How Featured Snippets Can Improve Your Website’s Search Visibility

Editor’s Note: Search engines continue to evolve how they present answers in search results. Featured snippets remain an important way for websites to gain additional visibility, particularly as search platforms increasingly highlight concise answers to common questions.

For many years, businesses focused on one primary goal in search engine optimisation: ranking their website on the first page of Google. While strong rankings still matter, the way information appears in search results has changed.

Today, Google often highlights direct answers through featured snippets and AI Overviews that appear above traditional search listings. These features allow users to quickly find information without needing to scroll through multiple results. For businesses looking to improve search visibility, appearing in these highlighted answer boxes can be just as important, if not more important, than traditional rankings. Understanding how featured snippets work and how search engines select these answers can help you structure your content in ways that increase your chances of being featured.

However, if this hasn’t been on your radar yet, don’t worry, we’ve got you covered with this quick featured snippets guide. It will help you to understand how featured snippets work and how they may improve your SEO efforts and rankings.

What Are Featured Snippets in Google Search?

A featured snippet is a highlighted search result that appears at the top of Google’s results page and provides a direct answer to a user’s question. Google selects content from a webpage and displays it in a box above traditional organic search results.

Featured snippets typically appear when a search query asks a clear question or requires a concise explanation. They are sometimes referred to as “position zero” because they appear above the first organic search result.

For businesses and websites, appearing in a featured snippet can increase search visibility and help establish credibility for important search queries.

Common Types of Featured Snippets in Google Search

There are three common types of featured snippets you’ll find appearing:

1. Paragraph Featured Snippets: Direct Answers to Search Questions

These are the most popular featured snippets type you will see and represent about 82%* of the answer boxes. Paragraph featured snippets typically answer Who Is, What Is, and Why Is type questions.

2. List Featured Snippets: Step-by-Step or Ranked Information

You will see numbered and bulleted lists representing about 11%* of featured snippets. List featured snippets typically answer How To and How Do I type questions along with Ranks, Best Of, Feature, DIY, and Recipe type searches.

3. Table Featured Snippets: Structured Data and Comparisons

These type of featured snippets represent only 7% of feature snippet results. Table featured snippets and are common for Lists, Pricing Rates, and Data specific searches.

*As per Search Engine Journal, July 31, 2020

Featured Snippets vs Rich Snippets: Understanding the Difference

You may come across these terms used interchangeably but there is a key difference between a featured snippet and a rich snippet.

Essentially, a featured snippet is a type of rich snippet (result).

Featured Snippet – An answer to a query that appears above the all-other organic search results in what the industry refers to in “position zero.” Furthermore, Google differentiates its featured snippets by the fact that the snippet describing the page comes before the link to the page. This is opposite of the standard format you’ll find in regular results.

Rich Snippet – An enhanced organic search result shown beside a website, such as review rating or site links. Check out our recently updated article on SERP Features to see 13 different examples of rich snippets that apply to most businesses like yours.

Are Featured Snippets Paid Advertising or Organic Search Results?

This is another point of confusion among many of our clients and it’s a common Google search too.

Google featured snippets are free – currently the only way to obtain a featured snippet is through good old SEO. That is, establishing yourself as the best answer and having the information accessible so that Google can pull your website into its answer box.

How Google Selects Websites for Featured Snippets

If you can’t pay for a Featured Snippet, how does Google choose which website to show?

Google says they use their automated system to determine whether a result would provide a good answer in the form of a featured snippet for a specific search request. If your web page is in Google’s index then in theory it is eligible to be shown for a featured snippet.

Google is also the one to determine if a featured snippet result provides the best user experience for its searchers. As of early 2021, an estimated 6-8% of search queries trigger a featured snippet result.

This is actually down from as high as 23% of searches in early 2018. Industry data analysts have watched the significant drop and up-and-down fluctuations. The general consensus is that featured snippets will not be as prominent as they once were but are still important.

When Featured Snippets Are Valuable for Your SEO Strategy

So, if featured snippets seem to be less prominent than they once were do they still matter? The answer is, it depends.

There are several types of clients who can benefit from featured snippets SEO:

• Websites with an established SEO strategy and good rankings, and looking for opportunities to increase click-throughs and SERP exposures.
• Websites with an established Content Marketing Strategy with plenty of content or answers ready to be properly formatted for inclusion in featured snippets.
• Websites representing industry leading brands or organizations who are focusing on brand awareness and visibility.
• Websites in an industry with higher numbers of featured snippets results such as health, finance, law and government, family and community, and beautify and personal care.

As a side note, it’s not uncommon for us to see some of our smaller local clients who are doing everything right with SEO get included in featured snippets. It’s quite exciting when we see them outrank some high profile and credible sources in their respective industry with their featured snippet answers.

Pros and Limitations of Featured Snippets for Website SEO

Advantages of Appearing in Featured Snippets

• Featured snippets SEO can indeed get you more visibility as they occupy more space and are the first thing a searcher sees. In most cases the searcher doesn’t have to even scroll to see your answer or website link.
• The biggest benefit is that a featured snippets help establish your brand authority. Google has picked you as the “best” or highest authority to answer the question and searchers trust your answer as fact.
• Featured snippets are extremely voice search friendly in that devices like Alexa and Siri will usually grab their answer from a featured snippet.
• It provide a shortcut to top organic position. You don’t always have to have a #1 organic ranking in order to win with Featured Snippets. In fact, it can be much easier to earn the coveted Featured Snippet top spot than the #1 organic spot if you do it right!

Potential Drawbacks of Featured Snippets

• While some may argue that featured snippets are zero-click (meaning the searcher may find their answer in Google and never click to your website), one Ahrefs click study showed that featured snippets do get 8.6% of clicks verses the 19.6% of clicks the #1 organic ranking page gets.
• The competition can be great making it very tough to get a featured snippet, especially since Google tends to pull from large informational websites like Wikipedia.
• Google launched a featured snippet deduplication in January 2020, which means that when your page earns a featured snippet spot your regular search result could be pushed further down the page.

How Websites Earn Featured Snippets in Google Search

The exact method on how to get a featured snippet on Google goes beyond the scope of this article.

Featured snippet SEO can be time consuming with a lot of trial and error, as well as following a very specific format Google wants to find (list, bullet, table, etc.) so that it can easily pull your information into its answer box.

You will also need to do careful keyword research to determine if the keyword you’re aiming to get a featured snippet for already has a featured snippet. If there is no featured snippet you need to assess whether the keyword you’re aiming for has the potential to show a featured snippet.

If you are interested in winning a featured snippet you can check out a few of these industry leading SEO experts for their explanations:

• 9 Tips for Ranking in Google’s Featured Snippets by Neil Patel
• How to Optimize for Google’s Featured Snippets by Ahrefs

Or you can save yourself the time and effort and contact our SEO experts about featured snippets SEO!

Content Best Practices That Help Pages Earn Featured Snippets

The good news is that in general, many of the best practices for writing and optimizing powerful SEO content apply to trying to get your website shown in a featured snippet:

1. Target long-tail keywords that are questions – go to Google’s “People Always Ask” section for ideas.
2. Use a Q&A style format.
3. Provide a clear unique answer to the question in your text.
4. Create authoritative cues on the page and across your entire website.
5. Add high quality images to the page.
6. Keep content informative and up to date.
7. Provide more in-depth answers than websites that may be outranking you.

So regardless of whether you make your way into a featured snippet or not, your content will be well optimized for Search Engines and for your visitors.

When to Seek Professional Help with Featured Snippet Optimization

At 1st on the List we are experienced in exhaustive keyword research and developing winning content strategies in order to maximize your SEO impact. Featured snippets SEO can help get your website shown more often and in higher profile positions and formats.

Please contact our SEO Content Specialists by submitting a contact form inquiry.