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You can get a LOT more traffic from the search engines without creating new content or backlinks.
How?
Featured snippets.
These are partial answers to a specific user query shown at the top of Google’s search results.
It can look like this:
Featured snippets come in all shapes, sizes and formats. In Google’s words, snippets are meant to “enhance and draw user attention on the results page”.
And, since the snippets take up so much valuable real estate at the top of SERP, they get a lot more impressions and clicks:
Ahrefs analyzed 2 million featured snippets and found that for the SERPs with them, 8.6% of all clicks go to the featured snippet.
The same study found that ~13% of all search results now return a featured snippet:
Featured snippets steal organic traffic from all the other search results, including the content ranking in the #1 position.
This presents a couple BIG opportunities:
- If you rank #1 AND land a featured snippet you could be getting over 28% of the clicks (i.e. almost a third of the potential organic traffic for a given search term)
- If you don’t rank #1, but still manage to land a featured snippet you can exponentially increase organic traffic (i.e. pages ranking outside the top 3 positions would be getting single digit CTRs, so you could effectively 2-3x the traffic potential)
And:
It doesn’t require a ton of time and money to land a featured snippet and reach “position #0”.
In this featured snippet guide, I’m going to walk you step-by-step through:
Prefer video? Check out the tutorial below:
Before we jump in, here are a few things to keep in mind as we work through the tutorial:
- 99.58% of featured snippets are taken from content ranking in the top 10 positions.
- Even if you’re already ranking #3, you can land yourself a big spot at the top of the page -- just 30.9% of featured snippets are taken from content at the #1 spot.
- If a search result contains a featured snippet, this saps the CTR of the #1 placement by almost 25%.
- A single page can rank for hundreds of different featured snippets.
Imagine the instant impact on your organic traffic if you were able to land dozens, hundreds or even thousands of featured snippets across your articles:
(Source)
An earlier study of Google’s featured snippets (back when they were known as rich answers), shows the traffic boost you can get:
(Source)
Ok:
Now that you know how valuable featured snippets can be, let’s jump into the different types and how to get them for your site.
What are the Different Types of Featured Snippets?
There are 4 core types of featured snippets - paragraphs, lists, tables and YouTube snippets:
(Source)
Note: Featured snippets are not to be confused with Rich Snippets, Instant Answers or Knowledge Graphs.
The distinction lies in the attribution. Featured snippets are the only results that include source links and pull answers from the top search results
Paragraph snippets
Paragraph snippets are the most common and seek to provide searchers with a direct answer to their query. Often, they’re displayed alongside an image chosen from another source.
According to Search Engine Journal, you’ll get paragraph snippets for keywords including terms such as:
- How to do/get…
- Who is…
- Why is…
- What is…
Numbered list snippets
Google displays numbered list snippets when the query implies the searcher is looking for a set of steps to complete a task. The above featured snippet appears for the keyword “wash a dog”.
To optimize for these snippets, include a brief overview of the steps in a numbered list at the start of the post.
Bulleted list snippets
Everyone loves list posts, and Google is no exception. For bulleted list featured snippets, Google formats the headings of a list post into bullets to show a compressed view of the content.
Table snippets
For structured data, Google displays a table snippet for better readability. It doesn’t grab the exact table from the content -- instead, it re-formats the data to make it more useful.
As you can see in the post that generated the table above, you don’t have to provide a succinct table to win this kind of snippet; any data that can be shown as rows and columns has a chance.
YouTube Snippets
Google is able to construct featured snippets from outside data sources, such as YouTube:
Search engines can also answer questions using text from video descriptions:
(Source)
Ok:
Now you know each of the different types of featured snippets at your disposal, let’s take a closer look at how to get them.
2 Ways to Quickly Find Featured Snippet Opportunities for Your Site
Tactic #1: Find Quick-Win Featured Snippet Opportunities
Your best shot at winning a featured snippet lies with all the keywords you are already ranking on the first page that have featured snippets.
SEMrush’ (affiliate) keyword filtering options make it very easy to find these opportunities.
Go to the SEO Toolkit >> Organic Research report and paste in your domain. Click on the “Positions” tab:
Click the “SERP Features” dropdown.
Select "Domain doesn't rank" >> "Featured Snippet":
Now you can see a list of all the keywords your site is ranking for in the top 100 positions, but doesn’t have the featured snippet.
Next - add another filter to only show keywords where your site is ranking in the top 3 positions:
You will see a list of all the keywords your site ranks for in the top 3 positions page, that contains a featured snippet. These are your "quick-win" opportunities.
For example:
My link building tools post ranks #1 for the term “link building tools”, but is getting valuable organic traffic skimmed off the top by Search Engine Journal’s featured snippet:
Let’s take a closer look at why this is happening.
With half the number of referring domains and lower rankings (#3 spot vs. #1), it doesn’t make immediate sense why SEJ would snag the snippet.
But, after taking a closer look at the post it starts to become more clear…
Formatting.
Check out SEJ’s predictable list post format:
As explained earlier, Google will often pull in H2s from a list post as bullets for a snippet, and that’s exactly what’s happening here.
My post -- while much more in-depth -- is formatted in a way that Google might not immediately understand:
Google likes to use headings as bullets for its list snippets, but here the headings can’t be condensed to answer the question. And, the tool lists are formatted as paragraphs (<p>), whereas Google is likely looking for numbered lists (<ol>) or bulleted lists (<ul>).
While there are no shortage of list types in this post…
…The formatting is not predictable enough for a machine quickly scanning the page to parse.
So, what could I do to be a stronger contender for the featured snippet?
The safest bet would be to include a new section that starts above the fold and consists of a numbered or bulleted list of the names of the most recommended tools in the post.
Something like this:
This would make it easier for Google to understand the “best tools” listed in the post. And, since the post is already ranking #1, it would have a great chance of stealing the featured featured snippet away from SEJ (~30%).
Tactic #2: Find new keywords with featured snippets
We just covered how to find featured snippet opportunities for keywords you already rank for.
Now, you’re going to find new keyword opportunities containing featured snippets.
Head back over to SEMrush (affiliate) and enter a seed keyword into the Keyword Magic Tool.
Choose the “Phrase Match” tab >> Advanced Filters and then select “Featured Snippet” from the “SERP Features” dropdown:
In seconds, I’ve found 877 different featured snippet opportunities for the seed term “beard oil”.
Awesome, right? It gets better.
Next - click the SERP Snapshot to reveal the site currently occupying the featured snippet:
In this example, the site baldingbeards.com is winning the snippet.
Copy the URL and paste it into the SEO Toolkit. Make sure Exact URL is selected from the dropdown:
Go to the Organic Research report. Click the Positions tab >> On SERP >> Featured Snippet to see a list of all the keywords they are ranking for that have featured snippets showing:
This returns a list of 566 different search terms that contain featured snippets!
If you want to narrow the list down further and only look at the keywords a competitor is shown in the featured snippet for, simply select Exact URL ranks >> Featured Snippet from the dropdown:
Now there is a list of 110 keywords:
Note: If the returned keyword set is still massive, you can use the KD, Volume, Word Count filters to make it more manageable.
Once you have all the filters in place, scan the list and add any interesting opportunities to your keyword list inside SEMrush:
Next - you’ll want to start analyzing the featured snippets for each of the target keywords to see if there is any opportunity to steal the snippet away from the competition.
For example:
After clicking through to the first featured snippet for “best beard oil” I can see why baldingbeards.com is winning so many snippets. Every one of their long form list-based review posts is well formatted with h2 tags that are populated in a bulleted list snippet:
This asset has a stronghold on the featured snippet. But, if I was going to try and steal it away, I’d focus on the following:
- Write a more in-depth review looking at a greater number of products
- Include a review leaderboard with the top products in the introduction
- Format each product name inside a h2 tag in order to match the content to the current format of the snippet (in this case - bullet list)
- Include the text “an in-depth review of the best beard oil products” in close proximity to the ordered list in the introduction (in order to induce a title in the snippet)
This is how the folks over at BuiltVisible are using text in close proximity to ordered lists to induce the title:
Which shows up in the snippet like this:
This will give your snippet a higher CTR and improve the chances of it remaining there (more on that later).
Ok:
Now that you know how to quickly find loads of feature snippet opportunities, let’s take a look at how to better optimize content for snippet placements.
5 Actionable Ways to Win Featured Snippets
#1. Target question-based queries
In a study that analyzed 30 different keyword formulas -- divided up into questions, prepositions, and comparisons -- Ghergich & Co. found question keywords were great at earning featured snippets:
(Source)
Google wants to increase its “stickiness” by providing answers to popular questions directly inside the SERP:
(Source)
Ghergich found that the terms “how” (46.91%) and “have” (17.71%) were present in most question keywords earning list snippets, while “which” (16.2%) was the top-performing inclusion for table snippets.
Almost all question-based keywords are effective at earning paragraph snippets:
This is something of an inexact science, but generally Google will pull in the paragraph from your content that provides a direct answer to the user’s question.
Here’s how to quickly find quest-based keywords to target:
Enter a seed keyword (or list) into the Keyword Magic Tool and use the question filter on the left sidebar:
Editor’s Note:
Quickly find all the question-based keywords that return featured snippets in the SERP by using the advanced filter in the SEMrush Keyword Magic Tool:
You can check out Answer the Public to get a list of popular questions in your niche.
Answer the Public can give you either a visual map of question keywords divided up by type, or an exportable CSV you can work through or analyze further:
For example:
If I was an open source software blogger, I’d have a big chunk of my content strategy laid out for me already using the result above!
But:
It doesn’t stop at questions. You can also get keywords that include prepositions and comparison terms. From the studies shown earlier in the post, you know these exact keyword types are what win the different kinds of featured snippets:
2. Include summaries in list posts and how-to guides
The easier you make it for Google to understand your content the more likely it is they’ll award you with a featured snippet. For that reason, choosing the right keyword is only half the battle. You should also include numbered and bulleted lists that summarize the key points or steps in a post.
For example, check this snippet from How to Brew:
How to Brew summarized the process in a numbered list and Google pulled the list into a featured snippet:
Similarly, Fossbytes lists the best data recovery software in a generic list post format with each item as a H2:
And Google re-formats the post’s H2s into bullets for the snippet:
With 15 items on the list and only 8 displayed in the snippet, this is likely to prompt the user to click through to see the entire list.
3. Provide immediate, clear and concise answers
Google is looking for a short paragraph -- around 50 words -- that gives a direct answer to the search query.
It’s obvious why Wikipedia is the world leader in featured snippets. Every article includes a useful answer to the query in the first sentence of the content.
Take a page out of the Wikipedia playbook -- include the target keyword in the paragraph, and treat it similar to a dictionary definition:
Use structured data to win table snippets
Some information -- like the relationship between features and pricing or protein and calories -- is best marked up as tabular data.
It’s easier for readers to make sense of a table than freeform words, and you have a better chance of landing snippets:
Clicking through to the article above, you can see TopTenReviews has set its site up perfectly for table snippets with clear rows and columns:
Comparison keywords like “which”, “price”, “best”, and “compare” have the best chance at earning table snippets, but the table formatting is a key piece of the equation:
Engagement = featured snippets
An in-depth study by Larry Kim looked at the correlation between:
a) where a page ranks and whether or not it’ll be placed in the snippet, and;
b) relative time on site and chance of winning a snippet
The results provided some great insights:
Remember how we said 70% of snippets are pulled from articles that aren’t in the top spots?
Larry predicts that Google decides, in large part, based on engagement metrics.
There are a lot of factors that go into creating a user experience that earns stronger engagement signals such as:
- Time on page
- Content matching user intent
- Site speed
- Mobile experience
- Readability
- Multimedia
- Copywriting
I’ve written a massive SEO copywriting guide that covers all of these (and more) in greater detail.
Fetch in Search Console to land snippets faster
By now, you’ve done the following:
- Learned about the different types of featured snippets
- Learned how to identify new and existing featured snippet opportunities
- Learned how to get your content ranked in the featured snippets
But:
Don’t wait for Google to notice your newly optimized content -- use Search Console to get it indexed fast. This is a simple process.
All you need to do is go to Search Console and select the URL Inspection tool:
You’’ll see the “Fetch as Google” option. This lets you submit a page to Google and fetch it for re-indexing.
Even if your page is already indexed, this tells Google to re-crawl it, and helps get your updates (and snippets) in the SERPs faster.
Was this post helpful? Leave a comment below. I read them all 🙂
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Perfect timing as I’m working with a couple home improvement websites that getting into position 0 could be helpful. Thanks Robbie….
Thanks Paul! Let me know how it goes 😉
Hey Robbie, thanks for the well detailed post.
I came to your website directly because this blog post showed up as a search snippet. And that was a clear demonstration of what I was looking for.
I can tell you, after reading this, I’m not disappointed.
Thanks.
Love it! Thanks Victor 🙂
Hi Robbie, the great thing about getting featured snippets for your content is this: even if you’re not ranking at position 1, 2, or 3, you still can enjoy a ton of traffic to your sites and I observed this with my own posts as most of them although are not ranking on top 3 results, they are still getting good visibility because of featured snippets.
I often prefer writing strong sub headings using h2 and h3 (mostly I try to incorporate LSI keywords) and try to answer users questions instead of using random sub headings. It works well for our site to get featured snippets.
Thanks for the write up, as it can help others to get more traffic. Keep up the great work Robbie.
Thanks for the insights, Anil!
Awesome post, Robbie.
Question: I’ve noticed that a lot of the keywords that Ahrefs says has a Featured Snippet don’t actually appear in the SERP unless you’re searching for them using the exact-match keyword (i.e. – searching for it in quotations).
Would you say it would be worth our time to target these particular keywords? I would venture to say that most “normal” internet users aren’t searching with phrases in quotes…so I’m wondering if it would be worth the time to try and steal those Featured Snippets.
Hey Vin! Interesting. I would focus more on the higher volume topical terms and verify the snippet placement.
Great Post , really helpful!
Thanks Kuldeep!
Hello Rob,
I have a few query if you can solve it here, actually it is regarding keyword research and its tools.
Today i was doing keyword research for one of my site to increase the Organic Traffic through three tools : Ahrefs, keyword planner and google keyword forecast.
While using all of three, i could not judge which one could be most correct, actually the main problem is while finding and searching new keyword, few keywords have good searches (Between 1k to 10k) on google keyword planner, but when i see or check those same keywords in Ahrefs and Google keyword forecast(Exact Match), it is showing O/Zero searches / impressions, and the things are that those keywords are important for me, So which tool i must trust most to get and find keywords to increase the Organic Traffic.
Hope you can get time to help me out in this matter.
Thanks
Andrew
Hey Andrew!
I look at tools like Ahrefs and SEMrush. For example, Ahrefs uses click stream data which can give better insights into traffic potential. Grab the URL of the content ranking in position #1 for one of your primary keywords and drop it into the Ahrefs Keyword Explorer. Then, take a look at how much traffic that page is getting. If it looks good, drill into all the secondary keywords too. That’s how I am starting to gauge which topics to go after. I don’t look at Keyword Planner.
Thanks Rob,
I forgot actually, yeah that is also way to find good keywords
What sites have you ranked with these featured snippets? And do you have a screenshot?
Michael – I’m in the middle of running some tests for a case study section in the article. Up to this point, I’ve mainly been researching what it working for others, and implementing for clients with some good leading results. I’ll update in the near future with my personal site results.
Fantastic post. I still don’t understand how Google picks text for Answer Box. It gives a lot of importance to Wikipeidia and other famous definition websites for informational intent searches.
Thanks for another great post!
I’m actually pretty surprised to learn that featured snippets only get 8.6% of clicks. I imagined it’d be more. But even so, if you’re ranking in position 3 or 4 but your page is also featured in the snippet, that’s a pretty strong indicator to any searchers of your brand’s authority and thought-leadership. Great for brand awareness!
Thanks Pierre! I was actually a little surprised too that it was single digit percentage. Agree – I think the brand signals are being baked more and more into different elements of the algo updates.
Hey Robbie,
I have a question that if I start building link before creating a post, for example I purchased a domain and start building the links for that without writing any article in that website, is it a good idea for ranking in Google?
Jyoti – hmmm I’d at least get the site live (homepage, blog article etc). Not sure who is going to link to a shell or parked domain page.
As usual Robbie another great post. The research that you do on this post as well as many of your other posts is just top notch. Very detailed and very through. I can see why your posts rank high is the SERPS. Keep up the great work and can’t wait to read your next post. In fact I need to get into pocket and look up some of your older posts and reread them, your information is always thought provoking and spur on many new idea’s. Thanks an keep it up
Thanks Steve! Really appreciate the kind words 😉
Not sure if you have seen already, but you might also be interested in the new course I have built (launching again soon): https://www.robbierichards.com/seo-course/.
Either way, appreciate you reading the blog!
Hi Robbie! Thanks for this step-by-step through working examples, Your another masterpiece post! 🙂
Thanks Polash! Appreciate it.
Interesting post. I have read a few blogs, and have also watched few youtube videos on getting into rich snippet. But your blog is one of the best ones there is. I will optimize my content this week and see if i can get few of the topics within rich snippet or not. Will keep you posted via this comments. Have a great day
Great – let me know 🙂
Awesome guide, Rob!!!
I’ve lately been optimixing every one of my articles for snippets and have seen a few results.
You tips just came in at the right time. Thanks man!
Simon
Cheers Simon! Let me know what results you’ve seen…
robbie you nailed it. But can please create a post on this topic by using free services if it’s possible.
Thanks! I try to include free alternatives where possible. But, often you need to pay to play (seriously).
Wow Robbie. Awesome post i was asking this time ago and now you telling me how to do it wow, I’ll try and I’ll know thats gonna give me a great results.. Lets see what happen, Robbie usually how long google takes to indexing this kind of snippet? This only works with h2 right?
Tks robbie and. I’ll continue learn from you..
Hey Andrew,
Submit the article through Search Console and it should be within 24-48hrs. Could take a few days for the indexed article to win a snippet. Just depends. The list snippets typically draw from the h2s, correct.
A great article with wonderful examples:)
Thanks, Robbie. This post was really helpful. I’m just starting to better understand snippets. What’s interesting is that I thought it was far more technical than that and that I’d have to do some coding. Nope, just structure content well and write good content.
Thanks Sandra! Glad it was helpful 🙂
Hi,
I am very much grateful for your efforts put on this article,
This article is very informative, updated and transparent. Can I expect you will post this type
of another article in near future?.
Yep 🙂
sometimes google not show the 0 positions why? What’s the reason behind this please help me to find out.
A lot of it comes down to the intent behind the query? Basically – can the question be answered with a snippet in the SERP…Only 15-20% of the SERPs have a snippet right now.
This is an awesome guide, Robbie. After reading your article I found many problems in my articles and now decided to edit them accordingly to target for the featured snippet. Tons of thanks for writing this article.
Thanks Santanu! Let me know how it goes.
Hey Robbie,
It’s very much helpful to land in the feature snippet. Most of my articles are ranking. First page. But still I’m not still the feature snippet spot. Have to put effort to rank there. It’s very much useful understand the Google feature snippet. Thanks for sharing here.
Cheers Venkatesh! Hope the post helps you out 🙂
Robbie this is a fantastic post and yes featured snippet plays a crucial role in SEO as it gets ranked higher in search engines the chances of CTR for the featured snippet is very high when we compare that with the normal search results.
Thanks Naveen!
Thank you very much. I will definitely do these things for my website. Hope that will get good results.
Wish you always happy and successful.
Cheers Thu!
Hi Robbie,
Thank You so much for sharing
Amazing Article Helped me a lot
Started working as you mentioned
Bookmarked your site for more content in future.
Thanks Darshan!
Fantastic snippets guide here Robbie! If you didn’t post your affiliate link, then I’d be begging for it! Have just joined Ahrefs through you. Cheers for the helpful advice here.
Hahaha awesome – thanks Joshua!
Hi Robbie! You’ve missed 4th and 5th points 🙂
Thanks Adelina! They are there, just forgot to add the numbers…woops 🙂
Very helpful. This post is completely guides than other articles discusses about the same topic.
Is AMP a key requirement to be featured?
Nope.
Thank you, Robbie, Amazing Post. Will definitely implement these steps.
Thanks Ash!
Nice Blog, Keep post more Blogs Thanks for sharing Robbie.
Getting ranked on a featured snippet is a big deal! I hope this steps will help me out in achieving that spot very soon,.
I used the above strategies to get featured snippets on my post.
Thanks for sharing this awesome in-depth hacks
Awesome! Glad they helped 🙂
Hi Robbie,
Thank You so much for sharing
Amazing Article Helped me a lot
Started working as you mentioned
Bookmarked your site for more content in future.
Cheers Sitlom!
I lost all my snippet after january core update. How can i regain my rankings and feature snippets.
What types of snippets were they mostly?
Great Article, Robbie. It was very helpful. Guess what? As a User, I often click the featured snippets without taking a look at other results. Featured Snippets can increase CTR to a greater extent!
With Regards,
Aria Mathew
Thanks Aria!
Wow, I never knew that you can find opportunities for featured snippets with SEMRush. I just found this article while studying more into the snippets glad I came across it. I will try that with my websites.
Thanks Ediz! All the best with it 🙂
I have applied these snippet techniques that really helps me. Thank you for your tips.
Glad to hear it 🙂
Hey, I read your article a month before and I applied the techniques and guess what I won a featured snippet.
thanks a lot.
Awesome! Nice work Pel. Love to hear that.