A complete guide on How to rank for featured snippets

Are you wondering what a Google featured snippet is?

This featured snippet box is a recently introduced feature by Google that assists searchers in finding answers rapidly without visiting any website. So, it would be nice to rank at 0 positions in Google, and it's possible only through Google Featured Snippets!

These featured snippets boost the search experience for the users, mainly in a world where users are using voice and mobile for searching. Hence, the answers will be given at the top of the SERPs instead of going through several links.

But one major issue is it’s difficult to get enough ranking on the first page of the SERPs, and it's even tough to obtain a snippet!

So, how to rank on featured snippets?

Putting in some real hard work, you will acquire position 0 without much time.

In today's article, you will learn what Google featured snippets are and how to optimize for featured snippets. Also, we will let you know how to optimize your content to rank for them. Let's get started!

What is a Google featured snippet?

In case you know or don't know, you must have noticed several featured snippets from Google while searching for answers or information to your questions. Everyone refers to this position that featured snippets given to content as "position zero."

It's because featured snippets consume the maximum space on a SERP. They are mainly at the very top of the result pages. Furthermore, these featured snippets are readily available on mobile and come in distinct styles and formats.

For example, after heading to Google and searching for "How to be a Link Building Expert?" you will observe different steps and an image. Hence, it's apparent that websites appearing in the featured snippet box have a maximum advantage over other sites on the first page of SERPs regarding CTR.

How to rank on featured snippets?

Acquiring a featured snippet or featured snippet optimization in Google isn't as hassle-free as ensuring your content is insanely high-quality or keyword placement. Hence, if you're thinking of How to optimize for featured snippets, these are the top 8 tips to follow for featured snippet optimization.

Tip #1: Headers and subheaders make it hassle-free to read and rank

The headers and subheaders make the content straightforward to scan, which makes it accessible to the user. It implies that it boosts the possibility of Google choosing your content for the snippet. Besides considering the headers and subheaders, you need a secure website for featured snippet optimization.

On the other hand, the simplest way to format your content for featured snippet optimization is to split each section. To do this, you need to use the paragraph styles section in WordPress and Google Docs. Carefully organize your lists, steps, or paragraphs with headers, such as H1, H2, H3, or H4. In case your incorporate Step 1 and Step 2 or Rule 1 or Rule 2 to every heading phrase, Google will place them in recorded order. 

Tip #2: Do proper keyword research

Finding some good keywords for featured snippet optimization isn't easy. As it's time to explore the right keywords, you can optimize keyword research to obtain featured snippets. However, it would be a great idea to utilize a tool or two to see if a search query will nurture featured results. Moreover, you can make use of Serpstat as it lets you easily observe which keywords nurture featured snippets on the results page.

Now, it should be pretty neat! All you need to do is type a domain, link, or keyword and impede over each result to check if featured snippets pop up for each. It's a stunning strategy for unbolting, which featured snippets your competitors recently ranked for.     

Tip #3: Organized Data Markup Helps

The motive of structured data is to aid search engines in perceiving a page's content better. Hence, it makes sense to think that structured data boosts your chances of getting a Google featured snippet.

John Mueller initially suggested it in 2015, but after a few days, Garry Ilyes said that Google doesn't consider schema for featured snippets. However, it's always a great SEO practice to trigger structured data on your pages, even if now Google says that it's not a direct aspect for featured snippets.

Tip#4: For Better Ranking, Get SSL Today

If you want to rank higher in search engine, SSL certificate is a must security. For rank in snippet, SSL is one of the essential securities. Google penalizes your ranking if you have non-secure websites. HTTPS in this case can help you a lot. It secures the data flowing between the server and the browser.  Therefore, it is essential to buy SSL certificate for website security. SSL can be either domain validation, organization validation or extended validation certificate and do adequate redirects to HTTPS is imperative if you want to obtain a snippet. In brief, security is important!

Tip #5: Add a how-to section to your site

Are you thinking of How to optimize for featured snippets? Adding a how-to section to your website will help optimize featured snippets. As featured snippets are the best opportunity to entice website traffic and obtain new leads, it's the most ingenious idea to revamp your site in such a way that lets you optimize "how-to" content.

Some websites are building whole sections on their sites specifically for delivering answers to their reader's questions. Furthermore, these how-to guides give all your content, which is dedicated to answering questions or decrypting pain points, a place to live on your site.

Nevertheless, a FAQ action might be a great idea if you don't want to make a how-to section. It could incorporate answers to frequently asked questions about your services, products, or industry.

Tip #6: Make sure to add eye-catching images

The paragraph featured snippets with pictures are significantly eye-grabbing—however, even more than the daily featured snippets. You might not be capable of identifying the process of adding an image to get featured. So, you could try naming it differently and marking it as "demonstrated" in the WordPress editor.

Google seems to choose an arbitrary picture from the page without you being capable of finding a better version. Hence the sole way to influence that's to make sure every in-article picture is branded, attention-grabbing, and annotated so that regardless of what Google showcases, it will look nice.

There are the best selections of WordPress plugins available, which will let you envision your piece of content while working on it. Therefore, you can use Banner snack to develop eye-grabbing branded pictures, which is well-known for its image editing functionality. You can seamlessly create graphics there, resize those to reuse as social media images and banners, and carefully systematize all your creative in folders.

Tip #7: Stay within the optimal word count

You need to keep your section concise and challenging so that Google can quickly feature your content. However, you can section off your paragraphs, lists, and steps instead of letting them all run together.

As per the SEMrush, 52 words is a standard length for a featured snippet. Hence, their assessment discovered that "the most expected content length in featured snippets is between 40-50 words." Due to this, you must try and keep every content section no shorter than 40 and not extended than 50 words.

Tip #8: Make sure your article provides answers to several similar questions

If you're willing to know How to optimize for featured snippets, you must ensure that your article provides answers to various similar questions. Ahrefs discovered in their research of featured snippets that a page gets demonstrated for multiple similar queries. It implies it must be carefully organized and articulated in how it addresses numerous similar queries.

Google is excellent at exploring synonymic and closely related questions, so it should be you! There will be no point in building an isolated page answering every specific question. Instead, create one tangible article showcasing various corresponding queries. Hence, it will be a much more advanced and brilliant strategy if you target getting demonstrated in the answer boxes.

Tip #9: Structure your questions adequately

In order to merge various closely related questions in 1 article, you must structure or outline your queries suitably. It will help you structure your content well. However, a few multi-level keyword organization strategies which can be applied here are the following:

• A more precise search query becomes the article's title.
• A generic keyword builds a section or a blog's category.
• Even more particular questions ascertain the article's subheadings, which is how you can define its structure.
• There will be numerous queries that are so directly related, and they will go under a single subheading.

In terms of discovering an article idea and then reducing it into subtopics, you can check out Serpstat's "questions" section. It will offer countless questions having your core term and, after that, create a tag cloud of other renowned terms. However, choosing any word in the tag cloud will help you filter results down to those queries that only have that word. Those are known as subsections for your article.

Conclusion

Trying to continue with Google could be pesky! But it looks like featured snippets will always be available. They are on the rise, though! Therefore, you must not wonder how to optimize for featured snippets as the pages with featured snippets are subjugating search queries.