Overview
When featured snippets launched in 2014, it was to help improve user experiences on Google. The challenge is that many years later, businesses still do not take advantage of this online marketing tool.
That is why we did a QnA below to help you understand and use this feature for your business.
Featured Snippet Question and Answers
1. What is a featured snippet?
Featured Snippets are the Answer Boxes you see at the top of many Google searches. Unlike previous answer boxes, Google added in 2012, these answers come from third party websites.
As Google stated, “This featured snippet block includes a summary of the answer, extracted from a webpage, plus a link to the page, the page title and URL.”
2. What is an answer box?
Answer boxes are the same thing as a featured snippet. Other names are the rich answer or direct answer box. Whatever the name, it is part of Google’s Knowledge Graph.
The Knowledge Graph helps Google understand user’s speech patterns through Semantics.
Google uses Knowledge Graph to provide relevant voice searches from users on mobile devices.
3. Do you have a featured snippet example
We discuss different types of featured snippets below, but here is an example of a list snippet.
4. Types of featured snippets
Three featured snippet types exist: Paragraph, List, and Table.
The differences are as follows:
- Paragraph- Answers given in a text box (sometimes have an image.)
- List Answers are in list form.
- Table- The answer is part of a table.
5. How to track featured snippets
The Google Search Console will eventually be able to measure the effectiveness of featured snippets.
Right now, only premium services like Linkdex and Searchmetrics can track featured snippets.
6. How featured snippets benefit SEO?
Featured snippets appear in 19% of search queries. Additionally, a study of Confluent Forms discovered that featured snippets increased traffic for a client of theirs by 20–30%. This data demonstrates the potential value of featured snippets to businesses.
Yet, the research on how to get your site in a featured snippet is divided.
One study revealed that 99.58% of featured pages ranked in the top 10 of Google. While a second study claims that 70% of featured snippets come from sites that are not in the first 10 results organically.
Search Engine Optimisation companies are just learning how to get a site listed in feature snippets. That means it is even more challenging for traditional businesses to achieve this feat alone.
7. Featured snippet click-through rate
Some featured snippets had improved click-through rate (CTR) that increased organic traffic by 677%. This feature is so noticeable on a Google search page that these numbers are not surprising.
Also, the information off stops before providing the data you need. This leads to more users clicking through to the website page.
Final Thoughts
If you have additional questions about how to use featured snippets for your website contact us at Shout! for a free consultation.
