the above guidelines, your search rankings are bound to improve.

Contact us today to talk about how we can help unlock your businesses' SEO possibilities for your industry utilizing our own isomorphic web app technology. It's as easy as clicking the icon on the bottom right of your screen and starting a conversation.