Unless you’re new to the SEO game, you probably know what featured snippets are and what they can do for traffic generation. These snippets show up on top of the search results, taking up significant real estate and attracting a lot of clicks. They even appear before the first organic result, which is why SEOs call them “Position 0.”
Any webmaster would want as many of their webpages to show up as featured snippets. Still, as is the case for any aspect of SEO, Google’s algorithm ultimately decides what to reward with this highly-coveted spot. The good news is that you can do plenty of things to boost your chances of landing featured snippets.
Real Guest Blogging is a digital marketing company that specializes in content creation, and one of the things they do is to optimize blog posts to help their clients land as many featured snippets as possible. Through countless experiments, they’ve been able to figure out the most effective strategies to optimize for featured snippets.
1) Focus on question-based search queries
Plenty of studies show that featured snippets often show up when people use question-based queries. This entails changing your keyword research strategy. Instead of focusing too much on search volume, you may want to start finding the most common questions asked by your target audience. Doing so allows you to address their needs while also driving targeted traffic to your website. Make sure you answer the question adequately and concisely as Google pulls the paragraph from your content that gives the most direct and relevant answer to the user’s query.
2) Create summaries in listicles and how-to articles
Features snippets are relatively new, and you’d want to help Google understand what your content is all about. This gives you a better shot at earning featured snippets since you’re essentially telling both Google and your visitors that you have a summary of the most critical points in your blog post.
For example, listicles often contain a numbered list with a lengthy paragraph under each item. What you can do is to create a table of contents before starting the actual file or write a summary that outlines the essential parts that your target audience probably looks for. This summary can show up in the featured snippets. Your users would love it when they see their queries get answered as soon as they land on the search results page.
3) Keep things clear and concise
If you use Google a lot, you may have noticed that Wikipedia usually shows up as featured snippets for a ton of information-based keywords. The reason for this is simple: Wikipedia provides answers right away, and they do so clearly and concisely.
There’s nothing more frustrating than reading a blog post that beats around the bush instead of providing the answer to your question immediately. It wouldn’t hurt to try what Wikipedia does so well. Include your target keyword in the first paragraph, or, better yet, answer the search query within the first 50 words of your content.
Summary
Ranking at “Position 0” opens plenty of traffic generation opportunities for your website. Keep in mind that Google chooses what content to feature from the first page of the search results, which means you should still work on your SEO to boost the organic rankings of your pages. These tips are only meant to optimize your pages for featured snippets, so in case they start showing up on the first page, they have a great shot at conquering “Position 0.”
